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Inside/Out

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“Bold, wise, percussive delight – Joseph Osmundson brings to the page the candor of the empty bed, and the full one, too. Inside/Out is like if Maggie Nelson had written Bluets about fucking men.”
– ALEXANDER CHEE, author of Queen of the Night

“I don't know that there is a writer in this country doing as much with queer theory, narrative momentum, whiteness, sexual identity and the literal outside as Joseph Osmundson. In Inside/Out, Osmundson manages to create an epic in less than fifty pages. Somehow, while welcoming readers into so many folds of his life, he manages to obliterate spectacle and really demands we ask ourselves who and what we are, and who and what we want to hide, from the inside out. Inside/Out is more than an intervention, more than a literary awakening; it is the terrifying and utterly gorgeous exploration of what love, loss, and fear do to us from the inside out. I have never read anything like this book.”
– KIESE LAYMON, author of How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America

Joseph Osmundson is a scientist and writer based in New York City. Originally from the rural Pacific Northwest, he has a PhD in Molecular Biophysics and is a Clinical Professor of Biology at NYU. He is the author of Capsid: A Love Song (2016) and a co-host of the podcast Food 4 Thot.

102 pages, Paperback

Published January 18, 2018

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About the author

Joseph Osmundson

6 books62 followers

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5 stars
73 (31%)
4 stars
93 (40%)
3 stars
44 (19%)
2 stars
15 (6%)
1 star
6 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
Profile Image for Doug.
2,571 reviews931 followers
May 13, 2019
This can and probably should be read in one sitting (as I did), since it is quite short with a LOT of white space. Although nicely revelatory about the author's own vulnerabilities, his thoughts are never quite as profound as he seems to think they are (or perhaps they might be to a younger unsophisticated member of the Grindr generation, but to this senior adult they just felt a bit jejune). And although he harps (on and on) about this being about an abusive relationship, he readily admits there was never any physical violence (other than him punching his lover's shoulder at one point), and any 'psychic pain' is of a fairly generic variety, with nothing particularly special or significant about it (Honey, I hate to tell you, but we've ALL been there, done that). So a bit of a disappointment, but points for being fairly well written and for its brevity.
Profile Image for Charles Keiffer.
8 reviews17 followers
January 28, 2018
This book is like if someone took Bluets by Maggie Nelson, boiled it down to a blueprint (ha) or formula, and then tried to recreate it from a gay male perspective, except without any of the style or talent of Nelson. This writing style does not suit Joseph Osmundson and where Nelson is able to speak to deep pain from a fresh angle, this book does not seem to go much deeper than hurt feelings, saying nothing new and therefore coming off as simpering and whiny. I wanted to like it so badly and was so eager to see a poetic voice take on specifically gay male experiences (douching, anal sex), but this was such a disappointment.
I think this would be a great read for someone new to queer literature or the prose poetry genre, as its take on heady concepts (having a body, Freud, race) is elementary and easily accessible. But this is not a valuable contribution to the queer lit canon, and just generally kind of embarrassing.
Profile Image for Brandon Will.
311 reviews29 followers
March 24, 2018
A murky situation stripped down and really raw and openly. He finds really interesting ways to write around a person that he doesn't want to write too much specifically about (a living person, an ex). Maybe this was for reasons of respect. Or perhaps he needed to be more vague to have a freedom--he's writing about an abuser, so maybe had vague fears of retaliation (or even just the abuser's voice in his head or other trauma after-effects). He acknowledges that he's doing this all the while, and I found it to be really artful and interesting and even more engaging because of it.
Profile Image for J.
13 reviews4 followers
September 21, 2018
I am happy I came across this book at the time I did. It is a book that once you pick up, you are unable to place down until you finish it...twice in one sitting. Internal and external elements of queerness, dysfunctional relationships, vulnerability and (be)longing propel you in a narrative that is open, honest, relatable, and intimate in all the best ways possible.

