Memoir. By a prominent French public intellectual of the left (whom I had not heard of until a friend recommended this book to me). He first made a name for himself with an important biography of Michel Foucault, cemented his reputation by producing some of the foundational scholarly work in gay studies in the French context, and went on to write other books of critical theory. At least some of his work has drawn on his experiences as a gay man, and of course an important part of his personal journey has been his process of coming out and finding ways to live his life in the face of the violences, barriers, and shame imposed by a heterosexist world. But until this book he had largely hidden the fact that he grew up working-class, and an equally important part of his journey had been navigating the violences, barriers, and shame that capitalism imposes on the poor. When his father died, he went back to the town where he grew up and began thinking through the ways in which he and his family experienced class, and this book is the result. He talks about his early life, his family, his schooling, his coming out process. He talks about things like the ways in which class and sexuality intertwine, the role of the education system in maintaining class inequalities, even things like how a mixture of their own racism and the political abandonment of class struggle by the institutions of the (supposed) left in France led his family, in his youth part of the staunchly Communist wing of the French working-class, towards support of the right and far-right in the years after he was estranged from them. A fascinating and well-written book, and a real education on how it is possible to write deftly and insightfully about both an individual life and about the social world that has shaped it.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.