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Title details for If You Knew Then What I Know Now by Ryan Van Meter - Available

If You Knew Then What I Know Now

by Ryan Van Meter
ebook
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The acclaimed author explores his path from closeted child to out-and-proud adult in this deeply personal collection of fourteen linked essays.

"[A] moving debut. . . . Thanks to Van Meter's honesty, essays on his own childhood, identity, and love have a profoundly universal appeal." —Publishers Weekly

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.

This deft collection maps the unremarkable yet savage 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.

"As Van Meter drifts elliptically between his childhood as a closeted young boy and his life now as an openly gay man, he draws the reader inexorably to this book, and its compelling weight." —The Plain Dealer

"To read a book this observant, this fiercely honest, and this effortlessly beautiful is to feel the very pulse of contemporary American essays." —John D'Agata, author of The Lifespan of a Fact

"These essays are insistently honest, darkened by melancholy and yearning, yet polished by prose so lithe, so elegant that Van Meter's human presence brightens every line." —Lia Purpura, author of It Shouldn't Have Been Beautiful
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Publisher: Sarabande Books

Kindle Book

  • Release date: April 5, 2011

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9781936747405
  • Release date: April 5, 2011

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9781936747405
  • File size: 371 KB
  • Release date: April 5, 2011
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Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Biography & Autobiography LGBTQIA+ (Nonfiction) Nonfiction

Languages

English

The acclaimed author explores his path from closeted child to out-and-proud adult in this deeply personal collection of fourteen linked essays.

"[A] moving debut. . . . Thanks to Van Meter's honesty, essays on his own childhood, identity, and love have a profoundly universal appeal." —Publishers Weekly

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.

This deft collection maps the unremarkable yet savage 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.

"As Van Meter drifts elliptically between his childhood as a closeted young boy and his life now as an openly gay man, he draws the reader inexorably to this book, and its compelling weight." —The Plain Dealer

"To read a book this observant, this fiercely honest, and this effortlessly beautiful is to feel the very pulse of contemporary American essays." —John D'Agata, author of The Lifespan of a Fact

"These essays are insistently honest, darkened by melancholy and yearning, yet polished by prose so lithe, so elegant that Van Meter's human presence brightens every line." —Lia Purpura, author of It Shouldn't Have Been Beautiful
Expand title description text
Biography & Autobiography LGBTQIA+ (Nonfiction) Nonfiction