Coming Up from the Down Low: The Journey to Acceptance, Healing, and Honest Love

This follow-up to the Oprah-driven smash On the Down Low packs few surprises, but in its relentlessly candid, insistently first-person way, it creates a safe, supportive space in which readers who find themselves ""living on the DL"" might self-recognize and begin to seek light and air. King careens from anecdote to anecdote, from tales from his own sex-addicted DL existence (and his divorce) to those of readers who got in touch with him following the first book's success. Each of the vignettes contains some small lesson, however, from behavior that unconsciously reflects a desire to get caught to habits that are outright dangerous. There are chapters in which men and women ""Speak Out""; AIDS is treated clearly, directly and sympathetically; race is aired complexly. All the issues that King treats, he treats specifically: the discussion of race, for example, is drawn out of an anecdote about a cookout, which is itself embedded in a discussion of community acceptance. So while the book isn't linear, it's completely grounded and centered in King's voice and sensibility. While it may not put up the huge, instant numbers of its predecessor, this one is built for the backlist. 8-city author tour. (On sale Apr. 26)