Mean

GURBA GROWS UP QUEER, CHICANA, AND TAKES NO PRISONERS. HER STORY IS A REVELATION, A DELIGHT, AND AN EYE-OPENER.

True crime, memoir, and ghost story, Mean is the bold and hilarious tale of Myriam Gurba’s coming of age as a queer, mixed-race Chicana. Blending radical formal fluidity and caustic humor, Gurba takes on sexual violence, small towns, and race, turning what might be tragic into piercing, revealing comedy. This is a confident, intoxicating, brassy book that takes the cost of sexual assault, racism, misogyny, and homophobia deadly seriously.

Awards

• Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ Nonfiction
• Finalist for the Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
• 2018 ALA-GLBTRT Over the Rainbow Top 10 Book
• Nylon, “Our Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2017”
• Book Riot, “The Best Genre Bending Fiction of 2017”
• NBC, “8 Great Latino Books of 2017”
• BuzzFeed, “The 19 Best Nonfiction Books Of 2017”
• Autostraddle, “The Top 10 Queer and Feminist Books of 2017”
• Remezcla, “These Were the Best Books From Latin American & Latino Authors in 2017”
• The Riveter, “The Riveter’s Top Ten Books of 2017”

“Mean” calls for a fat, fluorescent trigger warning start to finish — and I say this admiringly. Gurba likes the feel of radioactive substances on her bare hands. She wants to find new angles from which to report on this most ancient of stories, to zap you into feeling. – New York Times

“Gurba’s ‘queer art of being mean’ is a triumph of deadpan humor in a timely and thrilling voice. Stop everything and read this brave and tender book.” — O, The Oprah Magazine

Reviews

“[Gurba’s] dark humor isn’t used for shock value alone, offering instead a striking image of deflection and coping in the face of real pain and terror.” — Publishers Weekly

“Like most truly great books, Mean made me laugh, cry and think. Myriam Gurba’s a scorchingly good writer.” Cheryl Strayd, NYTimes

“With its icy wit, edgy wedding of lyricism and prose, and unflinching look at personal and public demons, Gurba’s introspective memoir is brave and significant.” —Kirkus

“With unconstrained, inventive, stop-you-in-your-tracks writing, Gurba asserts that there is glee, freedom, and, perhaps most of all, truth in meanness.” —Booklist

“She tackles everything from sexual violence to racism with humour and directness.” —ELLE UK

“[Gurba’s] voice is irreverent, lyrical, and sharply observant, even as her book offers dark commentary on what it means to be a woman in American society.” —Library Journal, starred review

“Mean will make you LOL and break your heart.” —The Millions

“Gurba’s ‘queer art of being mean’ is a triumph of deadpan humor in a timely and thrilling voice. Stop everything and read this brave and tender book.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“[Mean] is a book that commands you, pushing and pulling you with the author’s expert language and voice, haunting you long after the pages have ended.” —Atticus Reviews

“The book is a study in the utility and limits of niceness, especially when it comes to being a nice girl — and the political power of being mean.” —Pacific Standard

“After picking up Myriam Gurba’s Mean, I almost dropped it, the way one lets go of something delivering a powerful electric shock. I was captivated.” – Lauren Kane, Paris Review

“Don’t let its slim profile fool you, this memoir bursts with vitality and humor (however mordant), all while dealing with issues of gender politics, sexual assault, PTSD, and Gurba’s experience growing up as a queer, mixed race Chicana in California in the ’80s.” —Nylon

“Through her unpredictable style, Gurba offers a welcomed antidote to the formula of the contemporary novel.” —W Magazine

“This book is testament, translation, smackdown, and also it’s hella funny.” —Vol. 1 Brooklyn

“Gurba throws her past styles and concerns into a blast furnace and casts Mean, a pair of brass knuckles disguised as a book, a personal narrative that takes on sexual assault and its aftermath, rape culture, racism, queerness, family, and coming of age, laced through with a cool knowing and cooler humor, a literary voice like none other.” —Publishers Weekly

“Hauntingly, beautiful, and refreshingly blunt, Gurba’s [Mean] is an open door through which she invites you to experience her life, in all its beauty and struggle. I suggest you walk through it.” —Harvard Crimson

“The difficulty and the joy of reading Mean is diving deep into the murky ‘Molack’ waters with Myriam Gurba.” —Bust

“[Gurba’s] writing is caustic and scathing, and eloquently targeted.” —Literary Hub

“This is a confident, intoxicating, brassy book that takes the cost of sexual assault, racism, misogyny, and homophobia deadly seriously.” —The Rumpus

“Not one to mince words, this Lambda Literary finalist [Myriam Gurba] nevertheless aims to entertain as she tackles racism, homophobia, and sexual violence in this amusing genre-defying celebration of strategic offensiveness.” —Logo

“Mean takes a hard look at how this country has treated victims of sexual violence and how collectively we have shamed them into inaction and steered them away from their own advocacy, demonstrating that consequences for attackers often fall entirely on the victim.” —The Believer

“Honest and darkly funny, the book is riddled with moments that will have you nodding, cringing, and crying right along with the author.” —Harper’s Bazaar

“Throughout the book, [Gurba] handles the telling of one tragedy after another with great care and sharp humor, so there is redemption and levity even in dark moments.” —Buzzfeed

“[Gurba] breathes fire and Spanglish, batters you with her biting humor then buries you in truths you cannot look away from. . . . This is how memoirs should always be written – with fierceness, brutal honesty and a wry smile cutting through it all.” —Brightest Young Things

“Read Mean for its humor and stimulating structure. Read Gurba for her unique perspective and literary stylings.” —PANK

“Mean is pure Gurba: brazen, ballsy, and grinning. But Gurba’s first memoir is also poised to be a breakout book – a work that, like Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water, will likely catapult its author out of the small world of experimental-ish short fiction and into a much larger readership.” —4Columns