Cover of From Boys to Men: Gay Men Write About Growing Up

From Boys to Men: Gay Men Write About Growing Up

More than an anthology of coming out stories, From Boys to Men is a stunning collection of essays about what it is like to be gay and young, to be different and be aware of that difference from the earliest of ages. In these memoirs, coming out is less important than coming of age and coming to the realization that young gay people experience the world in ways quite unlike straight boys. Whether it is a fascination with soap opera, an intense sensitivity to their own difference, or an obsession with a certain part of the male anatomy, gay kids — or kids who would eventually identify as gay — have an indefinable but unmistakable gay sensibility. Sometimes the result is funny, sometimes it is harrowing, and often it is deeply moving. Essays by lauded young writers like Alex Chee (Edinburgh), Aaron Hamburger (Faith for Beginners), Karl Soehnlein (The World of Normal Boys), Trebor Healy (Through It Came Bright Colors), Tom Dolby (The Trouble Boy), David Bahr, and Austin Bunn, are collected along with those by brilliant, newcomers such as Michael McAllister, Jason Tougaw, Viet Dinh, and the wildly popular blogger, Joe.My.God.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 336 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked From Boys to Men: Gay Men Write About Growing Up? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked From Boys to Men: Gay Men Write About Growing Up. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. When I Knew Shares LGBT, nonfiction, queer
  2. How I Learned to Snap: A Small Town Coming-Out and Coming-of-Age Story Shares LGBT, memoir, nonfiction
  3. Born This Way: Real Stories of Growing Up Gay Shares LGBT, nonfiction, memoir
  4. The Best-Kept Boy in the World: The Life and Loves of Denny Fouts Shares LGBT, nonfiction, memoir

“If you want more of the same (biography about lgbt), start with these.”

  1. Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings
  2. If You Knew Then What I Know Now
  3. Sacred Monsters
  4. Shorter Views

“If it was the memoir that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever
  2. My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family
  3. Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded
  4. Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT Leroy

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Boys, An Anthology
  2. The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing About Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Question
  3. Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: True Tales of Love, Lust, and Friendship Between Straight Women and Gay Men
  4. Openly Straight