Brian Broome

Brian Broome’s Punch Me Up to the Gods stands as a vital testament to the power of unflinching memoir. The book captured widespread critical acclaim, earning both the 2021 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction and the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography—a dual recognition that speaks to its resonance across literary communities and its refusal to be confined to a single category of meaning. Broome’s work exemplifies the kind of memoir that transcends personal narrative to become a searching exploration of identity, resilience, and the American experience itself.

In Punch Me Up to the Gods, Broome examines his journey through addiction, recovery, and self-discovery with the kind of raw honesty that has become his signature. His prose moves fluidly between introspection and social critique, weaving together threads of race, sexuality, class, and masculinity into a larger meditation on what it means to survive and eventually thrive in a system not built for people like him. The memoir’s accolades reflect not just its literary quality, but its urgent cultural relevance—the way it speaks to persistent silences and offers hard-won wisdom without pretense or redemption narratives that feel easy or false.