Favorite chapters:
4, 15, 29, 56, 64
Profile Image for Saeed.
46 reviews11 followers
April 9, 2021
The best writing in this book is when the author quotes other writers
Profile Image for Bryan Cebulski.
Author 4 books52 followers
January 15, 2018
https://medium.com/@BryanOnion/book-r...

My experience of being queer is relatively mundane as far as these things go. Sure, I had the isolation of being one of the only queer people in my small Midwestern town growing up, and sure the parents would hit me with the occasional wish that I wasn't gay or statement that “they've never gone through this before” to justify something that upset me—but I've had a pretty straightforward experience aside from that. Three relationships, several hook-ups—nothing too complicated, and the only long term partnership is the one I'm still in. I've been without mutual understanding, but I've never been without friends. I didn't really go through much more trauma or ennui than one expects as a queer teen. When a very sweet friend of mine took me to a queer teen support group, in fact, I felt like I didn't belong. Like I was invading a space, butting in on those who really needed it.

This all goes to say that no experience of being queer is the same, and that often because of how mundane and mainstream acceptable my queerness has manifested and felt, I find myself not fully appreciating the queerness of others. With those who have had a more difficult time being accepted, who have had a more complex journey into feeling comfortable with their own feelings, in their own body, in how and why they share that body with others.

Which brings me to Joseph Osmundson's Inside/Out. Listening to the podcast Food 4 Thot, of which Osmundson is a co-host, I feel the most connected to his views and opinions: A cis white guy who seems like he can “pass” as straight when needed and who appreciates David Foster Wallace kind of despite himself. But much diverges from this foundation. In reading Inside/Out I was taken into a rumination on queerness that I haven't personally had to go through. This book humbles me and causes me to reconsider a lot about what I take for granted in my everyday understanding of relationships, self-worth, self-image, and life in general as a queer cis white man.

It also, incidentally, has the single-most heartbreaking butternut squash recipe I've ever read.

Osmundson brings us into a reflection on a past relationship of his with no clear victims or victimizers—one in which sexuality is beautiful and destructive, in which repulsion and desire are intermingled. The way Osmundson writes about his body shifts his insecurities into strength, or at least bravery, finding power through candor, as he lays his insides out, exploring his whiteness, submissiveness, the need and attraction to people and experiences that may be painful but that seem impossible to pull away from. That romanticizing pain and toxicity is sometimes the way we best learn to cope with it.

This is not something I'm particularly familiar with, as I've had relatively uncomplicated romantic and sexual relationships in my life, and what little messiness I have had I managed to circumnavigate with the questionably masculine traits of emotional unavailability and misguided ego. (Which I'm working on, another story for another day.) I mean, I achieved something like sexual liberation in college, at a small liberal arts school where all the queer boys inevitably fucked in an increasingly complicated web of one-offs and relationships. I never experienced Grindr culture nor rural queer life nor urban queer life. I haven't been with anyone with whom it was consistently unclear whether or not we should stay together, whether or not we uplift each other or bring each other down, and this is exactly the type of relationship Osmundson explores in his work.

The structure of Inside/Out reminds me of alt-lit, but Osmundson graciously knows how to avoid the inelegant, lazy, stream-of-consciousness rambling of alt-lit and instead makes something actually good. Simple, short paragraphs that each get one key idea across, with few chapters longer than a page. He incorporates feelings that stem from song lyrics and social media posts, the kinds of syrupy or petty or destructive emotions that we ordinarily try to suppress, too embarrassed to admit out loud. The writing feels spontaneous yet exacting. One touch I enjoyed, a sort of literary equivalent of sampling—whenever someone has captured something Osmundson need to communicate, he doesn't recreate it with his own words, but incorporates quotes as from Kiese Laymon or the eponymous Diana Ross song. Osmundson knows when he does and does not have the authority to communicate something to the reader, and when necessary he defers to a different source. And taken into context they combine into such a powerful whole.

