You're Not from Around Here, Are You? by Louise A. Blum

Brandon O’Brien is, in many ways, a man torn between places. We need to listen, get to know the nuance of people, and have empathy for their way of seeing things. To understand that-to understand the people in the places-we need stories. News outlets, historians, and sociologists can (and do) tell us all about the statistics, but they don’t (and can’t) tell us about what it’s really like in a given place-how the squish of creek water between your toes or the crunch of autumn leaves on a city sidewalk shape your sense of normal and good and right. Tidy categories may suit the media, but people are more complex up close. Blum tells her story with a razor wit and deft precision, a story about two 'girls with grit,' and the child they decide to raise, right where they are, in small town America. A depiction of small town life with all its comforts and its terrors, this memoir speaks to anyone who has ever felt like an outsider in America.

This is a cautionary, wise, and celebratory tale about what it’s like to be different in America-both the good and the bad. The town responds in radically different ways to the couple’s presence, from prayer vigils on the village green to a feature article in the family section of the local newspaper. Mixing humor with memorable prose, Blum recounts how a quiet, conservative town in an impoverished stretch of Appalachia reacts as she and a local woman, Connie, fall in love, move in together, and determine to live their life together openly and truthfully.

Blum, author of the critically acclaimed novel Amnesty, now tells the story of her own life and her decision to be out, loud, and pregnant. This is a funny, moving story about life in a small town, from the point of view of a pregnant lesbian.

You're Not from Around Here, Are You? by Louise A. Blum