Thoroughly enjoyed this little collection of interviews and photographs. Garringer weaves a wonderful, enrapturing web of rural queer life. My favorite interview was the one of the men talking about their experience with the AIDs epidemic. Very moving. I do wish the interviews were a little longer though.

As someone who grew up in North Carolina and identifies as queer, I found myself intantly drawn to this book. I'm very glad i picked it up because it was such a wonderful book filled with beautiful stories. I'm going to give the podcast a listen as well, to hear more.

!!!!!!!!! This was fantastic. I loved all the photos and stories/interviews from people all over the country and from all walks of life talking about their experiences being queer. And I really liked seeing the way this project evolved over the ~10 years since Garringer started working on it. The way they learned more about how to conduct interviews, what to talk about, how they specifically made a point to reach out to a more diverse pool of people after the initial road trip in 2013, etc.

Not to drag a similar book I read last month, but this is EXACTLY what I wanted Real Queer America to be, and now I want to drop my rating of that one even lower lol. They have similar premises, but I like that despite the fact that I also learned a decent amount about the author in this, they put the focus on the people they were interviewing, and didn’t do a bunch of navelgazing about why cities suck and why all queer people who live in cities are miserable.

Thanks to NetGalley and Haymarket Books for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. Unlike the other reviews, I didn’t have any issues with my NetGalley file, so don’t be discouraged from reading it for that reason, they seem to have worked out the issues.

I quite enjoyed this collection of interviews and collocation of oral histories. What an incredible way of combining photographs, acknowledging indigenous land, and showing solidarity across the midwest and south.

When I came across this book I knew I had to read it. As a country queer myself in always excited to see representation of queers in the country, especially since it’s not representation I see often.

This books is a passion project and you can tell how much love and care Rae Garringer put into creating this book. Collecting a series interviews from fellow country queers from people of different sexualities, genders, ages, and races. Collected all together like this it paints a beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking of the wide variety of experiences and this book does a fantastic job of representing all the different ways being a country queer can look like.

While no I did really enjoy this book, unfortunately a large portion of it is missing from the ebook copy of the ARC. The missing pages occurred at varying times of different interviews and that made it difficult to understand what was going on. Despite that I can see the bones of this book and tell how impactful it will be in a completed format. I’m looking forward to this book being published and being able to read the story in its totality.

Thanks for much to Net Galley, the publisher, and the author for giving me the chance to read this book!

I did not leave a public review because the download I received did not have all the pages and most interviews were cut short. It made it had to read and difficult to give a true review. BUT the gist I got was amazing and I am going to request a copy from my library and rate when I can read the whole thing. Thank you so much for the opportunity to review.

I really enjoyed this glimpse into the life of queer people living rurally. It shows such a great perspective for our youth to normalize people of all backgrounds and gender identities. It felt very welcoming to me, as I also live in the south. I also enjoyed the range of people who were interviewed.

A really interesting read. Basically multiple photos and interviews of rural living queer people. I love the idea but I don't really care for how to was done. I was expecting a lot more photography, mainly aesthetic photography on country queers but it was mostly filled with interviews. I also really enjoyed the native tribes that were originally found on the lands where the interviewees were living were listed.

Special thanks to Netgalley and Haymarket Books for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I love the topic of this book. It is so important to recognize that lgbt+ people live everywhere and have different experiences, also the diversity in this book was awesome. My favorite part were the interviews.

This book was not especially compatible online. It was hard to clearly see some of the pages and many pages were missing.

As a fellow country queer, I was really excited to delve into this text. Unfortunately, the ARC I received was missing approximately 50% of its contents (according to the page count on NetGalley). Despite this, I found what was available deeply engaging and, although I was frustrated when the interview or introductory/contextual sections by Garringer were truncated, my overwhelming emotion was a desire to read the text in its entirety.

