I Don't Remember

Hilton Als was raised in a corner of Brooklyn marked by riots, racial segregation and sexual prejudice. As a teenager, he began to glimpse other ways of living through school, through art, and in the black men and white men he saw making lives together. Later, in a Manhattan alive with hip hop, Basquiat, nightclubs and new wave, he found, at last, the gay family he had longed for—just as reports of a 'rare cancer' began to emerge.

Lyrical, wry, and searching, I Don't Remember tells the story of queer America through Als's own life among others. At once personal confession, cultural portrait, and elegy, it pays tribute to an unsung generation of gay men: lovers and friends, visionary artists and makers, the loved and the lost. Exquisite in its poetic, rapid-fire storytelling, I Don’t Remember sees Als at the height of his powers, bearing witness to the beauty and necessity of love in the face of stigma, loss, and collective catastrophe.

© Hilton Als 2027 (P) Penguin Audio 2027