How a UCLA author un-erased queer history in a National Book Award-nominated second novel
LOS ANGELES — Justin Torres has a decent excuse for taking 12 years to write his second book. Roughly nine years ago, the novelist was on a fellowship in France, trucking along on a draft about a young gay sex worker, when one day he lost the manuscript on a train.
"I lose everything all the time," Torres, 43, explained during a recent interview in his office at UCLA, where he is a professor of English. "I'm trained in a certain kind of radical acceptance."
In fact, he didn't even feel resigned, he recalls. He felt free.
The move gave him cover from his editor to spend more time reading — Manuel Puig, Juan Rulfo and others — in search of the inspiration to try something completely different. "I really wanted to change the way I wrote," he explained.
The result is "Blackouts," an experimental journey into