Country Queers began as an oral history project, which then became a podcast before evolving into this current form as a selection of interviews accompanied by Garringer’s commentary and parts of their own story. In the best tradition of politically conscious scholarship, Garringer does their best to avoid the damaging, extractive and unethical patterns that so often accompanies the gathering of accounts of marginalised peoples. By underpinning this project with an ethos of deep collaboration, and firmly locating themself and including explicit interrogations of the project as part of the text, Garringer encourages readers to both enjoy these stories of country queers who have survived and thrived as well as to think critically about how settler colonialism, racism and other forms of oppression have shaped their experiences and participation in the project. Critically this text does not seek to resolve the tensions it identifies and the complexities it acknowledges. Instead it is informed by an imperative and an ethic of situating the individual narratives contained in their broader historical and political contexts.

The result is a collection of moving, funny, sad, joyful, inspirational, and challenging insights into the lived experiences of the people interviewed. The selection of stories is diverse and at times makes for difficult reading, but the text also allows readers to gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which people’s rural existence can be similar and different across intersections. It also encourages its audience to ponder the ongoing barriers for country people – some specific to being queer, others more universal – and to think about how this might shape our daily lives and political activism. In the Preface, Garringer writes that rural queer have and will always radically claim “our queerness and country-ness at the same time”. While this is undoubtedly true, projects like this play such an important part in breaking down the isolation and loneliness that can accompany the sense of being the first or the only queer in the village. I look forward to engaging with the book as a whole come publication day.

Thank you NetGalley and Haymarket Books for the advanced copy. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Fantastic book! I loved the pictures, I loved the interviews, I loved the concept. People forget that all queer people don't reside in California or New York! I definitely will buy a hard copy of this book when it comes out, I think it would be great to own and peruse at my leisure.

A wonderful examination of the queer experience in the rural south. It’s incredible to see your own experiences reflected.

I loved this so much! Being a rural queer myself it felt so good to hear about other peoples experience in a very isolating environment. You know there are people around you that are queer but they are hiding it themselves. I enjoyed the pictures and the interview style writing. I plan on purchasing this book when it comes out! One thing I will say is that there are a bunch of pages missing in this ARC.

emotional informative reflective fast-paced
4.75

This book looks at the lives of queer people of all ages but skewed to older generations. The book looks at people’s individual stories and in the process covers trauma like AIDS pandemic and the impact it had on a generation of queer people. The shows the many different ways it means to be queer. I wish some of the interviews were extended and the book briefly touches on chronic illness and queerness. I would have loved for the book to explore more of this. The book looks at the intersectionality of queerness and race and statehood. The book looks at the beautiful and difficult moments people have faced around their queerness.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia

Boy did reading this feel timey in the same month where Chappell Roan refused to play at the Whitehouse but then got hate from white privileged city queers for touring in red states. As if queers in those states or in country states don't also deserve a connection to culture.

I adored this book, such a beautiful and valuable insight into a different side of the queer community that get's much less attention. I loved how many of the participants were older (40+ but quite a few older as well) - it's so valuable to hear the stories of our elders, particularly considering how few of them there are and how little of that history has been recorded. The few people who touched on the AIDs crisis was very valuable reading.

I think it's also really necessary to shine a light on queer folks whose experiences are very far removed from that of the mainstream city queers we see online and in media because while everything isn't perfect for city folks sometimes we can take for granted the community and privilege our locations can afford us.

The ONLY issue I had with this book (which is not it's fault at all) is that the arc provided to me was missing a huge amount of pages - almost every single person's story seemed to be missing at least one page because their story would just cut off mid-sentence and the next page would be a new person. This was such a huge disappointment, I know arcs aren't perfect but to be missing so many pages seems like they didn't even proofread it before putting it up for request.

Thank you to NetGalley and Haymarket Books for an arc in exchange for a free review.

Oh, my heart. Country Queers is a memoir/photo book that details the varied experiences of queer individuals living in the country in the US. I grew up queer in a small town in Texas, and this book really did a great job of capturing the voice of queer individuals who do not live in the city.

I loved that there was a focus on BIPOC, trans, 2 spirit, and elder queer voices. Some interviews highlighted coming of age during the AIDs epidemic, while others discussed growing up queer in the 1940s. I appreciated hearing everyone's stories & the care with which Rae Garringer presented them. I also appreciated the love for the rural atmosphere that was seen in so many of the stories.

Thanks so much to NetGalley, Rae Garringer, and Haymarket Books for the chance to read & review! I will be thinking about this one for a long time.