Tough Guy: A Memoir and a Search

A powerful hybrid memoir exploring the connections between father and son, addiction and disease, and what it really means to be a man, from an award-winning queer journalist Growing up in and around New York City, all Mat really knew of his father, Tofi, was that he loved to cook, he loved to dance, and he was, for the most part, completely absent from his family’s life. As Mat grew older, he realized his father was an addict despite his mother’s silence on the subject, and he realized that he himself was gay, a revelation that was met only with “Don’t get AIDS,” a stinging blow to young Mat. But it was not until Tofi was on his deathbed that his son learned his father had been HIV-positive for all of Mat’s life.