This is a fascinating novel of ideas, based on a real midcentury study of homosexuality, and playing with ideas of cultural memory, erasure, and history. It is mostly told in sometimes opaque conversations between two gay Puerto Rican American men, one in his twenties and one much older and on the verge of death. It’s about excavating memory, refiguring the past, and creating queer history. A mesmerizing novel, set in what feels like a liminal space and time, written beautifully.

I loved We The Animals (2011), Justin Torres’s debut novel. Slim and told in vignettes, it follows the coming-of-age of three brothers. It’s a novel I remember less for its plot and more for its indelible images. Blackouts is extremely different—it has no plot, really, and feels more speculative in nature, more fragmented in its structure—and yet I could say the same. I’ll remember this novel for Torres’s excellent prose and its images.

Blackouts is largely a long conversation between two men, both gay and Latinx, but of vastly different generations. The older one, Juan Gay, is dying in a building known as the Palace. Mostly, Juan recounts stories from his life, especially from his childhood, when he was briefly adopted by Jan and Zhenya Gay, a lesbian couple. The Gays were real historical figures—Jan, born Helen Reitman, conducted much of the research for Sex Variants, a psychiatric study that wound up as an anti-gay text. In its speculative fictionalization of historical figures, Blackouts shares DNA with Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, which Torres cites. Hartman uses photos in her text, while Torres uses photos, visual art, and most often, blackout erasures of Sex Variants to punctuate his main narrative (I will note that in the eARC, these erasures were very hard to read).

Blackouts is an apt title—the book begins with the younger man’s blackout, and there are plenty of textual blackouts in the erasures and in the flickering of memory. Torres is concerned with archiving and intergenerational queer history, but suggests that queer history need not be chronological or in any way straightforward. The book has a quality of timelessness even though it engages with histories. I frequently had no idea what was going on, but even so, Torres’s fluid prose kept me reading.

"Blackouts" by Justin Torres is a mesmerizing and brilliantly inventive novel that delves into the complexities of storytelling, identity, and memory. With its unique narrative structure and thought-provoking themes, it's a literary work that will leave a lasting impact.

The story revolves around a young man who tends to a dying soul named Juan Gay in a place called the Palace, deep in the desert. Juan has a project to pass on, involving a remarkable artifact of a book titled "Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns." This book, authored by a queer researcher named Jan Gay, contains accounts collected from queer subjects in the early twentieth century. However, Jan Gay's groundbreaking work was co-opted by a committee, and her name was erased from history.

The novel beautifully weaves together the stories of the characters, the mysterious book, and the erasure of queer history. It explores how stories are filtered, silenced, and manipulated over time, and how these narratives shape our understanding of the past. Through poetic prose and a non-linear narrative, Torres invites readers to confront the gaps and erasures in history and memory.

The characters in "Blackouts" are vividly portrayed, and their personal stories are interwoven with the larger narrative, creating a tapestry of experiences and emotions. Juan and the narrator recount moments of joy, love, and oblivion, bringing the past to life in a way that is both haunting and beautiful.

This novel is a profound exploration of love, loss, and the power of storytelling. It challenges readers to examine the stories they tell themselves and the stories that society tells them, urging us to confront the past and embrace the truth, no matter how difficult it may be.

Justin Torres's writing is a marvel of creativity, intelligence, and subversion. "Blackouts" is a groundbreaking work that reclaims lost histories, celebrates defiance, and shines a light on the voices that have been silenced. It's a powerful reminder of the importance of storytelling in preserving and reshaping our understanding of the world.

In summary, "Blackouts" is an exceptional novel that pushes the boundaries of narrative form and delves deep into the heart of storytelling and identity. It's a must-read for those who appreciate literary innovation and stories that challenge the status quo. Justin Torres has created an astonishing, thought-provoking masterpiece that will leave readers with much to contemplate long after the final page.

Blackouts is a collage of time and relationships. The main relationship is between the narrator and Juan Gay, an older man who is dying in an institution called the Palace. The two met years before in a different institution and the narrator has now sought Juan out. Much of the story is focused on a 1941 study by Jan Gay called “Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns.” The plot itself is conversational between the two men as they look back on Juan’s life (and sometimes the narrator’s as well), now that he is coming to the end of it.

While the writing was beautiful (I highlighted so many lines) and I did appreciate the message the author was trying to convey, I found the book’s structure confusing. There was so much jumping around and it was too much of a stream of consciousness for me. I enjoyed it for the statement that it was, but it was not an enjoyable read for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and FSG for the ARC to review

3.5 — This was a really good book. Torres throws a lot of really interesting themes in the air with the craft of a great writer — stories, storytelling, modes and formats of stories, oral storytelling, passing down stories from generation to generation, what stories are told and which ones are revised or lost — all of this through a queer focused lens. This was a novel both historical and contemporary in scope and vision. I was entranced by this and I LOVE books that make me think as deeply as this one did.

