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This witty memoir traces a touching and often hilarious spiralic path to embracing a gay, Latinx identity against a culture of machismo—from a cockfighting ring in Nicaragua to cities across the U.S.—and the bath houses, night clubs, and drag queens who help redefine pride.
I've always found the definition of machismo to be ironic, considering that pride is a word almost unanimously associated with queer people, the enemy of machistas ... In a world desperate to erase us, queer Latinx men must find ways to hold on to pride for survival, but excessive male pride is often what we are battling, both in ourselves and in others.
A debut memoir about coming of age as a gay, Latinx man, High-Risk Homosexual opens in the ultimate anti-gay space: Edgar Gomez's uncle's cockfighting ring in Nicaragua, where he was sent at thirteen years old to become a man. Readers follow Gomez through the queer spaces where he learned to love being gay and Latinx, including Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a drag queen convention in Los Angeles, and the doctor's office where he was diagnosed a "high-risk homosexual."
With vulnerability, humor, and quick-witted insights into racial, sexual, familial, and professional power dynamics, Gomez shares a hard-won path to taking pride in the parts of himself he was taught to keep hidden. His story is a scintillating, beautiful reminder of the importance of leaving space for joy.
"Packed with dry wit and searing cultural insight ... A brilliant and provocative interrogation of sex, gender, race, and love." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Poignant, vivid, and often hilarious, this coming-of-age memoir fearlessly explores intersectional identity and shows what it means to live and love authentically as a gay man today ... An engagingly candid memoir from a promising young writer." —Kirkus Reviews
"A breath of fresh air ... Gomez writes with a humor and clarity ... Gomez's voice is equal parts warmth and acid wit, like a good friend you're slightly afraid of ... An exciting debut from an author with a rare point of view. High-Risk Homosexual deals with some titanic questions. What is Latinidad? What is machismo? What does it mean to be a man, never mind a queer man? By its own admission, the book doesn't have all the answers, but it makes a compelling case that they will come from the razor-sharp queers living in the margins." —The New York Times Book Review
"Bright, nervy, hilarious." —Los Angeles Times
This information about High-Risk Homosexual was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: © E.R.C.
Edgar Gomez (he/they) is the author of High-Risk Homosexual, which received an American Book Award, a Stonewall Israel-Fishman Honor Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. Born and raised in Florida, Gomez has written for the Los Angeles Times, Poets & Writers, LitHub, New York Magazine, and beyond. His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Black Mountain Institute. Gomez lives in New York and Puerto Rico.
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