This memoir was painful to read at times (most of the times if I am going to be completely honest), but it was beautiful. The subject was not particularly full of beauty but the voice that told the story is beautiful. I loved the unique structure to this memoir. It is a serious of essays broken up with observations Brian made of a young boy and his father on the bus which caused him to reflect on his own upbringing. Brian is brutally honest and this memoir tells the story of how he failed to conform to the training on how to best be a Black man, and how he painfully came to accept who he was as a Black, gay, man. The impacts of racism on his life were hard to read, but the good kind that helps the reader accept what is real. And only with acceptance can we work to change. This was a limited scope of Brian’s life and I would certainly be interested in reading more. Brian Broome is a name I will be looking out for in the literary world.