How I Learned to Snap: A Small-Town Coming-Out and Coming-Of-Age Story

by Kirk Read

Book Overview

With bold Southern humor, journalist and performer Kirk Read takes readers on a guided tour of his precocious and courageous adolescence. Recalling his years as an openly gay high school student, Read describes how he navigated the hallways with his sense of humor and dignity intact. He fondly recalls his initiations into sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, as well as his shy as neon acts of rabble rousing during high school. How I Learned to Snap...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0142002992
• ISBN13: 9780142002995
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Penguin Adult Hc/Tr
• Length: 242 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Spunky, funny and smart!

This book is a snappy series of short chapters that give an interesting, multi-layered look at a young man growing up in Virginia in the 1980s. The many references in the book to that era will really resonate with those who grew up with them, and for those who didn't, there are many universal themes you'll recognize. The chronological thing didn't bother me: he seemed to arrange the events in a way that is intelligent. I do see a bit of David Sedaris in this writing, but this is entirely different than Sedaris' stuff. I thought Kirk's refreshing, positive handling of circumstances was nice `n' different. We've had a lot of books about suffering related to coming out and being gay, and it was nice to see a character that handled the gay life with finesse. This is different! I highly recommend reading this.

Good read for a mainstream audience-not just for gay readers

I grew up near where Read did around the same time. There were probably times we crossed paths at area malls or movie theatres. This canvas gave me motivation to read the book.Apart from that, our lives are incredibly different -- I am the straight mother of a toddler living in the suburbs. Yet Read's conversational tone and personable writing style made this accessible and enjoyable. Reading the book gave me the sense of having had a conversation into the wee hours of the night with a new friend, where incidents from the past become valuable character insight and cause for endearment.I am not always a fan of memoir/autobiography, and found this more entertaining and freshly original than most in its class.

Child, If You Grew Up Gay In The 80's... READ THIS!

Kirk Read's first book is one of the most refreshing, entertaining books to come down the gay pipeline in quite some time. Most people will find something that they can relate to, even if they aren't gay. Part David Sedaris (the "not in-your-face" gay humor) and part Judy Blume (the coming of age part...although I don't think Judy's ever written about gay teens!), Kirk's words read like a gentle, Southern, summer breeze. He is very matter-of-fact and really does not make much of an issue out of being gay. Some of the things that Kirk writes about might be a bit shocking for some (sex with an older guy at such a young age, for instance) but the writing is so warm and honest, that I really didn't think about how serious some of the situations were. I don't want to imply that the book makes light of these situations, because it doesn't at all.The other thing that I loved about this book is that each chapter is quite short. It's the exact opposite of "wordy"- Kirk gets right to the heart of each story he tells. This book would be perfect for someone who likes to read a little before going to bed. I was able to read the entire book in a day.Don't miss out on this great book! It has a permanent place on my bookshelf!

A Sweetheart on a Roll

Kirk Read is as irresistible in print as he is in person; his talent is more than skin deep. For all this book’s cuteness, Read knows exactly where he’s going. Between the prologue and epilogue he serves up fifty-one snappy sound bites, vignettes of growing up gay in conservative Lexington, Virginia. The beauty of the book is that its humor more often than not is self-directed. A quick study for survival, Read finds the folk who give him strength, and overwhelms (gay)-baiting rednecks with sheer force of his sweetheart personality. Throughout his puberty he’s on a roll and doesn’t have time to be a victim. Persecuted, he’s the ultimate good sport, and in the end his good-natured refusal to become anyone he’s not wins over even his tormenters. Some readers might find Read’s invariable turning of ill into good to be too facile. Indeed, he comes off well, often with a deserved comeuppance for his detractors. But he never makes himself heroic, and there is his charm. What he learns, he learns from a parade of teachers, librarians, older peers, and a few empathic gay men—or from blindly stumbling (sometimes staggering) from innocence to enlightenment while just trying to be a normal, if over-the-top, boy. His mom’s his greatest ally; his dad—VMI, career military with a bark bigger than his bite—doesn’t understand him. But both love him, and he loves them. He’s open to experience wherever his nature leads him, and it leads him not to football (although he excelled in soccer) but to writing, theatre, and men who love him. With "I am not afraid" his mantra, he learns to dance and snap his fingers like Jesse, an outrageously Out senior, and like the black girls that he hung out with, who danced and snapped with defiance—for freedom and intimidation. Read understands that experience and identity mean something, and with beguiling humor he grows from naïve kid into a kind of big brother for youth setting out on the same uneasy journey. His memoir is uproarious, but he never forgets its purpose is not only to entertain but to show gay kids a pride and confidence that vanquishes self-doubt and shame—and to assure them that they too will survive. How I Learned to Snap will be read and loved by liberated adults gay and straight, by families wanting to understand and support their gay children, and by those children themselves who far too often suffer self-hate, loneliness, and rejection.

Snapalicious!

If you enjoy some of Kirk Read's syndicated columns in the gay press, prepare for an equally insightful and amusing voice, but with a sweet anecdotal and utterly Southern charm.Read recounts his teenhood as an ongoing process of learning, suffering and coming out bit by bit, yet he dispenses with self-tortured misery, and offers an uplifting and often hilarious take on the horrors of high school.Read provides an updated version of the teen coming out memoir, with modern updates. It made me wonder how many other new queer kids cut out pictures of Sir Ian McKellan and put them on their lockers. Read recounts his personal activism in rural Virginia. Diet Coke, Casey Donovan, gym teachers, Judas Priest, drama club; "Child," this is a fun and uplifting account with all the style and richness of the best young adult fiction. But it's all true!