Performance Anxiety

“Jonathan Lerner walks us into the year 1964. The civil rights movement and the war in Vietnam are in the background. In the foreground is his fractured family, their houses, moves, connection, dysfunction—compellingly re-examined as an invitation for us to examine our own lives, in this time of increasing global fracture and dysfunction.”


—Eli Andrew Ramer, author of Ever After





“Jonathan Lerner’s deceptively breezy memoir roots around in his peripatetic childhood not just for the sake of telling colorful, funny stories but in search of truth, accuracy, and in some cases self-forgiveness. He is excruciatingly honest about the self-torture queer boys undergo in their effort to live up to some flimsy concept of acceptable masculinity. Along the way he investigates the peculiar phenomenon of memory, seemingly concrete and yet surprisingly malleable to the forces of time, shame, and distance.”


—Don Shewey, author of Daddy Lover God: A Sacred Intimate Journey





“Performance Anxiety is a rich, textured account of Jonathan Lerner’s journey through the complexities of adolescence and early adulthood, set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing America. With unflinching honesty, Lerner explores his struggles with sexual identity, self-discovery, and the pressures of conformity in a world that often feels both exhilarating and unforgiving.”


—Eric Cervini, author of The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. The United States of America