Punch me up to the gods: [a memoir]

Brian Broome's early years were spent growing up in Ohio, a dark-skinned Black boy harboring crushes on other boys. He recounts his experiences—in all their cringe-worthy, hilarious, and heartbreaking glory—revealing a perpetual outsider awkwardly squirming to find his way in. Indiscriminate sex and escalating drug use help to soothe his hurt, young psyche, usually to uproarious and devastating effect. A no-nonsense mother and broken father play crucial roles in our misfit’s origin story. But it is Brian’s voice in the retelling that shows the true depth of vulnerability for young Black boys that is often quietly near to bursting at the seams. Cleverly framed around Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “We Real Cool,” the iconic and loving ode to Black boyhood, this is at once a playful, poignant, and wholly original memoir. Broome’s writing brims with swagger and sensitivity, bringing an exquisite and fresh voice to ongoing cultural conversations about Blackness in America.