In 'Blackouts,' Justin Torres shines a light on silenced LGBTQ history

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Arts, Books

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2023

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

The new novel and National Book Awards finalist by Justin Torres, Blackouts, blurs the line between fiction and history to bring marginalized queer narratives to life. In today's episode, Torres speaks with NPR's Ari Shapiro about how he was inspired by the work of lesbian archivist and researcher Jan Gay — but when he hit a dead end trying to learn more about her, he used fiction to fill in the gaps. Torres also discusses blacking out text to get rid of the pathologization of LGBTQ people in testimonials, and finding new meaning in the remaining words.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. You know by now that we are highlighting books featured on Books We Love, NPR's Guide, to our favorite books this year. And one of the more vexing books on the list is Justin Torres's blackouts. It's not a straightforward read, intentionally, you know, as it exposes the holes in our history
0:22.1	when it comes to the life and accomplishments of queer people. In this interview with NPR's
0:26.8	R. Shapiro, Torres talks about how frustrating it is, that all these queer people have had
0:31.7	their stories disappeared and how writing this book was a way of mimicking that frustration.
0:37.2	That's after the break.
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0:52.7	T's and Cs apply.
0:54.3	On Fridays, the 1A podcast is all about helping you cut through the info fog and get to what's
1:00.2	important in the news.
1:01.9	Close out the week with us on our Friday News Roundup.
1:05.1	We're from reporters who've been embedded with the biggest news of the week.
1:09.2	Join us every week for the Friday News Roundup. Listen to the
1:11.9	1A podcast from NPR and WAMU. Which histories do we share and teach and which ones do we ignore or
1:21.3	hide? Politicians and school boards are debating these questions all over the country,
1:25.7	and these questions are also at the heart of the new
1:28.2	novel, Blackouts. The author, Justin Torres, became a breakout literary star for his first novel,
1:34.1	We The Animals. And now Blackouts has just been named a finalist for the National Book Awards.
1:39.1	Justin Torres, welcome to all things considered. And congratulations.
1:41.8	Thanks so much. I'm delighted to be here. I haven't been
1:45.1	able to stop thinking about this book since I read it. You weave together fiction and history,
	...

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