Wanting to move “out of my Catholic cocoon,” D’Emilio chooses to attend a secular college and live away from home. His years at Columbia University, 1966–1970, are the most exciting part of the book, not least because they were tumultuous years in American history and on college campuses.

WHEN HER MOTHER said that the mere sight of her made her want to vomit, college freshman Casey Parks reached for solace from her grandmother, a plain-spoken, chain-smoking woman who’d grown up picking cotton. The older woman explained that being a little “different” never bothered her, that, in fact, someone who was different had been her best friend once, when she’d moved from the farm to the city. She spun a tale that captivated Parks for more than a decade, and that made Parks vow to solve a decades-long mystery.

JOURNALIST Putsata Reang has written a compelling memoir that offers a glimpse into a world that’s not often encountered in LGBT literature.

In his new memoir Unprotected, Porter reveals the truth, much of it painful to remember, about his formative years and early career in a book that’s a good story, a soulful ballad, and a scream for understanding, among other things.

            Wilkinson’s book is about his search for his father and, by extension, his roots and his identity. There was a great-grandfather who hailed from the Canary Islands and stowed away on a ship bound for Uruguay. But even this flimsy fact is cause for disappointment: “No one in my family now knows or cares what he did or why.”

Not quite a coming out story, Antiman is an illuminating “hybrid memoir,” a record of Mohabir’s coming to terms with himself, discovering who he is, and his embrace of multiple communities and cultures. As he writes: “Diaspora is a queer country/ How can you be at once two species from two places?”

            In the end, Medeiros’ story lands on a paradox. We know ourselves to be both unique individuals and utterly interconnected. Who better than identical twins to embody this? Who better than a poet to offer us this truth, and a gay poet at that? Affection and tenderness plunge Self, Divided into the realm of spiritual memoir, where love is the source of meaning.