My Government Means to Kill Me

National Bestseller · The New York Times Notable Book · The New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice · 2023 Lambda Literary Prize for Gay Fiction Finalist

The debut novel from the television writer and producer of The Chi, Narcos, and Bel-Air tells a fierce and riveting queer coming-of-age story following the personal and political awakening of a young, gay, Black man in 1980s New York City.

“Consistently engrossing.” — The New York Times Book Review

“Full of joy and righteous anger, sex and straight talk, brilliant storytelling and humor… A spectacularly researched Dickensian tale with vibrant characters and dozens of famous cameos, it is precisely the book we’ve needed for a long time.” — Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less

Earl “Trey” Singleton III arrives in New York City with only a few dollars in his pocket. Born into a wealthy Black family in Indianapolis, at seventeen he is ready to leave his overbearing parents and their expectations behind.

In the city, Trey encounters a cast of characters who change his life forever. He volunteers at a renegade home hospice for AIDS patients and, after being put to the test by gay rights activists, becomes a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Along the way, Trey attempts to navigate past traumas and searches for ways to maintain familial relationships — all while seeking the meaning of life amid so much death.

Vibrant, humorous, and fraught with entanglements, Rasheed Newson’s My Government Means to Kill Me is an exhilarating, fast-paced coming-of-age story that opens a larger discussion about what it meant for a young gay Black man in the mid-1980s to come to terms with his role during a political and social reckoning.