Bookmarked
How the Great Works of Western Literature F*cked Up My Life
by Mark Scarbrough
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Pub Date Sep 23 2021 | Archive Date Nov 03 2021
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Description
A poignant, funny, and timely memoir that marries the intimacy and the sexual identity themes of Boy Erased with My Life in Middlemarch’s interest in the way literature shapes and influences our lives, written in the authentic Southern voice, deeply incisive wit, and with quirky but erudite observations evocative of John Jeremiah Sullivan's Pulphead.
Mark Scarbrough has been searching for something his entire life. Whether it’s his birth mother, true love, his purpose, or his sexual identity, Mark has been on a constant quest to find out who he really is, with the great Western texts as his steadfast companions. As a boy with his head constantly in a book, desperate to discover new worlds, he can hardly distinguish between their plots and his own reality. The child of strict Texan Evangelicals, Mark is taught by the Bible to fervently believe in the rapture and second coming and is thus moved to spend his teen years as a youth preacher in cowboy boots. At college, he discovers William Blake, who teaches him to fall in love with poems, lyrics… and his roommate Alex. Raised to believe that to be gay was to be a sinner, Mark is driven to the brink of madness and attempts suicide. Hoping to avoid books once and for all, Mark joins the seminary, where he meets his wife, Miranda. Neither the seminary nor the marriage stick, and Mark once again finds himself turning to his books for the sense of belonging he continues to seek…
In the tradition of beloved titles like The End of Your Life Book Club, Reading Lolita in Tehran, and The Year of Reading Dangerously, Bookmarked tells a deeply personal story through the lens of literature. An examination of one man’s complicated, near-obsessive relationship with books, and how they shaped, molded, ruined and saved him, Bookmarked is about how we readers stash our secrets between jacket covers and how those secrets ultimately get told in the ways that the books themselves demand.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mark Scarbrough has published 35 cookbooks with his husband, Bruce Weinstein. Bookmarked is the first time he has told his own story through memoir. Scarbrough hosts three successful podcasts, Walking with Dante, the only podcast to slow-walk Dante’s Comedy and Lyric Life, a podcast devoted to the pleasures of lyric poetry. With Bruce Weinstein, he hosts a popular food podcast, Cooking With Bruce and Mark. He also teaches eight-week seminars on Virginia Wolf, William Faulkner, and Toni Morrison and leads an international book group of more than 150 committed readers who work through challenging fiction while zoom-sipping wine.
Mark has been featured on outlets like TODAY - NBC, The View, Good Morning, America, NPR’s Morning Edition, Fox and Friends, and The Martha Stewart Show.
For more information visit www.markscarbrough.com and connect with him on Instagram and Facebook.
A Note From the Publisher
Author is available for interviews, blog tours, autographed tours, autographed book giveaways, contests, and book club discussions.
Advance Praise
"Mark Scarbrough summons a host of greats — Chaucer to Henry James — to show the danger of accepting the stories we are told by our parents, our partners, and even the very authors whose books we treasure. In a brave, singular memoir that is equal parts charm, wit, and withering self-reflection, he recounts his journey through literature and life to find a self that is truly his.”
-Will Schwalbe, New York Times bestselling author of THE END OF YOUR LIFE BOOK CLUB
“Scarbrough’s memoir is a riveting read, a story of his quest for love and home told in galloping prose that takes us through decades, identities, new beginnings, and second chances. It’s a brave delving into his personal history peopled with characters as indelible as those in the literature he reveres until discovering that real life can’t be read or performed. Luminous with grace and compassion, reflection and wit, it’s about who we are once we stop falling for the stories others tell us and those we tell ourselves.”
-Helen Klein Ross, bestselling author of WHAT WAS MINE and THE LATECOMERS
Marketing Plan
· National media campaign including television, print, radio and online coverage
· ARC distribution campaign
· Digital marketing/publicity campaign
· Review campaign targeting media, Amazon and Goodreads reviewers
· Social media outreach
Featured Reviews
Louise G, Reviewer
So interesting to read about life as a gay man being raised by religious fundamentalists, quite apart from the added interest which the role which literature has played in the author’s life. The story is ultimately an uplifting one as we see the author reach a point of self acceptance, but it is a journey with many bumps and bruises along the way. I really enjoyed the self deprecating, open and intelligent writing style.
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