Jens Mettuch

Here's what I wrote somewhere else (and still think is accurate): "It's an immersive tale about a small and obscure gay guy from California who's convicted of a murder in Canada and sentenced to imprisonment, but to me it's more about how big historical forces, like entrenched discrimination, can shape one's life and their eventual fate. The convict who speaks through the pages shows us how his choices were limited by all kinds of things, from poverty to his parents, and how his limited options in the 1940s-1980s played out in a disastrous way. It's the kind of book that makes you very glad to have missed a historical era that likely would have caused more harm than good if you happened to have some kind of identity (as detriment by gender, sexuality, or skin colour) that was regarded as a handicap or offence."