Sticker: (Object Lessons)

"A unique perspective on one of the most infamous cities in recent American history." - Publisher's Weekly "A book that sticks with you long after you've read it." Volume 1 Brooklyn "Hoke's writing is blunt and honest, and Sticker is a collection worth keeping." Southern Review of Books "I will never forget this book." - T Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls "Funny, nostalgic, and weird in the best possible way." - Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, author of My Monticello Featured in Electric Lit's “The Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of 2022” Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Stickers adorn our first memories, dot our notebooks and our walls, are stuck annoyingly on fruit, and accompany us into adulthood to announce our beliefs from car bumpers. They hold surprising power in their ability to define and provoke, and hold a strange steadfast presence in our age of fading physical media. Henry Hoke employs a constellation of stickers to explore queer boyhood, parental disability, and ancestral violence. A memoir in 20 stickers, Sticker is set against the backdrop of the encroaching neo-fascist presence in Hoke's hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia, which results in the fatal terrorist attack of August 12th and its national aftermath. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Table of Contents:
Mr. Yuk Unicorn Wahoowa Gold Star Constellation Chiquita Reinforcer Proud Parent Parental Advisory Explicit Content Rotunda Anarchy Blueberry Death to the Pixies Pink Circle Heart Fire Dancer Be Nice to Me I Gave Blood Today Are You Triggered? Hail Satan HH Index

About the Author :
Henry Hoke is the author of The Groundhog Forever (2021), the story collection Genevieves (2017), and The Book of Endless Sleepovers (2016). He co-created and directs the performance series Enter>text, and lives in New York City.

Review :
Hoke (The Groundhog Forever) offers up an evocative reflection on queerness, race, and his hometown of Charlottesville, Va., in this conceptual 'memoir in 20 stickers.' .” Part of Bloomsbury's “Object Lessons” series, his book uses the humble sticker as a metaphorical linchpin for a series of essays that [offer] a unique perspective on one of the most infamous cities in recent American history. We're not entirely objective here, but we're quite fond of the Object Lessons series - and Henry Hoke's contribution might boast the most striking cover design the series has had to date. Hoke's book uses stickers to chronicle everything from queer identity to the recent history of Charlottesville, Virginia - all of which should make this a book that sticks with you long after you've read it. (Pun intended, oh yes.) Hoke's keenly constructed memoir-in-essays is really a memoir-in-stickers, from the glow-in-the-dark stars and coveted Lisa Frank unicorns of childhood to a Pixies decal from his teenage years. The book also peels back the complicated notoriety of the author's hometown, Charlottesville, Virginia, juxtaposing Dave Matthews' fire dancer emblem against a truck emblazoned with the words “Are You Triggered?” on its back window heralding the infamous white supremacist march. Sticker is a trove of Millennial nostalgia. Its uniqueness lies not only in Hoke's unabashed storytelling but also in its critical analysis of American current events and its brutal honesty about a city rooted in racism. In Sticker, Hoke's Charlottesville morphs into a scrapbook, one where Hoke places many of the literal and metaphorical stickers significant to his past and his identity, one in which America memorializes some of its questionable, inhumane history and many of its darkest days. Possessing the evocative power of Melissa Faliveno's Tomboyland, Hoke's writing is blunt and honest, and Sticker is a collection worth keeping. Funny, nostalgic, and weird in the best possible way, Henry Hoke's Sticker weaves evocative personal moments with hometown lore and racial reckoning, all while making you want to dig up your old-school sticker collection-the puffy, the glowy, especially the scratch and sniff. Henry Hoke examines gender, sexuality, music, and the depths of humanity with exuberant whimsy and charm. Sticker pulses with ghost stories, lamplit streets and pine, boyhood, blood. Startlingly original and gorgeously rendered, I will never forget this book.