"Thirty-Seven-Year Abduction: Memoir of a Gay Mississippi Author Finding Himself Again is a work of non-fiction in the autobiography, LGBTQ+, and social issues subgenres. It best suits the mature adult reading audience and explicitly discusses sexual trauma and discrimination. Penned by Milan Sergent, this heartfelt memoir explores the author's journey to face many tragedies and difficulties, particularly in escaping the horrors of gay conversion therapy. The work is a frank discussion of how far families can go to wrongfully ‘correct’ their children and the journey of strength and resilience it takes to come out on the other side of this type of treatment.
Milan Sergent highlights critical issues in this raw, unapologetic memoir. Books like this remind us of the massive uphill climb for full LGBTQ+ rights, visibility, and fair treatment across every country. I was very impressed with the author’s candor and narrative style. It pulls no punches in explaining the full range of horrors that gay conversion therapy inflicts upon young minds when they’re just trying to be themselves, be happy, and be loved. The narrative felt like a dear friend pouring their heart out, and I felt for Sergent and his journey to freedom and self-love. Overall, I would not hesitate to recommend Thirty-Seven-Year Abduction to anyone who enjoys accomplished and heartfelt memoirs and anyone looking to broaden their horizons about LGBTQ+ rights and social issues surrounding the topic."
"As a victim of childhood sexual abuse and someone who has mentored other abuse victims as they struggled to write their painful memoirs, I thought I'd heard it all. I believed that nothing else could shock me. Then I read Thirty-Seven-Year Abduction by Milan Sergent. If Sergent had written a horror novel, he couldn't have horrified and saddened me more than this, his memoir of child and adult abuse. I’m not talking about what we usually think of as rape or sexual molestation. Milan’s rape was the long-term violation of a human being, his essence, and his right to be who he was born to be; a gay man. His 37 years of rape began as a result of what, for me, are the archaic religious beliefs of his parents. They continued when a desperate Milan tried to redeem himself in his and everyone else’s eyes through a regular male-to-female marriage and by joining a Pentecostal church.
Thirty-Seven-Year Abduction rivals the best impossible-to-put-down books I have ever read. Milan Sergent has a superb command of language and beautiful control of his pacing and characterization. How he absorbs us into his emotions and makes us feel his deep, ongoing pain is powerful. What Sergent endured for 37 years makes me glad I wasn’t born into an evangelical religion in the deep south. Sergent tried suicide twice. I might have succeeded if his experience had been mine. Sergent spends time at the end of his memoir presenting enlightening information about what I see as a warped practice that began in the early 1900s and continued for decades; that of making boys on swim teams swim in the nude. Did you know that? I was shocked: “Any boy who tried to cover himself was made to feel unmanly or like a nerd.” As Milan shares his closing thoughts on the current narrow attitudes toward LGBTQ, I find myself agreeing whole-heartedly with his statement that “…child abuse is telling children they were born inadequate and sinful and God is watching their every intimate moment and will torture them for eternity in the flames of Hell if they don’t let Him possess them.” My final thoughts on this poignant, gut-wrenching memoir are that I will never forget it. Read it!"
