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A review by 2treads
A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
– Memory, it seems, isn't always material out of which to make art. Sometimes remembering refuses us. Sometimes I'm a shoreline the water of memory drags its palm across. –
Belcourt's memoir is riveting, dripping with vulnerability, identity, family, queer desire and experiences; history of land, people, trauma, and ongoing colonial violence.
There is a unique flow to his prose, which melds poetics seamlessly with memory, observations, and interrogations. It is impossible to ignore the resonance of his style.
– To be queer and NDN is paradoxical in that one is born into a past to which he is also unintelligible. I wasn't born to love myself everyday. –
In this short memoir, Belcourt uses language to not only interrogate desire, existence, expression, experiences, racism, love, and suicide; he also interrogates language, its beauty and violence in the ways it is used and constructed.
...to confess to desire in a different direction was to expose oneself to existential risk, among other types.
Belcourt's memoir is riveting, dripping with vulnerability, identity, family, queer desire and experiences; history of land, people, trauma, and ongoing colonial violence.
There is a unique flow to his prose, which melds poetics seamlessly with memory, observations, and interrogations. It is impossible to ignore the resonance of his style.
– To be queer and NDN is paradoxical in that one is born into a past to which he is also unintelligible. I wasn't born to love myself everyday. –
In this short memoir, Belcourt uses language to not only interrogate desire, existence, expression, experiences, racism, love, and suicide; he also interrogates language, its beauty and violence in the ways it is used and constructed.
...to confess to desire in a different direction was to expose oneself to existential risk, among other types.
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicide and Suicidal thoughts