Amplifying BIPOC + LGBTQ+ Voices Through Literature
Here’s something they don’t always teach you about Stonewall. The riots that started the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement—the ones we talk about every June, the ones that turned a police raid into a revolution—were led by Black trans women and queer people of color. Marsha P. Johnson. Sylvia Rivera. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. Their names don’t…
Hodgman’s memoir chronicles his return home to care for his mother in the small Missouri town where he grew up. His relocation provides the veteran book editor and writer an opportunity for re-evaluating his life while assuming care of Betty, his ailing, widowed, and willful 90-year-old mother. Hodgman’s narrative alternates between describing the joys and stresses of his daily caretaking tasks, giving close analysis of his life growing up gay in a smalltown. Hodgman also chronicles his long struggle to understand and become comfortable in his own skin, ruminating over the decades his family muffled discussion of his sexuality.
The author’s continuous low-key humor infuses the memoir with refreshing levity, without diminishing the emotional toll of being the sole health-care provider to an elderly parent. This is an emotionally honest portrayal of a son’s secrets and his unending devotion to his mother. (Mar.)
