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Creep Trilogy #3
Dear Queer Self: An Experiment in Memoir
An unvarnished accounting of one man’s struggle toward sexual and emotional maturity.
In this unconventional memoir, Jonathan Alexander addresses wry and affecting missives to a conflicted younger self. Focusing on three years—1989, 1993, and 1996—Dear Queer Self follows the author through the homophobic heights of the AIDS epidemic, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the election of Bill Clinton, and the steady advancements in gay rights that followed. With humor and wit afforded by hindsight, Alexander relives his closeted college years, his experiments with his sexuality in graduate school, his first marriage to a woman, and his budding career as a college professor.
As he moves from tortured self-denial to hard-won self-acceptance, the author confronts the deeply uncomfortable ways he is implicated in his own story. More than just a coming-out narrative, Dear Queer Self is both an intimate psychological exploration and a cultural examination—a meshing of inner and outer realities and a personal reckoning with how we sometimes torture the truth to make a life. It is also a love letter, an homage to a decade of rapid change, and a playlist of the sounds, sights, and feelings of a difficult, but ultimately transformative, time.
In this unconventional memoir, Jonathan Alexander addresses wry and affecting missives to a conflicted younger self. Focusing on three years—1989, 1993, and 1996—Dear Queer Self follows the author through the homophobic heights of the AIDS epidemic, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the election of Bill Clinton, and the steady advancements in gay rights that followed. With humor and wit afforded by hindsight, Alexander relives his closeted college years, his experiments with his sexuality in graduate school, his first marriage to a woman, and his budding career as a college professor.
As he moves from tortured self-denial to hard-won self-acceptance, the author confronts the deeply uncomfortable ways he is implicated in his own story. More than just a coming-out narrative, Dear Queer Self is both an intimate psychological exploration and a cultural examination—a meshing of inner and outer realities and a personal reckoning with how we sometimes torture the truth to make a life. It is also a love letter, an homage to a decade of rapid change, and a playlist of the sounds, sights, and feelings of a difficult, but ultimately transformative, time.
- GenresMemoirLGBTNonfiction
180 pages, Paperback
First published March 14, 2022
2 people are currently reading
78 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Alexander
20 books4 followersJonathan Alexander is a writer and podcaster living in Southern California. The author, co-author, or editor of twenty-one books, he has been called one of “our finest essayists” (Tom Lutz, award-winning writer and founding editor of LARB). Jonathan is also Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 29, 2025
John Alexander’s non-fiction is exceptional. While Creep and Stroke Book rank higher for me than Dear Queer Self, I still enjoyed this one very much. The messiness of coming out and coming into one’s gay self is relatable. The second person narration didn’t always work for me (particularly in forecasting future events), but the experiments and risks Alexander takes throughout the memoir are inspiring.
February 23, 2024
Read because Alexander was visiting my school and it was lovely and I felt deeply seen.
November 9, 2022
Dear Jonathan,
Je est un autre.
This book isn’t my story but it’s also not-not my story. It’s set in South Louisiana, most of it before I’m alive but the final chapters mark the start of my life. It is a memoir of the same kind of life I’m living, one characterized by otherness, by shame from culture and religion, by searching for a community that will love me on my terms. And, we find community in challenge, in shared struggle, in hard work and so, so many words. We’ll also find it in sexual exploration, in following desire with caution and consent. We find that it comes with a lot of pain. The road out of South Louisiana is full of potholes. But we do make it out.
Some moments we share: Debauching on Bourbon, “flirtation with the dark side,” after the thrilling slog of slinging plates of Metairie’s finest fare. Driving through the swamps too often to find some peace. Learning when to pass and when to make a scene; never feeling like we pass quite enough. Coming out again and again, to the wrong people, telling ourselves that it’s just a phase. Enjoying the drama of it. Sweating feels like home. Finding solace in the words of Whitman.
The shape of my life has not taken the same contours as yours, of course. Your life is full of political struggle and often that will feel like a struggle for survival. How can so few care about the individuals affected by the HIV and AIDS crisis (indeed, all caps signifying the tragedy just that much more)? How can history come back to building walls rather than breaking them down? Will they ever stop voting against themselves? Why do hurricanes that hit Florida get so much more attention?
Crisis followed by national ignorance seems to define those of us from South Louisiana. As much as you seem to claim you’re not Cajun, I see so many of my Cajun roots reflected in this narrative. Or, maybe it’s in the shared experiences, in finding myself on these pages, in finding a friend in you, that I want to think of you as Cajun. I can’t explain why I cling to Cajunness so desperately—maybe it’s because the land is threatened. But you know that.
The stories we tell ourselves are stories but why do they feel so much more powerful when they come from within? The relational just doesn’t interpolate like the internal. I tell my students to be careful about the stories they keep with them, but I’m so bad at telling myself responsible stories. Dear Queer Self helps me to understand how difficult it is to tell oneself a good story. I’m up for the challenge. I’ll find truth in the telling; tell it over and over again until it has just the right timbre to resonate pleasingly in my chest like standing too close to the speakers.
In solidarity,
Tyler
Je est un autre.
This book isn’t my story but it’s also not-not my story. It’s set in South Louisiana, most of it before I’m alive but the final chapters mark the start of my life. It is a memoir of the same kind of life I’m living, one characterized by otherness, by shame from culture and religion, by searching for a community that will love me on my terms. And, we find community in challenge, in shared struggle, in hard work and so, so many words. We’ll also find it in sexual exploration, in following desire with caution and consent. We find that it comes with a lot of pain. The road out of South Louisiana is full of potholes. But we do make it out.