Inside/Out is both light and heavy. It is a slim volume that never dwells on one facet of its subject for too long, for that it's an easy read. Yet it's also brutal, laying out truths and observations that I'm still dwelling on, returning in my mind, feeling Osmundson's prose viscerally. I can only imagine the difficulty of actually writing it, much less getting it published.

As I see Inside/Out take its place on my queer studies bookshelf, I see something that can't really be demonstrated in the shelf's more dense, academic, impersonal work. Those books have their place, certainly, but Osmundson has translated something urgent and important about queer experience that I sort of knew logically but never considered as much as I should have emotionally. Even the more lengthy autobiographical books don't offer the same impact, don't communicate with the same gutpunch. Understanding Osmundson through this work, insofar as an outsider can, has realigned me in some way, reminding me and revealing to me of the myriad ways we explore queerness in ourselves and with others. And for that I am extremely grateful.
Profile Image for Katherine D. Morgan.
226 reviews43 followers
March 12, 2020
A really lovely 3.5.

This book sort of reminded me of In the Dream House, in a similar way of structure and emotions. I almost felt like the essays were too short at times? Like I wasn’t able to fully dive into the emotions that Joseph was presenting. But he writes beautifully and I found myself highlighting passages and stopping to sigh deeply. I would love to read more from this author.
Profile Image for Elina Uotila.
Author 6 books7 followers
July 9, 2020
Uncomfortably honest and personal (and I mean that lovingly). Reads like a memoir for the tumblr generation, very queer & very fragmented, almost like text posts interspersed with occasional quote from other authors.
Profile Image for Hank.
72 reviews117 followers
January 12, 2025
Feels weird to rate a memoir (?) of an abusive queer relationship. I read it in one sitting, and felt a plethora of feelings, but I was left wanting something more. What is that something more? I’m not sure.
Profile Image for Ben.
1 review2 followers
January 30, 2018
I’ve just finished this book in one sitting, all at once. Without giving away any spoilers, I can tell you exactly how this goes, and why I recommend it, especially to other queer-identifying folks.
You’ll read this and you’ll be left on the verge of tears. You’ll read this and you’ll want to fight somebody, throw hands with someone whose name you do not know (he can catch these hands regardless). You’ll read this and you’ll wonder how someone can go through so much and still decide to tell us the story, painful and heart wrenching - then you’ll wonder why there aren’t enough stories of men who love men who go through heartbreak and don’t call it fiction, stories of a man who loves a man who loves other men who won’t love him as much as the author does, stories that remind you that abuse doesn’t discriminate by gender or whatever other societal construct, or sex, or relationship status, or want, or need.
You’ll finish this book and be grateful that Joe, the author, was generous enough to share his story. You’ll finish this book and pencil in a time to go through this book again and again and again.
You’ll read this and close the book, exhale, look at the cover one more time, and finally it’ll all make sense.
This is mandatory queer reading for 2018 and beyond, and if I could give this book more than 5 stars, I would.
Profile Image for Eric Mueller.
126 reviews13 followers
June 12, 2020
Inside/Out is a lyrical inquiry/book-length essay about love and the complications that come from it. The two words from the title become a form and theme that Osmundson uses quite well to examine and interrogate what it really means to be inside and outside certain spaces. His scientifically-driven takes go to places different than my own mind would. Osmindson does not let himself off the hook in this, his character self receives just as much constructive criticism as his ex-boyfriend does. The ex seems to have the hard job of serving as a muse in addition to ex-boyfriend. As someone who was in a long, brain straining relationship that was its own mess, I found myself able to connect to the energy of a lot of the scenes despite not having every shared experience. This book features interracial gay romance, which I do not read nearly enough about, so I was grateful to see it on the page (lots of 'em) and have it be a major part of the text. I really enjoyed this work and hope to get to read more of Osmundson in the future.
126 reviews1 follower
July 29, 2018
Another that I read because the author is a member of the Food4Thot podcast, which I love. This book really hit me at an interesting angle, because the very nature and thought process of the narrator was forcing me to look at my own relationship, and sort of compare. It mad a lot of my internal wrestling feel validated, as I wasn't the only person who had had these questions for a partner before. It truly opened my eyes to a new way of viewing relationships, especially between cis-gay men.

