"Blackouts" is Justin Torres's latest work, meticulously crafted over more than a decade. The novel unfolds as a poignant conversation between two queer men hailing from different generations, presenting a narrative that transcends conventional forms. Drawing inspiration from oral traditions, the book reframes itself within this context, offering a reclamation and repurposing of the spoken word.

At its core, the novel places the friendship between these two men in the spotlight, their dialogues serving as a form of cultural transmission—a passing of knowledge and experience from one generation to the next. In essence, it serves as a reinterpretation of queer history, dismantling established notions of identity and sexuality while delving into the construction of these concepts.

"Blackouts" emerges as a deeply intertextual piece, where sharp and personal dialogues take centre stage. The narrative exudes a rare blend of generosity and tenderness, creating an exquisite exploration of the complexities of queer existence. The title alludes to the redactions commonly employed in blackout poetry, a technique skillfully woven throughout the volume.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I found Blackouts a bit difficult to get into initially, but it was an incredible read. Justin Torres is brilliant!

This book is incredible. I received an advanced reader copy and could not put it down. I will definitely reread it, and the only book I think I’ve ever reread is A Tale of Two Cities (for school). Blackouts is not only disturbingly relevant. It feels right for this time of winter, to me; for this season of heaviness, strife, and war that is happening around us. It is structurally inventive, historically rooted with artistic license, and so deeply felt. If you’re queer, or know a queer/LGBTQ2IA+ adult, and you/they are looking for a bit of a toothy, achey muscle in a good way feeling kind of read to chew on— this is it.

Rich, layered writing. I love the way Torres works with erasure and weaves in real events (Jan Gay! The Sex Variants book!) from LGBT history. Luminous and provocative storytelling. Torres is so damn smart. I wish I'd written this!

This book delves into the lives of real individuals, weaving their experiences into a fictionalized narrative that appears authentic. The story unfolds as a young gay man embarks on a journey to the Palace to reunite with Juan, an older gay man facing his final days. Their connection dates back to a meeting in a mental health facility a decade earlier. As the young man, referred to as "Nene" by Juan, cares for his ailing friend, they exchange life stories.

Luis, the protagonist, is revealed to possess a book about Sexual Deviants, its pages mostly obscured, with only a few words remaining visible. These surviving words, when read together on a page, create a poetic composition. While the book itself is real, the life imagined by the author for one of its researchers, Jan Gay, is entirely fictional. Thus, the narrative unfolds through three distinct life stories, accompanied by photos of the obscured poems and additional, at times explicit, images that subtly suggest the story's authenticity.

At its core, the book highlights the profound friendship between the two men, portraying their conversations as a form of cultural immersion—an exchange of knowledge and experiences. The narrative can be interpreted as a reinterpretation of queer history, challenging historical perspectives on identity and sexuality while exploring the construction of these concepts. Simultaneously, it delves into themes of love, friendship, aging, and family. The dialogue is both sharp and deeply personal, contributing to the nuanced exploration of the characters' lives.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An absolutely stunning and beautiful read. So deserving of all of its recent recognition.
I was so moved by these characters - the story was told with such honesty and beauty. Historical details and visual elements added so much to the story.
This is a book that I will cherish for a long time - a stunning read and highlight of the year,

Blackouts is as ambitious and intelligent as it is raw and dirty. It's a story within a story. At first a mystery within a story then a history within a story. It's about stories and the many different ways people can tell stories (through a scientific study, through blackout poetry, through made up movies, etc.).

I can't really explain the plot of this book, it's one of those literary fictions that's mainly people talking about their lives. But this book is art. It needs to be experienced.

A book that needs more than one reading. Hard to wrap your head around initially, and even harder to describe. It's bold and audacious, although some of its meta/autobiographical qualities feel a bit deflating towards the end. Still, its best moments are quite powerful, and you can't help admiring Torres for trying something unique and personal.

As of November 10, 2023, Justin Torres has been shortlisted for the National Book Award for this dizzying, revelatory, hilarious, and touching, collage of homosexual life, history, and bigotry. Torres has fashioned this examination of how our stories are told, and how we're often erased (blacked out) from the public and popular history. He uses Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns as a way to approach the material, and various erasures from the book’s interview subjects are included within the narrative.

Even within the story of Juan and "Nene," we learn so much about gay history and how that gay history has been suppressed. Torres pays particular attention to the work of Jan Gay whose work on Sex Variants was crucial, but Gay's work was used but not attributed to her. In creating a portrait of Gay, Torres connects this to how Nene and Juan create stories about lives. The novel repeatedly asks the question, "How do we maintain our histories in a world that seeks to silence and legislate us out of existence?"

In the place known as the Palace, Nene and Juan tell versions of their lives (a la Puig's Kiss of the Spiderwoman) as if their lives are films or part of a. They want to be the director/controller of the stories. As Juan grows sicker, his ability to tell a coherent story leaves him, and he tries to put together a mishmash of elements into a personal narrative. The result is heartbreaking and highlights how many gay men and women have left no record of their lives; or their lives have been edited out of society's narrative. Torres's "Blackouts" is a stunning fiction of real-life people and events told through the words and visions of two fictional character who stand in for all the men and women who have been erased from history.