Some moments we share: Debauching on Bourbon, “flirtation with the dark side,” after the thrilling slog of slinging plates of Metairie’s finest fare. Driving through the swamps too often to find some peace. Learning when to pass and when to make a scene; never feeling like we pass quite enough. Coming out again and again, to the wrong people, telling ourselves that it’s just a phase. Enjoying the drama of it. Sweating feels like home. Finding solace in the words of Whitman.
But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without
its friend near, for I knew I could not,
The shape of my life has not taken the same contours as yours, of course. Your life is full of political struggle and often that will feel like a struggle for survival. How can so few care about the individuals affected by the HIV and AIDS crisis (indeed, all caps signifying the tragedy just that much more)? How can history come back to building walls rather than breaking them down? Will they ever stop voting against themselves? Why do hurricanes that hit Florida get so much more attention?
Crisis followed by national ignorance seems to define those of us from South Louisiana. As much as you seem to claim you’re not Cajun, I see so many of my Cajun roots reflected in this narrative. Or, maybe it’s in the shared experiences, in finding myself on these pages, in finding a friend in you, that I want to think of you as Cajun. I can’t explain why I cling to Cajunness so desperately—maybe it’s because the land is threatened. But you know that.
The stories we tell ourselves are stories but why do they feel so much more powerful when they come from within? The relational just doesn’t interpolate like the internal. I tell my students to be careful about the stories they keep with them, but I’m so bad at telling myself responsible stories. Dear Queer Self helps me to understand how difficult it is to tell oneself a good story. I’m up for the challenge. I’ll find truth in the telling; tell it over and over again until it has just the right timbre to resonate pleasingly in my chest like standing too close to the speakers.
In solidarity,
Tyler
April 16, 2024
Lots of people like to say they don't like rating memoirs because the idea of rating someone's life story is icky to them. Well I can say that I have no qualms about that. "Dear Queer Self" is an extremely over told queer story that has absolutely nothing new to say. In fact, the ending of this book had me wondering if I had gotten an edition that had had the last few chapter's ripped out of it. A memoir is suppose to reflect on questions and issues in the lives of both the reader and the author. Usually the author comes to some kind of statement or revolution about these ideas and writes the memoir to share with the class. "Dear Queer Self" just kind of ends unceremoniously, almost in mid thought. I was honestly enjoying the book until it ended. Which really sucks because I think Alexander has a really interesting voice and perspective that could really make this over told queer narrative into something interested if he had just, I don't know, had an idea of the ideas he wanted to share or had a theses statement. I enjoyed that this is addressed to his younger self, even if it feels like he has nothing to say to his younger self.
2-3-ish book. Its kind of just okay. Nothing magical
2-3-ish book. Its kind of just okay. Nothing magical
August 18, 2023
Audio book - wonderfully read by Donald Corren
October 8, 2023
Digital Technologies. Fall 2023.
January 21, 2024
A great exploration on the journey of unpacking queerness
Read
March 29, 2024Unrated bc I’m not rating a memoir. it feels wrong. Definitely enjoyed it though! The 2nd person pov was a really cool format.
It was honest that’s for sure!
It was honest that’s for sure!
January 17, 2025
2.5 ⭐️
This was fine memoir and I guess I would recommend on the whole.
It details Alexander’s life leading up to three milestone years during the 80s and 90s about growing up in New Orleans and the pressure of being there (in the south) as a young gay man and the loss his gay uncle whilst coming to terms with his own sexuality, going to university in Baton Rouge - friendships, relationships, the moving away from this repression of his sexuality and desire to experiment - leading to his employment and relationships with different men, all with the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic.
I appreciated the discussion on Louisiana and Colorado specific politics and laws regarding queer lives. It’s good at putting the reader in the place of his life, written in the second person ‘you’ as he’s speaking to younger version of himself - the exploration of queer repression, shame, and passing as straight. I wasn’t too keen on the sexual fantasy/experimenting parts and it did feel a little bit roundabout-y and monotonous. To the end it felt like we were missing around 20 or so minutes to the audiobook with things left a bit up in the air. Finally, it didn’t feel like the book had much of a crux to what’s being said nor added all that much new to the discussions around queer lives at the time and was rather forgettable. I know it’s the third in a series of experimental memoirs but I’m not that interested in checking them out.
This was fine memoir and I guess I would recommend on the whole.
It details Alexander’s life leading up to three milestone years during the 80s and 90s about growing up in New Orleans and the pressure of being there (in the south) as a young gay man and the loss his gay uncle whilst coming to terms with his own sexuality, going to university in Baton Rouge - friendships, relationships, the moving away from this repression of his sexuality and desire to experiment - leading to his employment and relationships with different men, all with the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic.
I appreciated the discussion on Louisiana and Colorado specific politics and laws regarding queer lives. It’s good at putting the reader in the place of his life, written in the second person ‘you’ as he’s speaking to younger version of himself - the exploration of queer repression, shame, and passing as straight. I wasn’t too keen on the sexual fantasy/experimenting parts and it did feel a little bit roundabout-y and monotonous. To the end it felt like we were missing around 20 or so minutes to the audiobook with things left a bit up in the air. Finally, it didn’t feel like the book had much of a crux to what’s being said nor added all that much new to the discussions around queer lives at the time and was rather forgettable. I know it’s the third in a series of experimental memoirs but I’m not that interested in checking them out.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews