A review by reliures
Blackouts by Justin Torres

4.25

Queer literary fiction following a young unnamed man nicknamed Nene, attending to Juan, a dying man in an abandoned institution in the middle of the desert. Connecting through the work of Jan Gay, an undervalued queer author and activist from the early 20th century, their rediscovery of her work and life is intercepted by archival documents and flashbacks of their personal experiences as gay men. 

Important themes on historical and scientific erasure and manipulation, rediscovering and passing on knowledge, mental illness, queer history and culture, sexuality and identity, latinidad, etc are touched upon in this book so it was an enriching experiences for me in addition to discover unknown figures of queer history. 

Structurally it’s not a linear progression, but a series of vignettes depicting either the protagonists life or historical events. 

The writing style also felt very eclectic in style and quite experimental with the use of cinematic screenplay-like writing or pages with just a few lines of dialogue, with an almost surreal feel to it. The desert and abandoned setting also added to this psychedelic atmosphere.

With the addition of real reproduced documents (some with redacted text) , this books more than flirts with other genres like historical fiction and non fiction, plenty of other cultural and literary references too. 

The heavy use of mixed media and eclectic writing style, in addition to the non linear structure, lack of resolved end, sometimes clunky dialogue made for a very challenging read, as it sometimes pulled me out of the story and not connected to the characters. 

Despite some personal reservations on the story itself and the structure, the themes really makes this an important and enriching book for any queer readers.