The Black Flamingo

The Black Flamingo is the YA novel I needed to read forty years ago when I was an adolescent struggling with my sexuality. How wonderful it would have been to encounter in the pages of a beautifully written verse novel the character of Michael Angeli (yes, the name is significant), a biracial youth growing up in London with a Greek Cypriot mother and an absent father. Michael is both attracted to and repelled by boys. He loves his best friend Daisy, but he is not sure whether he loves her “like that.” He gets along better with girls than he does with boys, yet he cannot stop fantasizing about kissing his cute classmate Rowan. Michael continues to negotiate his shifting identities as he goes off to college. He never feels “enough” to fit in with any social group—until he finds the Drag Society. The rest is a glorious depiction of transformation, self-love, and empowerment. Precisely the kind of message queer youth need to read about. Dean Atta has written a masterpiece. The images and cadences of his poetry perfectly express the pain and joy of Michael’s maturation. When we want to assure LGBTQ+ teenagers that “it gets better,” we should not simply promise them—we should give them books like The Black Flamingo to read.

The Black Flamingo follows Michael, a young half-Jamaican half-Greek Cyprian from boyhood to his coming of age in university. Michael struggles with never feeling Black enough, Greek enough, and that being gay is at odds with all these other parts of himself, all while wrestling with a father who never seems to want to see him, and a mother who doesn’t understand that Michael would rather play with Barbie’s then Ninja Turtles. Even with the story seeped in deep questions of identity, there were light moments of family love between Michael and his sister, the power of friendships, and even the sweetness of falling for a guy you never thought would see you in that way, and to have him like you back. Not to mention discovering your tribe—in the university Drag Society for Michael! This was my first verse novel ever, and I admit I was a bit worried going into it—I’ve shied away from verse before as I am not great at connecting with poetry and I had a hard time imagining I could really lose myself in an entire novel written in this format. Oh. My. Goodness. I’m ashamed it took me so long to give this format a try! I still can’t tell you if the verse, the poetry, is “good” by poetry standards, I just don’t really get that sort of thing. I will say that even with the format I had no trouble following Michael’s story, I always understood the pain he felt, the confusion, or the excitement and acceptance he was given. You can really understand Michael and his longing to find that place where he can be his authentic self, one where his being bi-racial doesn’t make him feel lesser than others, or that him being gay or his growing love for Drag makes him any lesser of a man. Michael starts off as this shy kid, unsure how to express to his mother that he wasn’t kidding about wanting the Barbie, into this fabulous, empowered young man who finds his voice and is able to confront those who break his heart. You can’t help but cheer him on as he uncovers these epiphanies about himself, which makes his Drag performance all the more powerful at the end. This is going to be a short review because 1. I can’t and won’t dissect the verse itself and 2. With the format, this was such a quick book to get through that really going into any kind of depth on it will feel like a spoiler. I wish there had been a little more resolution with Michael and the shifting family dynamics he experiences, or at least just more done between Michael and his mom. I also wanted to see a bit more of the positive friendships Michael has in his life beyond Daisy—like getting to know more of the people in the Drag Society! Which is why I am giving it 4 stars. But other than that, I thought this book and the story it presents is so important to reminding readers of all ages—but especially young adults—that they are in charge of who they want to be, no one else, and that’s beautiful! I love the message about coming out for yourself not because society says you should, to really celebrate coming out, and to not let anyone take that away from you. It’s a truly beautiful message, and one that’s so important to have in today’s world especially. I cannot recommend this book enough, even outside of Pride month, and you can bet this won’t be my last verse novel, either!

This beautiful book is written in verse. But each poem is stronger than the one before. It taught me about gender not homosexuality. Mike is still struggling about his sexuality and can\’t find his fit. He is gay but because he is gay doesn\’t mean that he fits in anything related to being gay. He is his own person and on several times Mike tells us that he isn\’t define by his sexuality. Mike is mixed race, his mother is from Greece and his father is from Jamaica. His father never accepted Mike but the rest of the family do. That is one of the reasons why he can\’t find who he is. And then he finds drag. This book is a lesson book about how to be your own person and many of us are struggling trying to find our own voice. The struggles are not necessarily about sexuality…they are about who you want to be and what the outside world wants to be. How many of us have had a comment like this: so you are not going to be a doctor? Why are you studying that? Where will you find a job? Why you aren\’t going to the university? Most of us have to explain our decisions to other people and is not their business. My struggle was with having children. Why don\’t you have children? Do you like kids? Why don\’t you adopt? There are so many children in need of a home. Many meant well, but it wasn\’t their business. I highly recommend this book \”The black flamingo\”.

THE BLACK FLAMINGO was a beautiful, real story told with grit. A coming of age, coming out, all while being black story. What felt unique to me about this story and different to other coming-out stories was that it started in young childhood. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t linger for ages in that age-range but it depicted Michael’s experiences from a young age and I loved that. Michael’s blackness and the experience of having Greek/Cypriot mother and black father who deserted them was fresh and insightful reading. Michael’s own realisations about the colour of his skin alongside his sexuality were thought-provoking and poignant. Seeing Michael become his true self, cast off other people’s presumptions and eventually being drawn to drag was absorbing reading. The story was told in verse that was incredibly engaging. In addition, Michael was a poet and so there were poems peppered throughout the book. In particular, I loved Maybe I’m a Merman and I Wanna Be Fierce. The book was illustrated and formatted in a way that enhanced the reading process (or should have done, see my next paragraph). I bought the ebook for this read and unfortunately there was a problem with the text formatting, nearly every single page of the 300+ pages had a problem with text doubling over itself. I went to report it on amazon but I could see that it is not currently for sale and under review; this surely means they know about the problem and it’s being fixed. THE BLACK FLAMINGO was a quick but impactful read that was inspirational. Dean Atta has a fresh narrative voice and he is a gifted poet. I’d definitely recommend this read.

⁣ I loved this book so so much. ⁣ This book touches on so many topics and has so much emotion that I picked it up and didn’t put it down again until I had finished.⁣ ⁣ The book is about Michael and his life and all the conflicts he sees from, gender inequality to racism, bigotry and homophobia. He spends his life feeling like he doesn’t quiet fit anywhere.⁣ ⁣ This book opened my eyes to so many things including how decisions as a parent, even made with good intentions can cause a child to feel left out of their heritage and how, for a black person, there is levels of black so when he goes to join the African Caribbean Society they tell him he is not black he is mixed, is it any wonder he feels like he doesn’t belong? I can’t even imagine someone saying I wasn’t white enough for a group which just shows how privileged I have been in my life.⁣ ⁣ The author isn’t afraid to have his character admit to having his own preconceived notions about things and the poem ‘Some men have vaginas’ really hit home for me.⁣ ⁣ The speech that Michael makes as the Black Flamingo at the end of this book absolutely phenomenal and you should get this book just for that!! ⁣ ⁣ I definitely recommend this to anyone and everyone and will be keeping on my shelves for my sons to read when they grow up. ⁣ ⁣

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