SAY NEPHEW

A richly detailed, thought-provoking celebration of American independence.

Pfau remembers his beloved uncle Bruce as a colorful character whose history, stories, advice, laughter, and revelry proved vastly formative to the author growing up. As his father’s eldest sibling, Bruce was a Vietnam War veteran who’d come out gay as a teenager in Memphis and who soon branched out to pursue a writing career and—with an “undeniable Whitmanesque swagger”—a full queer life in New York City. When, as a teen, the author realized Bruce was really the only one to whom he could confess his own burgeoning queerness, his uncle became an influential mentor, guiding him into adulthood with positivity, confidence, and immense flair. Pfau’s uncle encouraged him to read voraciously and to take notes in a journal. He also preached about proper hospitality and gratitude, which serve the author in adulthood. Bruce was a man with a vibrant affinity for life stories and literature—reading Edith Wharton by candlelight in the bathtub—and he wore cowboy boots for every occasion. As a colorful raconteur, Pfau writes, Bruce animatedly re-enacted the tall tales of his youth. The author shares these still-lucid memories and lessons from his early years with Bruce. Through referential nods to classic authors, books, and queer theorists, Pfau criticizes the misguided interpretations that gay uncles receive as “guncles,” as the target of jokes. He writes, “The gay uncle has become practically a cliché.” Instead, the author celebrates queer uncles for their often “unmarried and childless” perspectives, easily relatable to younger generations of nephews who are hesitant to share divergent attitudes and secrets with rigid parents.

A fond, uniquely crafted appreciation of the myriad wonders of unclehood.