FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: First-of-its-kind memoir crosses the globe to depict American and Armenian queer life, Releasing June 2, 2024

Kahului, Hawaii, May 1, 2024 – Leap, the debut memoir from writer Brent Love, will be published by Manuscripts Press on June 2, 2024. 

In Leap Love shares a globe-crossing coming-out journey that starts on a disastrous night when Love comes out to his parents in a small Texas town. Three days later, unmoored from his family but unwilling to give up on his dream, Brent enters the Peace Corps with the incredible task of navigating an unfamiliar land, a new language, and a new identity as a gay man in post-Soviet Armenia. 

“I never imagined that coming out would coincide with my leaving for Peace Corps. And then, I was assigned to the oldest Christian country in the world and placed at the world’s largest Christian nonprofit.” - Brent Love

As he grapples with a religious past, including studying ministry at Abilene Christian University, and a thrilling but intimidating queer future, Love finds himself immersed in a culture he’d never imagined. Love moves in with Armenian families, celebrates his first Nor Tari, hunts mushrooms in the mountain mists, and dances in Yerevan at his first gay bar, all while hoping for and trying to find romance, even love. When his Peace Corps commitment takes an unexpected turn, Love must decide what matters to him most and where he thinks he belongs. 

“The night I came out was one of the worst of my life, not just for me, but for my parents, too. I wrote this book, in part, because that terrible night, the kind of night many LGBTQ people fear when they come out… it isn’t the end. It is literally the beginning of my story. And after comes years filled with incredible challenges, but also with the love, wonder and belonging I needed to survive and build a new, beautiful life.” - Brent Love

In the pages of Leap, readers will travel with Love across the globe, following not just a coming-out story but also the experience of a queer person serving in Peace Corps in Armenia. The mountains and valleys of Armenia, its ancient ruins and shining Yerevan nightlife all shine in Love’s work. Moving experiences of Armenian family life bring the struggle of Leap’s main character into homes, businesses, and communities that have seldom, if ever, been recorded in American literature.

Early Praise for Leap

“Leap, a coming-of-age and coming-out memoir, is one of the most generous and gorgeous stories readers could hope for. Filled with places and people that will stay with you long after you read it, Brent Love’s Leap invites readers to experience the growing pains of leaving home and coming into one’s own in a familiar body but a foreign country. The true nature of parental love, self-love, fraternal love, and romantic love are all deeply explored in this beautiful memoir about what it means to be an empathetic son, a “good” person, and at the same time, a newly-out, young, gay man seeking to experience adoration, affection, passion, companionship, and the deep love of a relationship.” —Nicole Helget, Author of The Summer of Ordinary Ways

“This first-of-its-kind memoir vaults you into competing cultural perspectives of family, home, and living as a queer person in the twenty-first century. The result is an honest and thrilling reckoning of American and Armenian queer life.” — J.P. Der Boghossian, Founder of the Queer Armenian Library and host of the podcasts This Queer Book Saved My Life and The Gaily Show

Brent Love is an American memoirist and Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. During his work as Roving Correspondent for the American Refugee Committee, Love covered stories across the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Love studied political science and international relations at Abilene Christian University and began his career in refugee resettlement in West Texas. He is the host of the surrogacy podcast Hope Works. 

Leap will be published on June 2, 2024 by Manuscripts Press. Readers can preorder Leap now at heybrentlove.com.

Contact:

Brent Love
brent@heybrentlove.com
heybrentlove.com

Images

Brent Love, Author of Leap