Justin Torres's latest novel, "Blackouts," is nothing short of a revelation. It stands as a contemporary masterpiece that boldly challenges the conventional norms of contemporary literature, pushing the boundaries into the realm of experimental fiction. The narrative takes us to an enigmatic place known as the Palace, where the qualities and location remain undefined. Here, we follow the mental journey of a young queer man, simply referred to as "nene," who tends to a dying friend from his past, Juan Gay. Both nene and Juan are queer, and their poignant connection centers around a unique project: the book "Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns."

This book consists of firsthand accounts collected in the early twentieth century from LGBTQ+ subjects by the queer researcher Jan Gay. The pages of the book are adorned with black marker redactions, obscuring much of the text, but beneath these redactions, the subjects of the study have stories to tell. As Juan Gay waits for the inevitable, he shares some of his own stories with nene and, by extension, the reader, attempting to defiantly resist the erosion of memory and the passage of time.

Justin Torres ingeniously employs text redactions, photographs, and illustrations to dissect the conventions of history and narrative. "Blackouts" goes beyond the boundaries of traditional fiction to reveal the hidden stories, the obscured truths, and the blurred lines between memory and invention.

This is a 5* must read!

This book is staggeringly good. I can't recommend it highly enough. Thoughtful, funny, sexy, smart, melancholic. It's formally experimental but not inaccessible. It's queer as hell, but will speak to a wide audience. There is so much to shout about with this novel!

Pensive, unique, and strong-feeling, this book will be beloved by fans who are already fans of Torres, but I think can really appeal to new readers as well. There's a sense of history, loyalty, and family stories, but family extends to community, neighbors, and acquaintances who affect us. It's also a story of medical abuse, evil science, and institutionalized oppression. It's a love story, too, though perhaps none of the characters would admit to it. Beautiful, readable, and fast.

Scattered words, scattered memories, blank spaces.

Torres keeps company with Juan and his Nene. He stretches time, eking out the moments Juan has left whilst journeying back in time and visiting memories.

Through the fragments he left not blacked out he offers another narrative for the homosexual experience. By the blacking out he removes a lot of the negative narrative but is left only with a few words, fragments that are left after the erasure and the deterioration of memory.

His choice to use different media did not work well for me here. I read this on my kindle and so lost a lot because I could not see the blacked out photos well enough not to bring me out of the experience. I think that a large hardback would give the best experience since a paperback would struggle with it's small format.

One of the best books I’ve read this year. The relationship is so tenderly wrought, the structure is fascinating, and the blackouts add an additional dimension to the text. Brilliant all around.

This novel is brilliant and biting while managing to contain a deep and tender relationship at its core. While much of this went over my head, I appreciate Torres' boldness and brilliance and will be recommend this unique novel for years to come.

A young man tends to a dying soul in the desert in a place called the Palace. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator exchange stories—memories of their youth surrounding love, joy, and family.

In this trailblazing work, Torres emphasizes the importance of own-voice storytelling and brilliantly reclaims queer history through "editing" published texts & images. The use of layered narration is another standout in BLACKOUTS. There are moments when the inner-most narrative refers back to the outer-most storyline, and I find myself absolutely mindblown by Torres' brilliance.

To read BLACKOUTS is less like reading but more similar to admiring an ingenious artwork. BLACKOUTS is experimental, unique in its style, and requires some big brain energy from the readers. I loved it, but stylistically, it will be a hit or miss for readers.

this book is full of fun little shoutouts to famous 20th century social scientists. it’s also a great exploration of the pathologization of queerness and how that relates to scientific racism.

Thank you Farrar, Strauss and Giroux and NetGalley for the ARC!

Though short, this book will stay with you a long time. The prose is beautiful, and the creativity in playing with the text of a real book makes Torres’ writing stand out. At times, I struggled to connect with Juan or our narrator called Nene, but other times the stories they told made me hold my breath, so engrossed was I.

This is not my usual type of novel, but I wanted to step outside my comfort zone and challenge myself with something new. I am glad I did.

I became a fan of Justin Torres's work from the very first line of WE THE ANIMALS, and was thrilled to be given an opportunity to read his newest project, BLACKOUTS. (Thank you to Netgalley, the publishers, and the author.)

I hesitate to call BLACKOUTS a novel, simply because it defies so many novelistic conventions, It is equal parts history lesson (tracing the history of early lesbian activist Jan Gay), auto-fiction, imagined history, pictorial and poetic collage, and fictional fever dream.

There were times when I found the writing to be fully immersive, and other times when it felt a bit academic. I also feel like the ebook was not fully conducive to the book's non-textual elements (photos, illustrations, and the namesake blacked out passages from the "Sex Variants" textbook). I plan to purchase the physical book to remedy this.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of this book, and I will read whatever Torres writes next.

Blackouts by Justin Torres is achingly gorgeous. It's hard to believe it's written as fiction when the characters and details are so vivid and true. Historical references are woven together with poetic imagery, the entire range of human emotion is represented through intimate exchanges, childhood memories, and the raw, human experiences of suffering, survival, and making sense of it all.

I felt as though I was zooming in and out, micro and macro, seeing the human experience on the individual and societal levels. The beauty of the author's words made the journey seem gentle and flowing, reflective and insightful, even when the details of the story were harsh or oppressive. Through tales of people studied for the Sex Variants book and glimpses into the lives our our main characters, we see how connected we are as individuals to the whole, how our identities and beliefs about ourselves are shaped by these collective understandings that are so often based on bias, ignorance, and fear.

I'm really left in awe. Books like these make me feel so grateful for the author and their gifts. I will be reading this one again, soon.