Missed Connections

A Memoir in Letters Never Sent

De: Brian Francis

Narrado por: Brian Francis

An entertaining and moving memoir about coming out, looking inward, and the search for connection, inspired by the responses to a personal ad. A Loan Stars Top 10 Pick of the Month and one of Daily Hive's 10 Essential LGBTQ2+ Books to Celebrate Pride.

In 1992, Brian Francis placed a personal ad in a local newspaper. He was a 21-year-old university student, still very much in the closet, and looking for love. He received 25 responses, but there were 13 letters that went unanswered and spent years tucked away, forgotten, inside a cardboard box. Now, nearly 30 years later, and at a much different stage in his life, Brian has written replies to those letters. Using the letters as a springboard to reflect on all that has changed for him as a gay man over the past three decades, Brian's responses cover a range of topics, including body image, aging, desire, the price of secrecy, and the courage it takes to be unapologetically yourself.

Missed Connections is an openhearted, irreverent, often hilarious, and always bracingly honest examination of the pieces of our past we hold close - and all that we lose along the way. It is also a profoundly affecting meditation on how Brian's generation, the queer people who emerged following the generation hit hardest by AIDS, were able to step out from the shadows and into the light. In an age when the promise of love is just a tap or swipe away, this extraordinary memoir reminds us that our yearning for connection and self-acceptance is timeless.

©2021 Brian Francis (P)2021 McClelland & Stewart

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Witty, warm, and smart, Brian Francis’s memoir packs an emotional punch through breathtakingly beautiful storytelling. The personal tales in Missed Connections give way to a time-travelling work in which the past informs the present and the present bears witness to the past. At once an intimate narrative and a record of a moment in gay history, this is a necessary, courageous, and deliciously acerbic book.” (Kamal Al-Solaylee, author of Intolerable and Brown)

“What if you could revisit your past and heal lifelong wounds? In Missed Connections, Brian Francis does just that, casting a forgiving and much wiser eye on his younger self. A funny, moving and keenly observed chronicle of gay life from the 1990s to the present, Missed Connections is a love letter to paths both taken and not.” (Rachel Giese, author of Boys: What It Means to Become a Man)

“Brian Francis has written a powerful and moving memoir laced with humour and melancholy. It broke my heart, lifted me up, and left me enthralled. This is a book we all need to read.” (Terry Fallis, author of The Best Laid Plans and Operation Angus)