Dangerous Families
Queer Writing on Surviving

Goes beyond the recovery narrative to create a new queer literature of investigation, exploration, and transformation. 26 stories illuminate the reality of growing up in fear, struggling to rebuild lives damaged by sexual, physical, and/or emotional abuse.

That's right no therapists analyzing our plight, no talk-show hosts exploiting us just survivors, exploring our complicated, frightening, and fulfilling lives. These stories dispense with the usual technique of carefully massaging the reader's fragile worldview before plunging this unsuspecting innocent into a world of horror. They go right to the horror, the beauty, and the joy, often throwing the reader off-guard, revealing layers of meaning before the reader can step back. Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving is an anthology of 26 true stories of growing up queer in families that magnify the horrors of the outside world instead of offering protection. The book is an essential read for therapists, caseworkers, cultural studies specialists, and anyone struggling to survive childhood abuse.

Acknowledgments
Dangerous Families: An Introduction
LANGUAGE
gonna get my girl body back: this is a work in progress
Johnny
Not with the Buckle End of the Belt
Dog Dreams
Body of Knowledge
Dyslexic Process
population 1200
the doctor's daughter
Pelt
MONSTERS
Hate May Not Be a Family Value, but Dysfunction
That's a Different Story
Descent into Hell
Kid Pirate in Suburbia
Some Notes on Art and Architecture
This Blood (Beaten Out of Me)
Contaminated
Drinking
Did I Mention That
My Sister's Shadow
Flooding
ESCAPE
Escape: A Myth
Weapons
S.O.S.
Walls
Confessions of a Ghetto Princess
Those Who Can't Do, Write, or Daddy's Little Pornographer
Absence
Someday
Bad Girl
The Prime of My Life
About the Editor
Contributors