That being said, I will say at times I was equally as lost in the prose (in the confused kind of way) and I found that to be disorienting and not as enjoyable as I’d hoped it would be. A lot of the dialogue between Juan and the unnamed narrator sometimes didn’t work for me either and it took me out of the reading experience whereas I wanted to very much be actually lost in it (in the absorbed kind of way). This was just my experience with it but overall it was a pretty impressive work and I’m really glad I read it.

What a beautifully written novel. A wonderful blend of narrative and history and poetry. I wish it had been longer.

Blackouts feels all at once revelatory, but also stunted. It's clear this story is a labor of love to the past and present trailblazers of LGBTQ+ history. Torres impressively depicts something almost like lore: how the stories of queer people almost feel like folklore, not because of fiction, but because of the importance of why queer stories need to exist. While I appreciated Blackouts at this poignant level, on a structural level it couldn't completely captivate me as a story by the end of it all, in terms of appreciating it as a reading experience. Blackouts has a lot to say that's interesting, but it's execution could benefit from some tidying to rid itself of the feeling of studying its contents.

As I said in my stories immediately upon finishing, THIS BOOK. This one pairs so well with Study for Obedience, which I just finished and loved from the Booker longlist, in the fact that you are completely unmoored from a meaningful sense of history all while history plays such a meaningful role in the story.

The history piece itself is so important. Being knowingly reductive, it is important to point out how so many of the straight authored “literary” books that center Queer narratives are “taboo” historical romances, AIDS stories, or modern tales of assault on Queer characters. Meanwhile, Queer authors of “literary” books are truly interrogating and repurposing history, see also The New Life and After Sappho. Being able to have honest historical conversations is incredibly novel.

To that end, the repurposing of history really sticks out here in a way that reminds me of last year’s FSG title Devil House and this year’s Biography of X. What is history? What is reality? What parts of reality is an author allowed to play with to create real “Truth?”

Just a brilliant read. Cannot recommend enough.

“Right away, I felt the magnetism, the mystery of these books; a work of intense observation transformed into a work of erasure.”⁣
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From: 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘴 by Justin Torres⁣
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𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘴 is a fascinating, structurally innovative novel and Torres’ writing is phenomenal. He plays with language without ever losing focus. He immediately drew me in from the first paragraph and didn’t let me go until the end. It was so satisfying. In my opinion it got a very well deserved spot on the @nationalbookaward longlist for fiction last week and it makes me very excited that I still have 𝘞𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘴 to get to. ⁣
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The story is told in conversation, between two queer, non-white men. A young narrator travels across the desert to stay with Juan, a much older, dying man he knew for a short while, when they were both institutionalized years ago. They tell each other stories and their experiences.⁣
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The partially blacked out copies (producing “little poems of illumination” 🥰) of two books based on Jan Gay’s study on “Sex Variants: a Study in Homosexual Patterns” (in the end published by a committee led by psychiatrist George Henry who used Gay’s work to pathologize homosexuality) and several editions of the psychiatric DSM, provide a basis to show the erasure of queer lives, love and history. And Torres combines this with the oral histories of the narrators to make a most personal and intimate portrayal of queer history. It was incredible to read.⁣
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Recently reading 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 - also about a scientific look into sexual inversion - and 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘌𝘥𝘦𝘯 - also brushing, among many other things, on eugenics - was an interesting sequence leading up to this gorgeous book. ⁣
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Thank you so much @fsg and @netgalley for letting me read this work of art early. It’s out October 10th!

A wholly inventive novel based on the premise that two people who have minimal contact have great influence on one another. Told through many formats and media, this is a fascinating read for the telling alone.

A wild, haunting, mesmerizing read. “We the Animals,” Justin Torres’s first novel, was formative for me. And even though I’m still processing “Blackouts,” I know it will be the same, and it currently lives rent-free in my mind.

The novel is an intricate and masterful collage of various factual and fictional texts – including the author’s previous work, redacted medical studies, the DSM, illustrations, photographs, and conversations between the narrator and his companion Juan Gay. The two met years ago when they were both institutionalized, and now, as Juan is dying in a place known as “The Palace,” the young narrator seeks him out. Throughout “Blackouts,” Juan and the narrator trade stories of their own lives, recounting their memories in formats as wide-ranging as a screenplay and a story told in reverse chronology, and Juan passes on his (fictionalized) remembrances of the real-life Jan Gay, whose 1941 study “Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns” is central to the novel. This kind of oral storytelling, and the way that remembrances are filtered through multiple sources, including the narrator (who acknowledges the fallibility of his own “remembering of [Juan’s] remembrances”) is such a beautifully queer way to examine how queer history itself has survived, albeit incompletely, and despite erasure, exaggeration, distortion, oppression. Still, as porous as the line between fact and fiction is, the artifacts presented here have a deep, clear truth and resonance. This novel is so, so special.

