Each day leading up to the April 16 announcement of the Minnesota Book Awards, and in collaboration with community editors from the award-winning Saint Paul Almanac, we highlight one of the thirty-two finalists. Today we feature 2016 General Nonfiction finalist:
No House to Call My Home: Love, Family, and Other Transgressions by Ryan Berg
Published by Public Affairs Books (Nation Books/Perseus Books Group)
Category Sponsor: The Waterbury Group at Morgan Stanley
Summary:
In this lyrical debut, Ryan Berg immerses readers in the gritty, dangerous, and shockingly underreported world of homeless LGBTQ teens in New York. As a caseworker in a group home for disowned LGBTQ teenagers, Berg witnessed the struggles, fears, and ambitions of these disconnected youth as they resisted the pull of the street, tottering between destruction and survival. Focusing on the lives and loves of eight unforgettable youth, No House to Call My Home traces their efforts to break away from dangerous sex work and cycles of drug and alcohol abuse, and, in the process, to heal from years of trauma.
An Excerpt from No House to Call My Home:
“When Gena, the 401’s house manager, hired me in May 2004, she said there was a quick learning curve. No time to leisurely figure things out. ‘Walk in with confidence,’ she said. ‘The residents can sniff out fear. If you don’t adapt quickly they’ll go for the jugular. Whatever you’re self-conscious about,’ she said, gesturing to my bald head to serve as example, ‘they’ll find it and they’ll use it.’
“It wasn’t until Ms. Celeste had me go to Benny’s room on one of my first days on the job to wake him up for school that I realized where my insecurity lied. Benny didn’t lift his head from his pillow as he muttered, ‘Go away, tourist.’ His words shot me outside of myself. I saw this bald, white guy in a dilapidated house in Queens surrounded by kids of color and wondered, ‘What am I doing here?’”
Author Bio:
Ryan Berg is a Lambda Literary Foundation Emerging Writers Fellow and received the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Nonfiction Literature. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Local Knowledge and the Sun. Berg has been awarded artist residencies from the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. He is a social worker now living in Minneapolis.
Ryan Berg is on Twitter.
Reviews:
“An important and revelatory read.” —The Rumpus
“Just as there is a school-to-prison pipeline in this country, so too, this grim report reveals, is there a home-to-homeless paradigm for many young people. Life on the streets is tough. It is tougher still for LGBT—or, as writer, activist, and former counselor Berg would have it, LGBTQ, the last element meaning “questioning”—kids, who constitute as much as 40 percent of the population of young homeless people.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Stories of queer homeless youths of color told with humility, self-scrutiny, intelligence, and love. It is a brave and conscientious book, an important book.” —The Brooklyn Rail
“Impossible to ignore.” —New York Journal of Books
“A moving account of the many challenges and difficulties facing LGBTQ foster youth in New York City and how the system has failed them.” —Shelf Awareness
“Strong literary rhythm. Brave, honest, mess-of-a-guy narrator maintains a vulnerable and very honest relationship with his readers. The subject he writes of is alienating but the narrator does a great job to create a community with the reader, hence great audience appeal.”—Minnesota Book Awards Preliminary Round Judge
Watch:
SELCO librarian Jennifer Harveland reviews No House to Call My Home: Love, Family, and Other Transgressions
The evening features a Preface Reception with complimentary passed wine and cash bar, author meet-and-greet, book sales and signing; the Awards Ceremony with live music, celebrity presenters, artisan cheese plates and breads, complimentary wine and lemonade, with emcee Stephanie Curtis of MPR; and the Epilogue After-Party with complimentary champagne, sumptuous desserts, and additional live music. Tickets now on sale, or click here for more information.
Today’s winner: Sara Lindquist. (We’ll be in touch via email, and arrange getting the book to you!)
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