Format:
Book
Title:
If you knew then what I know now / Ryan Van Meter.
Author:
Van Meter, Ryan, 1975-
Call Number:
814 Van Mete
Edition:
1st ed.
Publisher, Date:
Louisville, KY : Sarabande Books, c2011.
Description:
209 p. ; 20 cm.
Summary:
Overview: The middle American coming-of-age has found new life in Ryan Van Meter's coming-out, made as strange as it is familiar by acknowledging the role played by gender and sexuality. In fourteen linked essays, If You Knew Then What I Know Now reinvents the memoir with all-encompassing empathy-for bully and bullied alike. A father pitches baseballs at his hapless son and a grandmother watches with silent forbearance as the same slim, quiet boy sets the table dressed in a blue satin dress. Another essay explores origins of the word "faggot" and its etymological connection to "flaming queen." This deft collection maps the unremarkable landscapes of childhood with compassion and precision, allowing awkwardness its own beauty. This is essay as an argument for the intimate-not the sensational-and an embrace of all the skinned knees in our stumble toward adulthood.
Subjects:
Van Meter, Ryan, 1975- -- Childhood and youth.
Authors, American -- 21st century -- Biography.
Gay men -- United States -- Biography.
Genre:
Gay biographies.
Contents:
First -- Lake effect -- Practice -- Discovery -- Specimen -- If you knew then what I know now -- Youth group -- Cherry bars -- Tightrope -- Men from town -- To bear, to carry: notes on "faggot" -- Goldfish history -- Things I will want to tell you on our first date but won't -- You can't turn off the snake light -- Author.
ISBN:
9781932511949 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1932511946 (pbk. : alk. paper)