**A Lambda Literary Most Anticipated Read**
"Like no other book I have read. It will entertain you as it crushes you." - Martha Amore, Editor of Lambda Literary Nominated Building Fires in the Snow
"Frank and insightful...An affecting and surprising remembrance about the responsibilities of parents and children." - Kirkus Reviews
"Quirky humor, bright language, and sharp emotional insight." - Joe Okonkwo, author of Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction winner Jazz Moon
FROM THE PUBLISHER:
The debut memoir from Matthew Frye Castillo, a college
Lecturer in New York City, will inspire and thrill you even as it
voyages beautifully through life's harshest truths.
ONE HEADLIGHT: A MEMOIR (Cirque
Press; August 6, 2021; paperback) is the story of a devoted single
mother raising her would-be pastor son around Lazy Mountain,
Alaska, in a church-donated Mustang with no snow tires, a
missing passenger window, and one headlight.
Frye Castillo's tales of religious extremism, sex work, and class
conflict have been published in numerous literary journals,
including Epiphany, Opossum, and Best Gay Stories. In 2021, his story on moving to Manhattan was featured in
episode four of the Netflix series Worn Stories, produced by
Emmy-winner Jenji Kohan and Oscar-winner Morgan Neville and written by New York Times style writer Emily Spivack.
Whatever your background, ONE HEADLIGHT is a
deeply human book that will move readers for its insightful,
honest, and poetic depictions of class, race, sexuality, family,
love, and memory. ONE HEADLIGHT will especially resonate
with those who have lost a loved one to cancer, who are
interested in the craft of memoir, coming-of-age stories, parent-child
relationships, Alaskan cultures, or LGBTQ+ literature.
BIO:
MATTHEW FRYE CASTILLO is an Alaskan/NYC creative writer and Lecturer in the English Department of Lehman College, City University of New York. His essays, criticism, poetry, and fiction have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Anchorage Daily News, The Paris Review Daily, Lambda Literary, Epiphany: a Literary Journal, OPOSSUM, Best Gay Stories, and Newtown Literary. As a journalist, he was a regular contributor to The Anchorage Press and The Red Hook Star-Revue. He holds an MFA from Hunter College and studied at Columbia University and The University of Alaska, Anchorage. He lives in Astoria, Queens, with his partner.
