Isaac’s Song

Black (Don’t Cry for Me) offers a moving chronicle of a grieving queer Black man reflecting on growing up in Chicago. Having endured his mother’s death years earlier and now, in the 2000s, the loss of his father, from whom he was estranged, Isaac finds himself at 35 unfocused and coping poorly. A therapist encourages him to write down his life story as a means to move forward. Retracing his youth in the 1980s, when he cowered from his abusive and homophobic father and dealt with his mother’s alcoholism, Isaac makes peace with his regrets and rejects the shame he internalized over his sexuality. He then turns to his college years, when he experimented with dating men, and considers how after graduation, while reeling from the Rodney King beating and the AIDS epidemic, a degree couldn’t save him from the pain of racism and the danger of being queer. The writing is lyrical (Isaac adored the “syrupy cadence” of his mother’s voice), and the character portrait takes on greater dimension as Isaac struggles with forgiving his late father. The author’s fans will love this tale of hard-won self-acceptance. (Jan.)