Structurally and linguistically, I found this book to be refreshing and entertaining. It reminds me of when an "auteur" tv show makes us appreciate film in a new way.
Profile Image for Eric.
4 reviews
January 29, 2018
As someone who has been through a tumultuous relationship along with a lengthy breakup, this book struck a nerve. Looking back I felt so alone, isolated. But with time, you heal, even if the “scars” never go away. Like the author hints, I wouldn’t want them to go away. I am who am because of them. Osmundson lays it out there for everyone to feel what he felt/feels. He captures the need to be wanted and desired even if you know it is hurting you. It’s quite the journey over a mere 85ish pages.
Profile Image for Jonathan Vatner.
Author 7 books109 followers
January 30, 2018
I adored Osmundson's taut, fragmented memoir about a relationship that left him shattered. He paints evocative vignettes of feeling shut out in his relationship, punctuated by spot-on quotes from great thinkers. The true pleasure of the book for me was that it dealt frankly with gay bodies in love and gave me courage not to sanitize my own writing. Parts of the memoir are sexy, and parts are sad, but the whole of it is beautiful.
Profile Image for Byron Adams.
32 reviews13 followers
January 18, 2018
A heartbreaking, vulnerable and honest story that takes courage to share. Even with it's heavy content on a unhealthy relationship, Joe still manages to allow the reader room to laugh even when they are crying.
Profile Image for Connor Jenkins.
99 reviews1 follower
August 18, 2022
3.25/3.5 stars - The writing itself was, as always with this author, both beautiful and elegiac. Yet, it lacked the depth that Virology had (which is fine, given the different purposes and formats of the texts and also as a lovely index of the way that writers grow and mature over time), and the one thing I kept coming back to, not necessarily as a qualm but as a consideration or curiosity, would be the relationship between this book and Sarah Schulman’s Conflict is Not Abuse. He cites Schulman’s 2021 history of ACT UP in Virology, so I imagine he’d also have been familiar with her earlier work too, and I just felt that the text may have benefited from a deeper dive into the function and dynamics of abuse structurally. While I’m wholly uninterested in policing folks’ own vocabulary of their own experiences as abusive, the fleeting mentions of the interracial dynamic made me want to hear more in relationship to unpacking structural dynamics interpersonally. It may be unfair to hold an author to the standard or same depth of analysis they acquire in later texts retroactively, but it just felt like something was missing which he later very clearly articulated as necessary and essential in Virology. Despite my nitpicking, I loved this book as a meditation on toxic/harmful love in MSM/MLM relationships.
Profile Image for Julene.
Author 14 books65 followers
February 5, 2018
Joseph Osmundson wrote an honest book about a relationship that ended and the torment and angst he went through. It is honest. It is a short book with 75 short sections, some of them redacted photographs, so blank with a footnote about what was extracted. He uses quotes on some of those short pages, from notable authors: Kiese Laymon, Maggie Nelson, Jamaica Kincaid, Wayne Koestenvaum on Susan Sontag & Hart Crane, Frida Kahlo, and Warson Shire.

My favorite section was one where his biology teacher tied a stone to a string of dental floss and swallowed it, saying basically, if you wait for the stone to come out you can floss your insides without it ever getting into your body. One of the many reference to the title, Inside/Out.

