These episodes include a childhood marked by poverty, abuse, and racism and a young adulthood fueled by drug addiction. Structured around the poem 'We Real Cool'-Gwendolyn Brooks’s ode to black youth- Broome laments that 'whatever it was I already knew by ten years old that I didn’t have it.' Throughout, Broome recounts a lifetime of failing to conform to the ideal image of manhood and the pressure of ''being a man' to the exclusion of all other things.' Broome’s narrative cleverly centers around a present-day bus ride, where observations of fellow passengers and passing neighborhoods takes his memories back to episodes from his past.
In this powerful memoir, Broome recounts growing up Black and gay in a Rust Belt town during the late 1970s and early 80s.
