LITTLE F, On the Road for Queer youth

LITTLE F(aggot)
MICHELLE TEA
The Feminist Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$17.95 all editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A new epic novel about a teenage queer runaway from cult classic author of Blackwave and Valencia Michelle Tea.

In Spencer’s fantasies, the breezy, queer streets of Provincetown, MA, are utopia, a place where he can be free. Yet when a violent attack in his suburban Arizona schoolyard sends him to the hospital, he decides queer utopia can’t wait. And one night, with the help of his best friend, the teenage witch Joy, he hitches a ride to find it.

The cross-country road odyssey that follows brings Spencer from new moon rituals in Arizona canyons to Texas bus stations, from the luxe drag stages of Houston’s Montrose district to the jazz-soaked streets of the French Quarter and beyond. This new novel from Michelle Tea tells the story, by turns raw, romantic, and sweet, of a sheltered boy taking his first leap into queer life, among all the complicated queers who live it.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Road novels lend themselves beautifully to the coming-of-age genre. In a road novel, the main character is by definition seeking some unknown, longed-for thing...adulthood is that thing, the long-dreamed-of delights of not being under someone else's thumb, making your own decisions....

I know, I know, it's as far from reality as a time-travel novel is. The traveler/comer-of-age doesn't know that (yet) so let it ride while the trip educates the youth into disillusionment's many pleasures. ...wait...pleasures? Spencer is, like so many of us formerly young queer lads going to run head-first into reality and find it pretty good.

Escaping homophobia is not possible, but getting out of a bully's sights is not a bad idea. As Spencer moves to other peoples' whims, aka hitchhikes, to get to Provincetown, the world shows him a bright face. He meets people who help him, in spite of taking him away from the direction he's set; lots of endearing, heartfelt chats; sleeping on couches (my back twinged just typing it); finding his first reciprocated love.

A lovely story, but not one we haven't read before (over thirty, anyway), so best really as a gift for your sweet young giftee. You know the one...not ready to come out; not ready for The Talk; but turning life over in their mind painfully loudly.

Give them this book to give those gears a bit of "others before you have been there, here's what they say about it" lubrication before you, their parents, and the rest of us go deaf.