‘DEAD BOYS IN SPACE’ by Sara Youngblood Gregory

Featured images courtesy of Sara Youngblood Gregory

"I keep your history
              the one you never asked for
and which outlines my grief but never yours
 
You don’t belong in scripture
              or legends or congratulatory myth
A story isn’t enough and neither is sorry
 
But when I don’t know what to say
              I say sorry
I say this time I will tell it right"

From “Blood Sister / Only Child”

What if a generation of gay men didn’t die of AIDS and instead escaped to a planet beyond our own? In her debut novel, DEAD BOYS IN SPACE, Sara Youngblood Gregory uses poetry, speculative fiction, and the vastness of space to craft a counterhistory to the AIDS crisis—one where everyone who should still be here is.

Told from the perspective of a sister mourning the brother she never knew, the poetry invites us to hold the lives of those lost to AIDS as our queer kin. “I believe for those of us who were born after—again, if such a thing as ‘after’ exists—it’s important to honor and learn about how our community and wider society has been shaped in so, so many ways by AIDS,” Youngblood Gregory tells GO. “I feel I have a responsibility to look around any room I’m in and ask myself, ‘Who should be here, but isn’t?’”

Steeped in grief, anger, sex, and sickness, these poems give breath and life to the seismic weight of losing future ancestors that will never be fully known by the present community. In her escape to the stars through science fiction, Youngblood Gregory gives us all permission to grieve, to imagine, and to behold the heroes, lovers, friends, family, mentors, and elders that we lost.

DEAD BOYS IN SPACE is out on May 19 from YesYes Books. Order your copy at yesyesbooks.com.

GO’s Associate Editor, Abbie Thompson, is a journalist based in NYC. Her work focuses on all things queer entertainment and human-focused LGBTQ+ stories.