Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

Pleased to include this compelling book in the Activists & Allies themed list of my holiday gift books guide for Zoomer magazine's Books section in December. (The listicle is online at related link.)

Beautiful exploration on oneself! Who knew I could relate so much to someone so different from myself.

Missed Connections is a sweet and heartwarming memoir, told in the form of letters. In 1992, as a university student, Brian Francis placed a personals ad in the local paper. Almost 30 years later, he comes across 13 responses to his ad that he never answered, and decides to pen the answers to them from the perspective of his older, more experienced self. The result is a moving coming-of-age story, about a young man in the process of coming out as gay, dealing with the effects of his conservative small town upbringing, and his earnest and wholehearted search for love.

I'm a huge fan of Francis' novels, and it was a nice jolt of recognition to see some of the themes and events from his fiction explored as fact here. A letter that talks about his struggles with body image and the social stigma from being overweight is a nice call-back to his young adult novel Fruit; there's even a passing reference in the letter to imagining his nipples being able to talk, which, of course, is the entire premise behind Fruit. Some of the letters detail his complicated relationship with his mom -- a letter reveals how she made his coming out all about her in rather dramatic fashion, and yet a later letter talks about how they reconnected before she died, in that highly emotional, complex way that isn't quite a happy ending, yet still brims with love. Long-time readers of Francis will recognize shades of his Stone Angel-like novel Natural Order, and its captivating, complicated protagonist, Joyce. Francis has always demonstrated a gift for writing multilayered, textured, practically living and breathing human beings in his fiction, and seeing some of the elements from those stories from the perspective of the author himself recounting his life, adds even more layers of nuance and emotional depth.

Francis also creates an intriguing cast of characters through the letter exchanges. While the original 13 letters form the basis for the book, the author clarifies in the afterword that he has fictionalized aspects of the letters, removing identifying details and making the text his own, while still trying to be true to the personalities and styles of the letter writers. (To be honest, this made me feel better, because I was somewhat uncomfortable with publishing the original letters as-is, without the writers' consent, no matter how unlikely it would be to actually identify any of them.) Possibly as a result of Francis' hand, the letter writers all come across as earnest as he does.

The letters, then, are less one-way responses than dialogues, and while each letter-response pairing is its own self-contained vignette, there's a central theme of uncertainty and raw vulnerability that runs throughout. We get a sense, not just of the author himself navigating the complex world of dating as a gay man in the 90s, before same-sex marriage was legalized, and in a small town where homosexuality still made people uncomfortable, but also of the 13 other gay men navigating that world alongside him. There's a letter writer who asks not for a response, but rather for a meet-up in a public place within a five minute window on a particular date. Within the strict confines of that letter writer's request is a very real desire for plausible deniability, and very careful planning to create means of escape at the slightest hint that things won't go as planned. Another letter writer provides the author with a code, requesting that Francis post a new ad with his phone number written in that code. Again, the desire for secrecy, and the lengths to which this writer goes to try to guarantee his safety, are telling. Such letters colour the readings of even the more lighthearted letters, and as the letters gradually build on each other, they form an increasingly more complex picture.

Perhaps most telling are the letters that prompt Francis to reveal his own vulnerabilities. In response to an early letter from a man who jokes about being good-looking, Francis admits he's actually seen the writer on campus, and the writer is indeed as handsome as he promises. Unfortunately, the writer's good looks trigger Francis' insecurities about his own, and as Francis explains why he never quite gathered the courage to respond to this letter, you can feel the regret and the compassion he feels for his younger self, and it all just makes you want to give his younger self a hug.

I first heard of Missed Connections when it was a stage show called Box 4901 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in early 2020. I remember wanting to watch it then, partly because I'm a fan of Francis' writing, and also partly because I'm a fan of some of the performers reading the letters (Jeff Ho, who had a one-man play Trace at Factory Theatre, and who played Ophelia in Why Not Theatre's Prince Hamlet; and Colin Asuncion, who competed in The Great Canadian Baking Show). I never quite got to see the stage show, so I'm beyond glad that McClelland and Stewart published the book version. It's a beautiful memoir, and one that prompts us to reflect: given the chance, what would we say to our younger selves?

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Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for an egalley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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This review will go live on my blog on Wed, Sept 29, at 8 am ET.

