num_pages: 276
description: A fierce and riveting queer coming-of-age story following the personal and political awakening of a young gay Black man in 1980s New York City from the television drama writer and producer of The Chi Narcos and Bel-Air.Born into a wealthy Black Indianapolis family Earl Trey Singleton III leaves his overbearing parents and their expectations behind by running away to New York City with only a few dollars in his pocket. In the city Trey meets up with a cast of characters that changes his life forever. He volunteers at a renegade home hospice for AIDS patients and after being put to the test by gay rights activists becomes a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Along the way Trey attempts to navigate past traumas and searches for ways to maintain familial relationshipsall while seeking the meaning of life amid so much death.Vibrant humorous and fraught with entanglements Rasheed Newsons My Government Means to Kill Me is an exhilarating fast-paced coming-of-age story that lends itself to a larger discussion about what it means for a young gay Black man in the mid-1980s to come to terms with his role in the midst of a political and social reckoning.
language: English
title: My Government Means to Kill Me
publisher: Flatiron Books