Manboobs A memoir of musicals, visas, hope, and cake

In this sterling debut, painter Aijazuddin combines blazing wit with heartbreaking candor as he recounts his path toward self-acceptance as a gay Pakistani. Growing up in 1990s Lahore, Aijazuddin took an early shine to musicals, Disney princesses, and Barbie dolls, all while battling schoolyard insults about his weight and resulting "moon-tits." As he realized he was gay, experimenting sexually with a friend and growing close with another closeted teen, Aijazuddin dreamed of escaping to comparatively liberal North America. Much of the memoir sees him ping-ponging between Pakistan, Canada, and the U.S.: he attended college in Montreal shortly after 9/11, where he faced xenophobia and struggled to come out of the closet, then returned to Pakistan, where his shame compounded. After obtaining a U.S. visa in 2015, he moved to New York City, where a series of relationships helped him learn to "stop loving in the shadows." Aijazuddin's prose is playful but sincere, marrying quips ("I was always a bird of paradise in a nest of sparrows") with powerful insights ("Hyphens are the price of my admission through the gates of the American dream"). The result is a stirring account of coming-of-age and coming out. Agent: Sam Chidley, Karpfinger Agency. (Aug.)Correction: A previous version of this review misspelled the author's last name.

A visual artist's debut memoir about growing up gay and finding artistic refuge from the "patriarchal penitentiary" of Pakistan. Born in Abu Dhabi, Aijazuddin spent most of his childhood and adolescence in Lahore, the city to which his parents returned when he was 5. As deep as his family's Pakistani roots were, the author felt like a perennial outsider. The effeminacy he displayed as a child later manifested as queerness and--to his dismay--a pair of "manboobs" that made the overweight adolescent Aijazuddin look "more like the statue of a pagan fertility goddess than a pubescent boy." Yet even as he struggled with his sexuality and body, the author managed to find other gay youths who shared his love of everything glittery and gorgeous, from Cleopatra to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. During his post-college life in New York City, a painter friend was granted a green card on the strength of his early career achievements, and Aijazuddin, also studying in New York, began laying the foundation for a similar attempt. Realizing that his dream of residing in America could take years, the author returned to Pakistan to become a working artist. The social pressures to conform to heteronormativity surrounded him, especially as he found artistic recognition and, later, a boyfriend whom he eventually lost to schizophrenia. Despite his struggles with personal tragedy and disenchantment with the U.S., the author found strength among other gay Pakistani transplants, all while taking solace in the great lesson every musical he had ever seen taught him: although "no life is without struggle, no life need be without joy." Unabashed in its depiction of camp and queer identity, Aijazuddin's book is a poignant reflection on identity, race, and the meaning of home. A wickedly funny and often moving memoir. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.