The Day I Stopped Being Pretty

ISBN-13: 9781593091231 / Angielski / Miękka / 2007 / 224 str.

Rodney Lofton

Opis

The Day I Stopped Being Pretty, chronicles the life of a young, black gay male who awakes and finds himself in the emergency room after a failed suicide attempt. After regaining consciousness, he begins to reflect on the events of his life that led him to attempting to take his life. His story is told in gritty and raw flashback, focusing on the men who shaped him into the man he has become, beginning with the first man he ever loved, his father.

His story addresses, the discovery of his burgeoning sexuality, his life filled with low-self esteem, which leads him to seek love in the arms of many to compensate for the love he never received from his father. During the course of his life, we see his battle with substance abuse, physical abuse and sexual activities that lead to his eventual HIV diagnosis.

After he shares the path that led him to his own self-destruction, he realizes in the face of death, the love that he has sought in many others, has always been in the one place he never looked, within himself.

This raw and gritty story spans twenty-seven years of the lead character, as he faces racism, homophobia, rape and coping with being HIV positive. It is a story that shows the face of growing up black, living gay and loving positive. The Day I Stopped Being Pretty is one that shows triumph over adversity and the ability to find the love we all search for, self love.

O autorze

Rodney Lofton began his career as a freelance writer for Spice magazine. His writing has also appeared in The Malebox, an African American gay publication, where he wrote articles on current topics in gay black culture. He became a speaker in the HIV/AIDS community after beating the odds of his own HIV diagnosis and has served as Keynote Speaker and requested facilitator by the New Jersey World AIDS Day Celebration, the Ryan White National Youth Conference, the United States Conference on AIDS, and countless others. He is the author of his memoir The Day I Stopped Being Pretty and the novel No More Tomorrows.