But if his book provides any indication, Arceneauxs voice is singular and vital.
Read on below, and buy your copy ofI Cant Date Jesushere.
Ive been stanning for her for 20 years.
Credit: Simon + Schuster
I mean, Im a gay man from Houston, Texas.
I write in the book that people like Janet Jackson and Lil Kim taught me about sex.
[Laughs] But thinking about my body and the feelings I was having, I learned through them.
Its where I could access anything out of my purview.
Im grateful to my parents and I love my family, but we didnt talk about a lot.
This is obviously a very personal book.
I already knew what story I wanted to tell.
I was given a lot of polite nos.
Some people were more candid than others; the word niche was used a lot.
Those were two notions that I rejected.
Around 2015, I finally got an agent.
Even when I first sent the proposal out, it was a lot of polite nos.
There was still a lot of pushback.
Id have two-hour meetings with publishers Youre so great!
For me, I love someone like David Sedaris.
I think its easier for people to consume white gay queer men doing this.
Its different if youre not [white] because so often we consume otherness solely in terms of pathology.
Its like, Im blackandgay, so it must be so awful to be me.
But thankfully were proving that there is.
But I struggled with the reality of my life.
Like, Oh s, you have very traumatic episodes of your life.
Youre not a beam of sunshine, no matter how hard you attempt to be.
Writing about my father did make me cry.
It takes a while for me to cry, and I dont say that in a boastful way.
I wish I was able to emote more.
Since you were mining material from painful memories, did you ever find it hard to follow through?
Its a lot of writing.
Towards the end of summer-fall, I had to download the Freedom app and block myself from the internet.
[Laughs] People actually did do that.
Theyd yell at me, like, Why you outside?
Particularly in my Harlem neighborhood, theyre like, Youre not supposed to be here!
What page you on?
I was like, Youre right.
I should not be here.
[Laughs] I had support.
On social media, youre very tapped into the current political climate and everything surrounding our current president.
Hes all-consuming, I did not want to write about him.
It was suggested by my editor, because I write actively about him.
Why would you not bring him up?
It can be distracting.
There were moments where I needed to turn off MSNBC…. Im very much a political nerd.
It was hard to look away from the freak show.
But I had to turn off my TV.
