Beautiful Monster
A Becoming
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A breathtaking, exquisitely crafted memoir about a trans person’s singular journey through breaching the boundaries of gender—across generations, cultures and borders—to become his truest, most authentic self.
Nearing the age of forty, with an entire life already lived as a woman—half in Colombia, half in the US—Miles Borrero comes face to face with his father’s impending death. Suddenly realizing that he has been stalling his transition for fear of losing his family’s love, this moment catalyzes Miles’s determination to be fully known as his father’s son before it is too late.
In Beautiful Monster, Miles chronicles his unusual childhood, by turns riveting and hilarious, in ’80s and ’90s Colombia during the Pablo Escobar years, as well as his move to Salt Lake City to pursue acting and the winding trajectory that eventually lands him in the New York City yoga scene. Within these very different cultures, the realities of being queer and trans echo poignantly through the triumphs, heartbreaks, family dynamics, spiritual pursuits, and relationships that propel Miles along his path.
Sublimely nuanced and written in ravishing prose that is as unique and irresistible as its subject, Beautiful Monster is one person’s story of navigating the pressures to perform femininity while becoming a gender outlaw. Brimming with wonder, humor, and mythos, entertaining and enlightening in equal measure, this book offers a compelling case for embracing one’s true nature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Borrero's incandescent debut memoir recounts the experiences that led him to come out as a transgender man, with particular focus on his coming-of-age in Colombia in the 1980s and '90s, stint as an actor in the U.S., and tenure as a yoga teacher. Even as a child in Bogotá, Borrero shunned gender expectations, refusing to receive his first communion because he hated the starchy, feminine dress his parents insisted he wear. As Borrero entered adolescence, he began praying to wake up as a boy, though he had little context for his wishes. In the mid-1990s, Borrero left Colombia to attend acting school at the University of Utah, where he was quickly pigeonholed into "fiery Latina" roles, which nudged him closer to an awareness of his conflicted gender identity ("Something else was percolating—something I couldn't name," he writes). After moving to New York City, Borrero cast acting aside and stumbled on a yoga studio located above the Strand bookstore. Before long, he was organizing his life around the practice, and the resultant physical and spiritual awareness finally pushed him to accept himself as a trans man. Borrero is by turns funny and gut-wrenching, doggedly keeping the proceedings from tipping into melodrama even when the emotional terrain gets gnarly. Readers will be captivated by this always inspiring, sometimes shattering story of self-discovery.
