Publishers Weekly
★ 06/03/2024
In this sterling debut, painter Aijazuddin combines blazing wit with heartbreaking candor as he recounts his path toward self-acceptance as a gay Pakistani. Growing up in 1990s Lahore, Aijazuddin took an early shine to musicals, Disney princesses, and Barbie dolls, all while battling schoolyard insults about his weight and resulting “moon-tits.” As he realized he was gay, experimenting sexually with a friend and growing close with another closeted teen, Aijazuddin dreamed of escaping to comparatively liberal North America. Much of the memoir sees him ping-ponging between Pakistan, Canada, and the U.S.: he attended college in Montreal shortly after 9/11, where he faced xenophobia and struggled to come out of the closet, then returned to Pakistan, where his shame compounded. After obtaining a U.S. visa in 2015, he moved to New York City, where a series of relationships helped him learn to “stop loving in the shadows.” Aijazuddin’s prose is playful but sincere, marrying quips (“I was always a bird of paradise in a nest of sparrows”) with powerful insights (“Hyphens are the price of my admission through the gates of the American dream”). The result is a stirring account of coming-of-age and coming out. Agent: Sam Chidley, Karpfinger Agency. (Aug.)Correction: A previous version of this review misspelled the author’s last name.
STARRED REVIEW FOREWORD REVIEWS
Variously hilarious and despairing. . . The candid and sometimes uproarious memoir of a gay Pakistani, Manboobs is about the search for acceptance in two radically different, flawed countries––and within oneself.
author of Off the Radar CYRUS COPELAND
"In Manboobs Komail Aijazuddin serves up a sharply witty and heartwarmingly candid memoir that pirouettes across Lahore, London, and New York City in a quest for home. Part coming-of-age story, part musical extravaganza, this isn't just a tale about growing up gay in Pakistan with body image woes; it's a masterclass in turning life's dissonance into exhilarating adventure. Komail's story zips and zags through cultures and continents with undeniable flair, each city setting the stage for a new act of personal discovery. On this grand tour to self enlightenment, Komail confronts his inner critics and societal norms, enigmatic parents, closeted anti-heroes, immigration agents and blue-blooded families with DNA bombshells––but it’s his voice that is the real revelation. Imagine if wit and wisdom had a baby, and that baby could write. Reading Manboobs is like being regaled by an exceedingly charming raconteur who's lived a thousand lives before dessert. Grab a chai, dive in, and find out why the truest place to come home to is, and always has been, within ourselves. Curtain up on an extraordinary tale of self-acceptance and celebration."
author of The Empty Room SADIA ABBAS
"A fabulously witty book about betrayal by many promises: the American dream, Pakistani and religious nationalism, family, love. Wrenchingly personal, unflaggingly generous to the reader, yet full of penetrating social commentary, this book gives you nowhere to hide even as you split your sides laughing."
author of Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy GREG MARSHALL
"Manboobs is a vastly entertaining and wickedly funny paean to a body part, and not just the titular one. Komail Aijazuddin dares us to go beneath the surface of his life as a queer man coming of age pre- and post-9/11 in Pakistan, Canada, and the United States. What he asks us to listen for are the wild syncopation and weird music of his heart. How to possibly describe this book? Aijazuddin has given us a globetrotting bildungsroman for the twenty-first century filled with danger, wit, harrowing escapes, and, yes, musicals. Manboobs proudly assumes its place on the shelf beside Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime and the works of Christopher Isherwood. Komail Aijazuddin just might be the most interesting man you’ll ever take to bed with you."
author of A Dutiful Boy MOHSIN ZAIDI
Manboobs is an important story, told with a sharp wit and disarming humor. Aijazuddin has the ability to address difficult subjects with thoughtfulness and honesty, while also making you laugh out loud.
award-winning author of The Death of Vishnu MANIL SURI
A kaleidoscopic journey in search of happiness and freedom—Aijazuddin’s account is hip, engrossing, deeply moving, and remarkably funny.
author Off the Radar CYRUS COPELAND
In Manboobs Komail Aijazuddin serves up a sharply witty and heartwarmingly candid memoir that pirouettes across Lahore, London, and New York City in a quest for home. Part coming-of-age story, part musical extravaganza, this isn't just a tale about growing up gay in Pakistan with body image woes; it's a masterclass in turning life's dissonance into exhilarating adventure. Komail's story zips and zags through cultures and continents with undeniable flair, each city setting the stage for a new act of personal discovery. On this grand tour to self enlightenment, Komail confronts his inner critics and societal norms, enigmatic parents, closeted anti-heroes, immigration agents and blue-blooded families with DNA bombshells––but it’s his voice that is the real revelation. Imagine if wit and wisdom had a baby, and that baby could write. Reading Manboobs is like being regaled by an exceedingly charming raconteur who's lived a thousand lives before dessert. Grab a chai, dive in, and find out why the truest place to come home to is, and always has been, within ourselves. Curtain up on an extraordinary tale of self-acceptance and celebration.
Kirkus Reviews
2024-05-15
A visual artist’s debut memoir about growing up gay and finding artistic refuge from the “patriarchal penitentiary” of Pakistan.
Born in Abu Dhabi, Aijazuddin spent most of his childhood and adolescence in Lahore, the city to which his parents returned when he was 5. As deep as his family’s Pakistani roots were, the author felt like a perennial outsider. The effeminacy he displayed as a child later manifested as queerness and—to his dismay—a pair of “manboobs” that made the overweight adolescent Aijazuddin look “more like the statue of a pagan fertility goddess than a pubescent boy.” Yet even as he struggled with his sexuality and body, the author managed to find other gay youths who shared his love of everything glittery and gorgeous, from Cleopatra to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. During his post-college life in New York City, a painter friend was granted a green card on the strength of his early career achievements, and Aijazuddin, also studying in New York, began laying the foundation for a similar attempt. Realizing that his dream of residing in America could take years, the author returned to Pakistan to become a working artist. The social pressures to conform to heteronormativity surrounded him, especially as he found artistic recognition and, later, a boyfriend whom he eventually lost to schizophrenia. Despite his struggles with personal tragedy and disenchantment with the U.S., the author found strength among other gay Pakistani transplants, all while taking solace in the great lesson every musical he had ever seen taught him: although “no life is without struggle, no life need be without joy.” Unabashed in its depiction of camp and queer identity, Aijazuddin’s book is a poignant reflection on identity, race, and the meaning of home.
A wickedly funny and often moving memoir.
