Publisher's Synopsis
"A beautiful, moving queer coming-of-age memoir set in Alaska with a narrative voice that is funny, sensitive and emotionally sharp. For fans of Garrard Conley, Garth Greenwell and Brandon Taylor" - Naheed Phiroze Patel, author of Mirror Made of Rain
"Frank and insightful... An affecting and surprising remembrance about the responsibilities of parents and children." - Kirkus Reviews
"Like no other book I have read. It will entertain you as it crushes you." - Martha Amore, author/editor of In the Quiet Season and Building Fires in the Snow
"[An] inspirational story of resilience and fortitude." - Chelsea News New York
"Quirky humor, bright language, and sharp emotional insight." - Joe Okonkwo, author of Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction winner Jazz Moon
"Depictions of working-class, poverty-level Alaska [that] counterbalance the usual tropes of Alaska as a sublime wilderness." - Anchorage Daily News
"More than another coming-of-age story. It is a love letter to his mother, Abby, a lively woman, who navigates the world with humor and humility, doing her best with the hand she was dealt, both for herself and the son she so clearly adores." - Lucian Childs, author of Dreaming Home
**A Lambda Literary Most Anticipated Read**
FROM THE PUBLISHER:
The debut memoir from Matthew Frye-Castillo, a college Lecturer in New York City, will inspire and thrill you even as it voyages beautifully through life's harshest truths.
ONE HEADLIGHT: A MEMOIR (Cirque Press; August 6, 2021; paperback) is the story of a devoted single mother raising her would-be pastor son around Lazy Mountain, Alaska, in a church-donated Mustang with no snow tires, a missing passenger window, and one headlight.
Frye-Castillo's tales of religious extremism, sex work, and class conflict have been published in numerous literary journals, including Epiphany, OPOSSUM, and Best Gay Stories. In 2021, his story on moving to Manhattan was featured in the Netflix series Worn Stories.
Whatever your background, ONE HEADLIGHT is a deeply human book that will move readers for its insightful, honest, and poetic depictions of class, race, sexuality, family, love, and memory. ONE HEADLIGHT will especially resonate with those who have lost a loved one to cancer, who are interested in the craft of memoir, coming-of-age stories, parent-child relationships, Alaskan cultures, or LGBTQ+ literature.
MATTHEW FRYE-CASTILLO is an Alaskan/NYC creative writer and Lecturer in the English Department of Lehman College, City University of New York. His essays, criticism, poetry, and fiction have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Anchorage Daily News, The Paris Review Daily, Lambda Literary, Epiphany: a Literary Journal, OPOSSUM, Best Gay Stories, and Newtown Literary. As a journalist, he was a regular contributor to The Anchorage Press and The Red Hook Star-Revue. He holds an MFA from Hunter College and studied at Columbia University and The University of Alaska, Anchorage. He lives in Astoria, Queens, with his partner.
