Hey all! mao-wave

I'm recording another audiobook! And I hope some of you will be interested enough to follow along and have thoughts on the book.

The book is a retrospective on the AIDS crisis, and even moreso, the social changes that have happened in the queer community (in the US, anyhow) in its wake, both the normalization and integration into straight society of (some) gay people and the continued marginalization of others. Sarah terms it the "gentrification of the mind".

The introduction (~30 mins) is already recorded and available here (or as a file download here)

If you want to read along rather than listen, the book is available on LibGen in PDF and EPUB forms.

Links to later chapters:

  • YearOfTheCommieDesktop [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Alright so I listened to the first chapter.

    I'd say from the introduction that the point is less "some queer people are integrating and some aren't" as your description implies and more "many queer people think things are better than they are". Some have "made it" in straight society, but at the expense of authentic expression (can't be too gay, can't be too explicit, can't make your protagonists openly gay if you want to get published), and many make excuses for the ways that society continues to marginalize them, such as the girl insisting her violently homophobic parents "really love her, but it's just too much for them to understand". I like how she talks about young queer people being aimless, wanting to emulate the radicalism of their predecessors but not having the same situations. Though that part of the book feels less true now that the trans panic is in full swing, it's all very 2010 in the book. There's a new fight on and many have figured out their place in it now. But the gentrified mindset persists for some.

    Also the author isn't terrible so far but I'm a little worried she's gonna be a turbo lib

    When's the next chapter dropping?

    • notfutomes [they/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      1 year ago

      Oh thank god somebody else is actually going to use this

      Yeah, those are pretty good notes, iirc the intro is more lib than the rest of the book but it's been a few years since I read it so maybe my standards have just changed. Next chapter in the next day or two. I can't guarantee I'll keep up anywhere near a daily pace but some of the chapters are short as hell so that helps. The audio quality should improve a bit too, had some dumb mic issues this time and a lot of background noise