Rage: On Being Queer, Black, Brilliant... and Completely Over It

Entertainment Weekly reporter Brathwaite turns his sharp eye on race, sexuality, and body image in this passionate debut memoir-in-essays. “It’s just really hard sometimes,” he writes in the opening chapter, “to not be Black enough for Black people, and to feel like an outsider among the gays.” Building on that insight, he delivers 10 provocatively titled essays (“I Hate the Gays,” “Fucking White Boys”) that unpack the adverse effects of Eurocentric male beauty standards, analyze depictions of queer life in popular media, and probe the idea that Black genius was “cultivated in spite of society, never because of it.” Throughout, Braithwaite’s candor fluctuates between appealing and off-putting. For instance, his winking acknowledgement that he’s “developed a really unhealthy obsession with myself” elicits smiles, while his characterization of injecting himself with steroids as “moderate, responsible drug use” necessary to keep up with the “extreme bodies currently prevalent” in bodybuilding will cause many readers to wince. For the most part, the heightened tonal register allows Brathwaite to effectively communicate his frustrations with white gay culture while reserving adoration for the people and art he loves. It makes for bracing reading. Agent: Robert Guinsler, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Sept.)