The Hen Next Door

About the Book

A ribald, raucous, shameless, and touching account of one Caribbean gay boy’s fight for recognition, acceptance, and love over five decades, several cultures, and several continents! The hen next door announces to his parents he wants a sex change at fifteen, and it’s all downhill after that, or flying free, depending on your point of view, gay or Christian. Or both, as this hilariously shameless, educated, and unapologetic character who thinks he is gay chats with his neighbor about a lifetime of sexual escapades and tears we wonder if indeed “she didn’t know that some people, even her mother, could not like her.”

About the Author

Peter Persad feels very strongly about the dilemmas Caribbean gay and transgender persons who are also religious find themselves facing. He is ready to speak out about the journeys of men and boys who have never been able to hide, who never had the choice to be seen as anything other than laughably girlish to disgustingly deviant, both within the gay world and in a publicly homophobic culture that, paradoxically, isn’t as homophobic as leaders would like us to believe. He believes that carving or accepting an identity is a struggle that begins in their homes and continues relentlessly throughout adult life and never ends. He is an essentially private and very Caribbean person, even after more than ten years living abroad in Canada and the United Kingdom, and has filled many roles, from childhood calypso singer, actor, and scholar to art teacher, horticultural nursery supervisor and landscaper, fabric and fashion designer, artist, science teacher and vice principal, gardener, and godfather and thinks he’s had enough after a lifetime of silence. This is his first novel.