OkAY, well, that wrecked me in ways I didn't know possible. What started as a queer love story evolved into the loss of such a union that I became so attached to, and I feel I need therapy to process it.

Blackouts is a fictional tale with larger-than-life emotions and character narratives that depict the story of a dying man and his lover as they journey into the historically accurate synopsis of gender and sexuality throughout the years.

I have nothing further to say, but SHIIIIIT, I am distraught. I feel like our MC came away stronger and more emotionally sound after the passing of his soulmate, no longer weakened by insecurities and misplacement, even without his lover by his side.

Blackouts is set to publish on October 10, 2023, and I am so thankful to FSG Books, Netgalley, and Justin Torres for sending both digital and physical copies my way.

Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. Two men are spending days together after they’ve been institutionalized. A young man and a much older man, trade stories of their parents, many love affairs and the older man owns a rare copy of the two part book, Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns. The old man knew its original author, Jan Gay, and tells stories of her life and her forgotten work, hoping that the young man will one day write a book and tell the world about Jan.

This novel is brilliant in its premise and some of its execution. 

Premise-wise, it is interesting how the characters Juan Gay and the young male narrator have numerous conversations that are not only about them but also about other people in Juan’s life. It covers a whole range of characters who led a very colorful albeit ‘taboo’ lifestyle. This ensemble thus gives an opportunity to portray the unsung individuals left outside the white depiction of homosexuality and queerness, which I believe is one of the strong points of Blackouts.

Another thing is that the use of pictures and blacked-out pages from the research/paper done by one character was very effective in immersing the reader in the context of the past and present. Though it did sometimes take me out of the whole plot, it was still used to the book’s advantage since you notice how relevant this is in Juan and the narrator’s dialogues.

The final strength of this is Justin Torres’ writing, as it conveys emotions in such a way that it felt real to me. Some beautiful lines really caught not only my attention but my soul, especially when there is a mirroring of Ruth and Naomi and Juan and the narrator. It was just so effective in provoking emotions I didn’t know I had. It was like discovering finally what is the feeling at the tip of your tongue that you didn’t have a word for.

Honestly, Blackouts felt like a modern Dracula, with the style of having a story within a story. At times it was confusing since it is not something I’m used to and something I don’t really want to read. Because of this, my journey throughout the book was dreadful since for me, I didn’t actually know where the story was going. I know I wanted to be on that journey, but now that it is en route to the destination, there’s that sinking feeling of not knowing where the end line is, even though I felt like I was already halfway there. 

Overall, it had a great idea and premise, but somehow it got lost in some execution, mainly the main direction of the plot. 

I still recommend this to people who are interested in multi-faceted characters, told in varying degrees and in varying forms. It’s a strong novel, featuring tales from the shadows and I still believe it was worth my time.

Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC.

It's the 𝘉𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘚𝘶𝘯𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘦 /𝘉𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘚𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘵 for the queer experience, except it isn't romance, but more so faith in friendship between two queer men, one older one younger, one dying one trying to live.

It's everything. Covering class, race, gender through (what you would call) fictional biography of Jan Gay, someone who I am now interested in but can't seem to find. There are no Goodreads reviews for their book, 𝘖𝘯 𝘎𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘕𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘥. Copies on Ebay are quite expensive, and more information needs to be found on them! I demand it! Not only does the book develop a thick flesh of themes, but it's also a collage of censored transcripts, photographs, and paintings.

It's a beautiful collage of the queer experience that almost feels biblical. That feels holy. That feels like sitting at the back bar stool of Aunt Charlie's, listening to the old days sing with pain and glory, trying and trying to recreate a thing called living to kin off to the next boy trying to find himself.

Deep down, I find difficulties in conveying my queer experience to all my hetero friends. Even with all the media over the past few years, the representation and awareness, it's still hard to relay the shame and fear, the guilt and envy, all of it. This book is a tapestry of that, done with great intricacy and detail.

