Kiss the Scars on the Back of My Neck: Stories

✍ Scribed by Joe Okonkwo

• Book ID: 110670683
• Publisher: Bywater Books
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 257 KB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN-13: 9781612942049
• ASIN: B095M8CQXT

✦ Synopsis

Independent Publishers Awards (IPPY) Silver Medalist in LGBT+ Fiction

The eclectic stories in this collection are bound by the threads of desire in its many forms, above all, the desire for love and a place of safety in a world where being Black and gay can thwart the fulfillment of that longing. The characters are complex, driven, difficult, and even, at times, unsympathetic, but always compelling. In other words: fully rounded human beings living complicated lives.
A proud Black woman who escaped her rural, impoverished town returns after the collapse of her marriage and faces the scorn of those she left behind. A middle-aged gay man finds his loneliness temporarily relieved by the arrival of a stray cat. An unhappily married woman becomes enmeshed in her bisexual husband's attempt to create a ménage à trois with a much younger man. A 16-year-old boy discovers the power of his sexuality when he embarks upon a dangerous seduction. Two Black men, one mature and rich, the other young and struggling, are drawn into a contentious affair by their shared love of opera. The legendary blues singer Glady Bentley crashes up against the barriers of race and gender when she gets caught up in a police raid.
Kiss the Scars on the Back of My Neck is a masterful collection of stories by a gifted writer who has fully hit his stride.