The Book Prize Index

Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir

Brian Broome

Punch Me Up to the Gods is a memoir, written by Brian Broome and published May 18, 2021 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The book won the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction (2021), as well as the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir or Biography (2022). Punch Me Up to the Gods chronicles Broome's experience growing up as a queer Black boy in rural Ohio. The New York Times explained that with this book, "Broome hopes to counter the force of that punch by exploring the beauty of queer Black manhood, while offering a new way to write about that beauty."

Memoir & AutobiographyMemoir & Autobiography · medium confidenceMemoir & Autobiography81 signalsLlm Classifier: Memoir & Autobiography -> Memoir & AutobiographyOpen Library: Biography -> BiographyOpen Library: African american studies -> Race & EthnicityCivil Rights & Racial Justice

Award History

1 wins · 1 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Kirkus Prize for NonfictionMajor2021WinnerOfficial source
View all award history (1)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact. Automated checks have flagged this profile for extra review.

  1. 01 Central figures

    • Brian Broome80%

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    35 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 78%.