Includes bibliographical references.

Preface: a letter to Nôhkom -- Introduction: A short theoretical note -- An NDN boyhood -- A history of my brief body -- Futuromania -- Gay: 8 scenes -- Loneliness in the age of Grindr -- Fragments from a half-existence -- An alphabet of longing -- Robert -- Notes from an archive of injuries -- Please keep loving: reflections on unlivability -- Fatal naming rituals -- To hang our grief up to dry.

"Billy-Ray Belcourt's debut memoir opens with a tender letter to his kokum and memories of his early life in the hamlet of Joussard, Alberta, and on the Driftpile First Nation. Piece by piece, Billy-Ray's writings invite us to unpack and explore the big and broken world he inhabits every day, in all its complexity and contradiction: a legacy of colonial violence and the joy that flourishes in spite of it; first loves and first loves lost; sexual exploration and intimacy; the act of writing as a survival instinct and a way to grieve. What emerges is not only a profound meditation on memory, gender, anger, shame, and ecstasy, but also the outline of a way forward. With startling honesty, and in a voice distinctly and assuredly his own, Belcourt situates his life experiences within a constellation of seminal queer texts, among which this book is sure to earn its place. Eye-opening, intensely emotional, and excessively quotable, A History of My Brief Body demonstrates over and over again the power of words to both devastate and console us."--Amazon.