Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir

With his thoroughly electric debut, Punch Me Up to the Gods, Brian Broome will shatter your heart. Then make you laugh, sweat and cringe. And all while eviscerating stereotypes and expanding notions of Black masculinity and queer identity. Broome structures his multidimensional memoir around two through-lines: Gwendolyn Brooks's seminal poem "We Real Cool" and a thread detailing a bus ride during which Broome watches a young Black father offer lessons on how to "be a man" to his toddler son. Interspersed between lines of Brooks's poem and vignettes from the bus ride, Broome offers brutal memories and beautifully rendered stories from his own life, fleshing out the various ways he, too, has been taught, encouraged or forced to be a man. The sum is an exploration that with unflinching honesty and style creates room for Black masculinity like his: queer, sensitive, flawed, terrible at basketball, reflective, funny. --Katie Weed, freelance writer and reviewer

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