3.5 stars rounded up. Structuring a memoir around letters seemed like a wonderful idea, and a wonderful idea it was. In execution, it came off more like a series of essays, and I liked the book better when I took each of the 14 chapters as its own being rather than as contributing to a central narrative (though it did succeed as a central narrative in respects).

Brian Francis is in his early 50s as he writes, reflecting on his life growing up as a gay man who came out in Canada in the 1990s. The thing I loved best about this memoir was the perspective it offered on the previous (to me) generation of queer society. The fact that the memoir is built around the author's placement of a coded personal ad in the newspaper already sets the stage for what's not familiar to my generation: we have apps, where you can filter by orientation. Brian had classifieds.

The author reflects on these changes, particularly in an essay where he reflects on a reply sent to him by a retiree—Brian being a college student at the time—where Brian speculates on his own previous generation. The letter writer stood out by specifying he was HIV-negative; Brian reflects that, though HIV was very much a going concern in the '90s, there were more tools and awareness (in Canada) available by that time so that it felt like a different kind of threat than it would have been to the generation before. The author also reflects, attached to this, on how his gay nephew had something Brian himself didn't: an out gay uncle, a role model in the family.

These generational musings were my favourite material in the memoir, in part because the memoir itself is arguably a testament to what was possible for Brian's generation that was much less possible for the generation before. That's what makes this memoir so valuable: these are our forebears. They laid the groundwork for us. Someday we will be forebears, too, and it'll be us passing on tales of our generation. I am glad to know and understand Canadian queer history better for having read this, and I'd recommend it to anyone who cares about same.

That said, the book as a unit didn't always work for me. As mentioned, it worked better as essays than memoir in places. I enjoyed the hell out of the first and last thirds, and I especially enjoyed the last essay, which departed from the mold and gave us the author's two most important "gay" memories he wanted to instruct his younger self to look forward to. The middle of the book loses some of this momentum and energy, and—while reflection on the author's parents is understandable in a memoir—this sometimes felt navel-gazey in a way that didn't always feel relevant or very compelling to read.

The way the essays didn't follow a single narrative timeline meant it took until getting to the end to feel like the puzzle pieces came together to form a picture, but the book ends on a wonderful hopeful note, and I won't soon forget what I learned from reading this. This relatively quick and easy read is well worth picking up.

This was meh.
I don't know what it is with me not enjoying books lately or with much difficulty.
Once again expected more to come out of this and the writing, the storytelling of the memoir (not that there is a storyline but recount of events through letters if that makes sense) everything was just not for me.
This is most like a case of "it's me not you" this book feels like an ex with whom things are just not meshing and you were getting along better when you knew less about each other if that makes sense.
Anyhow, I don't want to spend time elaborating why this did not work, just don't have the energy and I believe people will do it justice, I don't want to make remarks about a memoir as it is someone's life.
I have a hard time with non-fiction & since the writing was not for me this was a flop.
A LOT of people loved it so, check their reviews and see if you would enjoy it, I personally did not vibe with it but that's a me thing and doesn't mean you won't !
2.5/5 stars
Bookarina

I haven't read "Fruit" but I have had it recommended to me quite a few times. I'm happy to have been given the opportunity to read this book. I always love epistolary works, and what a beautiful way for this life to unfold on the pages of this book.

Brian Francis writes a series of letters to replies to a personal ad he placed in his youth. His answers to the letters are three decades late. They run the gamut of emotions. This book is like a biography 30 years in the making. There is sadness, humor and Francis also tells a bit of the history of the gay community.

All of this is summed up in bite-sized letters that are heartfelt and beautiful.

Loved this.

Missed Connections by Brian Francis is a deeply personal and extraordinarily moving reflection on a life lived, and a longing for connection that never leaves us.

Brian, a university student in 1992, decides to place a personal ad in the hopes of finding a connection. Thirteen of the responses to this ad went unanswered until thirty years later when Brian decides to respond to them from a very different perspective on his life's journey. What follows is a fascinating reflection on the shifting of self-acceptance and personal worth, and the evolving experience of being a gay man over the past three decades. It is a fascinating journey.

As someone who grew up quite geographically close to the author's childhood home, and was also at university in the earliest part of the 1990s, I was drawn in by the nostalgia that Brian's memories conjured up, and found that this memoir certainly resonated as a result.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for an ARC.