I won an award from Poz Magazine. He read at UW Bookstore when the book was first out and I went to hear him read. It is his second book, his first book is one I definitely want to read.
Profile Image for zoe.
129 reviews1 follower
October 23, 2024
i just don’t think this book was for me… works of nonfiction don’t have to be relatable to the reader to be “good,” but unfortunately in this case, this book and i just didn’t vibe. i enjoyed by brontez purnell much much more (to compare books about gay cis male sex and relationship musings), and i
think it simply comes down to my own personal tolerance for some kinds of white male artistic exploration lol… like the part where osmundson ponders whether he would “be Diego or Frida” 😭 I was like what… 😭

the quotes he includes by marguerite duras and jamaica kincaid are fantastic tho!!!!!
Profile Image for Darcy Jay Gagnon.
47 reviews1 follower
May 31, 2025
As much as this memoir occasionally feels like airing out the dirty laundry, I was consistently surprised at the metacommentary and shifting of stance this author does in approaching a subject that, as he mentions in these pages, would be considered unpublishable. This is a good craft book to study for how to make stakes out of something that is super close to home, or how to approach a universal subject like heartbreak in a novel way that doesn't rely on gimmicks. The "but"s are plentiful and working. And as much as this might be a helpful book to read after a messy breakup, it might be even better to read if you were the heartbreaker.
Profile Image for Jason Weidemann.
13 reviews12 followers
January 25, 2018
We queers need more narratives such as this, in which timeless themes of desire and loss, love and abuse, are filtered through the devices of our age--truvada, grindr, and the carousel of easy lust they make possible. That being said, this is not a conservative book, but like the works of Anne Carson (whom the author references), attempts to break open the containers of narrative and language to let the light shine inside.
Profile Image for jame✨.
198 reviews23 followers
June 27, 2019
“But I am not yet sure how to sever the love from the lover without occasioning some degree of carnage.”

A line from Maggie Nelson’s ‘Bluets,’ quoted in part 41 of this novel, but an apt description of the piece as a whole. It’s a haunting meditation on vulnerability, need and shame, diving deep into an obsessive relationship to explore how we live outside of our own insides and what we hide underneath.
Profile Image for Alex Jackman.
57 reviews8 followers
March 8, 2018
A startlingly honest report from the frontlines of ended relationship. This book, while (too?) brief, feels fresh and electric, and sees the author laid bare. While it explores insecurity, the writing is confident and clear. The interesting structure, including redactions and references, offer further insight and move the work along at a breakneck speed.
Profile Image for Matthew.
1,012 reviews39 followers
June 28, 2018
3.5 | memoir. damn you. i struggle with memoir because who am i to decide if this life was examined enough? and is any life? try as we might. my biggest struggle with this one is how much i am both the good and the bad, the saint and the sinner. how much i am the broken faggot on both sides of this fence.
Profile Image for Toni.
Author 0 books45 followers
January 20, 2019
Salve and salvation to the deepest reaches of my relationship trauma, trauma we so often bury as gay men. This is a book we all need, whether we know it or not. This is a book of healing, words written inside trauma, outside on the page, to be nestled inside every reader.

Thanks, Joe. You’ve seen and woken me.
Profile Image for JP.
4 reviews
January 27, 2018
There are so many emotions packed in to so few pages. The honesty and vulnerability allowed me to full feel this story and even when upset and tearing up, there were phrasings and word choice that allowed me to laugh still. Beautiful and heartbreaking.
Profile Image for Jaime Fountaine.
Author 2 books12 followers
August 15, 2018
I crushed Inside/Out in 1.5 subway rides. The book uses a very specific relationship examine the ways in which people hurt each other and themselves in a way that moves seamlessly between the personal and universal
Profile Image for Simon.
1,489 reviews8 followers
May 5, 2020
Not what I expected, it was much more like a collection of prose poems (which just made me like it more). I like how he tells the story (the language of it), how it's put together. I will be coming back to this.
Profile Image for Amr Jal.
104 reviews13 followers
July 8, 2018
4.5 Stars. My only issue is that i wished it was longer. A great book meditating on relationships in your twenties
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews

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