Fire in Every Direction: A Memoir

In this poignant autobiography, queer Palestinian writer and activist Baconi (Hamas Contained) tenderly explores identity, nationality, and family history. In the prologue, Baconi uncovers a box of mementos that includes letters from a childhood friend named Ramzi, with whom he fell in love. From there, he traces his family’s harrowing migrations from Palestine to Lebanon to Jordan in the late 20th century, fleeing violence with every move. At the core of the account is Baconi’s adolescent sexual awakening and his struggle to reconcile his identity as a gay man with the expectations of a culture and family that marginalized him. The “exile of the authentic self,” as he puts it, becomes a powerful lens through which he examines both personal and political exile. In one especially affecting passage, Baconi recounts moving from London to study in Ramallah as an adult, only to find that everything he once knew of the city is gone, effectively erasing a place of solace from his emotional map. Bolstered, however, by Ramzi’s letters and the hard work of self-acceptance, Baconi cobbles together a convincing message of hope, asserting that “in the most abject of spaces, in the queerest of selves, beauty abounds.” With lyrical prose and shrewd narrative instincts, Baconi transmutes hardship into comfort. Readers will find it difficult not to be moved. Agent: Bill Clegg, Clegg Agency. (Nov.)