'Sweets' From a Stranger

Stumbled across a new -- competing -- gay memoir last night while navel-gazing on Amazon.

Broolynite Tim Anderson's "Sweet Tooth" is described as such:

What’s a sweets-loving young boy growing up gay in North Carolina in the eighties supposed to think when he’s diagnosed with type 1 diabetes? That God is punishing him, naturally.

This was, after all, when Jesse Helms was his senator, AIDS was still the boogeyman, and no one was saying, “It gets better.” And if stealing a copy of an x-rated magazine from the newsagent was a sin, then surely what the guys inside were doing to one another was much worse.

"Sweet Tooth" is Tim Anderson’s uproarious memoir of life after his hormones and blood sugar both went berserk at the age of fifteen. With Morrissey and The Smiths as the soundtrack, Anderson self-deprecatingly recalls love affairs with vests and donuts, first crushes, coming out, and inaugural trips to gay bars. What emerges is the story of a young man trying to build a future that won’t involve crippling loneliness or losing a foot to his disease—and maybe even one that, no matter how unpredictable, can still be pretty sweet.

Can you taste it yet? I can.

Tim also blogs -- the aptly titled See Tim Blog -- where I learned that in addition to having cats. long-suffering hubbies, the love of Little Debbie snack cakes (he's Fudge Round, I'm Oatmeal Creme Pie) and narcissism in common, he too holds annual memorials to mark the untimely death of the great Kirsty MacColl. (But for the record, "Tropical Brainstorm" is not her best album. Have you never heard "Desperate Character" or "Titanic Days"?)

"Sweet Tooth: A Memoir" is available now via Amazon's Lake Union imprint at the incredibly low price of $3.99 Kindle and $8.97 paperback HERE. His debut, another memoir called "Tune In Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries," chronicles the bored nearly 30-year-old North Carolinian's decision to shake things up by moving to Japan to teach English and can be purchased HERE.

P.S. Kudos for getting your Lost in the '80s cover to print. This is the original design I had in mind for "Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful?" but it was summarily rejected by my publisher, although it's still the jacket that keeps me warmest.