Go the Way Your Blood Beats, Emmett de Monterey
Go the Way Your Blood Beats, Emmett de Monterey
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Go the Way Your Blood Beats

Author: Emmett de Monterey

Narrator: Mateo Oxley

Unabridged: 10 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Viking

Published: 07/06/2023


Synopsis

Brought to you by Penguin.

AN EXTRAORDINARILY MOVING AND ORIGINAL MEMOIR OF GROWING UP GAY AND DISABLED IN 1980S LONDON

When Emmett de Monterey is eighteen months old, a doctor diagnoses him with cerebral palsy. Words too heavy for his twenty-five-year-old artist parents and their happy, smiling baby.

Growing up in south-east London in the 1980s, Emmett is spat at on the street and prayed over at church. At his mainstream school, teachers refuse to schedule his classes on the ground floor, and he loses a stone from the effort of getting up the stairs. At his sixth form college for disabled students, he's told he will be expelled if the rumours are true, if he's gay.

And then Emmett is chosen for a first-of-its-kind surgery in America which he hopes will 'cure' him, enable him to walk unaided. He hopes for a miracle: to walk, to dance, to be able to leave the house when it rains. To have a body that's everyday beautiful, to hold hands in the street. To not be gay, which feels like another word for loneliness. But the 'miracle' doesn't occur, and Emmett must reckon with a world which views disabled people as invisible, unworthy of desire. He must fight to be seen.

A frank and intimate memoir written with an incredible clear-eyed intensity - Claire Fuller

©2023 Emmett de Monterey (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jen on May 02, 2024

I’m sitting here looking at a blank page, wondering how to word a review that does this frank and honest book justice. Go The Way Your Blood Beats is a memoir, written by Emmett de Monterey. The author’s story runs more or less in parallel to my own, Emmett being just a few years younger than me. Em......more

Goodreads review by Jen on July 04, 2023

Go the Way Your Blood Beats is a beautifully-written memoir of growing up queer and disabled. In wonderfully fluid prose, de Monterey charts his childhood through friendships, medical appointments, schools and first love. Honest and intimate, he is not afraid to grapple with painful memories, reveal......more

Goodreads review by Claire on July 02, 2023

Disabled and gay this memoir is frank and moving. Realising it was set in 1980s London was a shock, attitudes of many have changed so much over such a short period of time. With liberal artist parents what em faces is a life with problems many would not consider, but his strength and determination s......more

Goodreads review by karla on June 27, 2023

This is a memoir of growing up gay and disable in London of the 90’s. This book is very good I enjoy know Emmet life and story. This book is warmth and emotional, is such a intimate memoir that is so intense and so beautiful that could be one of my favourite memoirs this years. Is a solid ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️......more

Goodreads review by Moon on June 10, 2023

ARC REVIEW ‘Mum, why did you have me?’ She looked startled; her face clouding, wary. ‘Well, we wanted a baby. We wanted you. ‘I hate you,’ I said quietly. ‘I wish you hadn’t.’ // ‘You should have got a better one, then. I’m useless, broken.’ This is an extraordinary memoire about growing up disabled an......more


Quotes

Vivid, engaging... this insightful memoir sheds light on the author's life as a disabled gay man who is often rendered invisible Guardian

A frank and intimate memoir written with an incredible clear-eyed intensity Claire Fuller

The magic of Emmett De Monterey's book is its disarming accessibility. Compulsive reading, unique, this beautifully crafted work is suffused with depth, affection, and remarkable observations. De Monterey is a profoundly gifted writer. Charlotte Fox Weber

Exploring the reality of growing up gay and disabled in 1980s London, this beautiful memoir is as uplifting as it is devastating, and as funny and wise as it is profound. iNews

Astonishing, illuminating and enriching. Matt Cain

A frank and intimate memoir written with an incredible clear-eyed intensity

The magic of Emmett De Monterey's book is its disarming accessibility. Compulsive reading, unique, this beautifully crafted work is suffused with depth, affection, and remarkable observations. De Monterey is a profoundly gifted writer.

Astonishing, illuminating and enriching.