Blackouts is so brilliant that it's occupied all my shower-thinking-time for a week, but whenever I try to tell people (everyone...I've been telling everyone) what it's about, I can't quite do it. Not wholly. And this fundamental failure at communication is perhaps the most honest representation of Justin Torres's new novel, which traces a queer history that is necessarily and purposefully incomplete, which tries to "undo erasure through more erasure." Blackout poetry is a useful reference point, both in terms of the novel’s structure and in terms of its content. Torres intersperses narrative with partially blacked-out pages from Sex Variants, a study of homosexuality published in 1941, and the novel itself makes an argument for the way that storytelling is always an act of focus, of emphasis and elision rather than faithful reproduction. (Side note: I want someone to put this book on a syllabus with After Sappho, and then I want to take that class.)

The novel is essentially a prolonged conversation between two queer men: one dying, one witnessing. The stories they take turns telling each other are from their lives and the lives of others, and they jump through time, space, and genre depending on the desire of the listener. The result is a kind of queer archive, with historical figures, literary references, and images woven together with personal narrative, including Torres's own previously published writing. Nothing feels quite finished, but that's the point: the collage is closer to truth than a resolution could be. Blackouts is queer history that queers history, and it's perfect.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the ARC!

Blackouts by Justin Torres is remarkable and I thank #NetGalley for this treasured advance copy and the opportunity to review it. I cannot wait to get the actual book into my hands this Fall. Having no idea what the book was about (and defaulting to something alcohol-related), this novel blew me away from page one. It's a compilation of historical photos and documents -- a real and fictional interweaving of queer history and a cast of the most amazing characters to relate it. This novel was literally crafted from pieces of history and the central book -- a medical study conducted in the 1930s called "Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns" is both fascinating and heartbreaking. It's a tribute to the queer community from the early 1900s to the present day.. Torres' main character Juan is one of the most charming and unforgettable people I've encountered and he has entered and re-entered my mind many times while reading the book. There are stories within stories--all under the umbrella of a younger man's (the narrator's) reunion with (and admiration for) Juan whiie Juan is in the process of dying.

There are so many layers to the novel; the use of creative writing incorporated throughout is clever, unique, and brilliantly utilized. It was obviously crafted by the author with his purest love and fullest attention to detail. I know that, at this time, I cannot reproduce anything in this review but am looking forward to examining every detail once I have a printed copy. Even the novel's central location - The Palace - has a tremendous origin story.

Juan and the young narrator share stories of their own histories - with each other, about their parents, people who have loved them - as Juan works against time to share the crucial history of heroes from his history (and the aforementioned 1930s book). Juan is a master storyteller, a revered mentor, and contains a wealth of lived history. This novel will become a classic - its messages, the creativity with which they are delivered.- the crucial history being carried. Justin Torres created an outstanding and totally unique piece of work. The source material, in and of itself, is entirely fascinating. Bravo to this writer. Loved this book

This book was incredible. A beautifully written meta textual grief dreamworld.

Even the end notes (especially the end notes) are incredibly poignant.

I love this so much I'm going to buy a copy when it comes out.

Justin Torres is a known great writer and his return in the form of Blackouts is as fascinating as he is.

His use of language is intoxicating here (as it is everywhere else) but what's most impressive about this ambitious work is the accomplishment of craft. Stitching together and finding commonality between previously published stories of varying lengths to create something larger than the sum of their parts and more expansive than a collected stories would have been is a grand achievement. Revisiting older works to make something new and different as an approach to writing a novel is a fulfilling project in his hands. Writing someone as beguiling yet basic as Liam: also a grand accomplishment.

Glad to have gotten to read it ahead of publication, thank you for the galley.

What a haunting read. Blackouts marks the anticipated return of Torres after his acclaimed first novel, We the Animals (2011), was widely reviewed and adopted as a foundational text of Latinx Literature and queer of color writing, more broadly.

Blackouts finds its narrator caring for an aging Juan Gay as they trade stories of institutionalization, sex, sex work, and sexology. Moreover, Juan Gay shares a work of stolen inheritance—the work of real-life sexologist Jan Gay (whose research was published without crediting her authorship in Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns (1941)). The novel’s formal experimentation stitches together these narratives by combining the redacted and blacked-out pages of Gay’s field notes alongside the central characters' vignetted stories, which are excised from blacked-out memories (these vignettes are joined by photographs and excerpts from other writings that reveal the hidden yet imbricated discourses of science, sexology, ethnography and eugenics to emplot racial and queer difference) . In an era defined by US state sanctioned interventions on queer and Latinx peoples, Torres’ transhistorical novel is a timely intervention into understanding how discourses of medical science are used to justify domination of marginalized bodies and how Latinx identity emerges from- and in resistance to- such systems of control. Moreover, this work is a fabulous testament to the state of contemporary fiction and queer latinx authorship—expanding the ways we can think about what minoritarian literature can do and say.