If you knew then what I know now Cover Image

Book

If you knew then what I know now / Ryan Van Meter.

Van Meter, Ryan, 1975- (Author).

Summary:

Overview: The middle American coming-of-age has found new life in Ryan Van Meter's coming-out, made as strange as it is familiar by acknowledging the role played by gender and sexuality. In fourteen linked essays, If You Knew Then What I Know Now reinvents the memoir with all-encompassing empathy-for bully and bullied alike. A father pitches baseballs at his hapless son and a grandmother watches with silent forbearance as the same slim, quiet boy sets the table dressed in a blue satin dress. Another essay explores origins of the word "faggot" and its etymological connection to "flaming queen." This deft collection maps the unremarkable landscapes of childhood with compassion and precision, allowing awkwardness its own beauty. This is essay as an argument for the intimate-not the sensational-and an embrace of all the skinned knees in our stumble toward adulthood.

Record details

ISBN: 9781932511949 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN: 1932511946 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Physical Description: 209 p. ; 20 cm.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Louisville, KY : Sarabande Books, c2011.

Content descriptions

Formatted Contents Note:

First -- Lake effect -- Practice -- Discovery -- Specimen -- If you knew then what I know now -- Youth group -- Cherry bars -- Tightrope -- Men from town -- To bear, to carry: notes on "faggot" -- Goldfish history -- Things I will want to tell you on our first date but won't -- You can't turn off the snake light -- Author.