My government means to kill me

Author

Rasheed Newson

Call Number

• FICTION NEWS (CEN)

Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York, NY : Flatiron Books, 2022.

Physical Description

276 pages ; 25 cm

Summary

"A fierce and riveting queer coming-of-age story, following the personal and political awakening of a young gay Black man in 1980s NYC, from the television drama writer and producer of The Chi, Narcos, and Bel-Air Born into a wealthy Black Indianapolis family, Earl 'Trey' Singleton III leaves his overbearing parents and their expectations behind by running away to New York City with only a few dollars in his pocket. In the City, Trey meets up with a cast of characters that change his life forever--from civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, who he meets in a Harlem bathhouse, to his landlord, Fred Trump, who he clashes with and outfoxes. He volunteers at a renegade home hospice for AIDS patients, and after being put to the test by gay rights activist Larry Kramer and civil rights leader Dorothy Cotton, becomes a founding member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Along the way Trey attempts to navigate past traumas and searches for ways to maintain familial relationships--all while seeking the meaning of life in the midst of so much death. Vibrant, humorous, and fraught with entanglements, Rasheed Newson's My Government Means to Kill Me is an exhilarating, fast-paced, coming-of-age story that lends itself to a larger discussion about what it means for a young, gay, Black man in the mid-1980s to come to terms with his role in the midst of a political and social reckoning"--

Contents

• Lesson #1: The boss doesn't love you
• Lesson #2: A sanctuary can be a sordid place
• Lesson #3: Don't wear straightjackets
• Lesson #4: Enemies have their value
• Lesson #5: A big lie can build character
• Lesson #6: Romantic notions are delusions
• Lesson #7: Devils have a weakness
• Lesson #8: Victory can be a thorny crown
• Lesson #9: Touch at least one dead body
• Lesson #10: To change the world, have a selfish goal
• Lesson #11: Allies don't always harmonize
• Lesson #12: Learn to take a punch
• Lesson #13: The best spontaneous moments are planned
• Lesson #14: No sense in crying over blood money
• Lesson #15: Sometimes it's not about you
• Lesson #16: There's no preparing for every circle of hell
• Lesson #17: Leave the fallen behind
• Lesson #18: Bury your old self.