Just Gone: True Stories of Persecution for Love and Life Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by Sasha Stolz Publicity in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: this review discusses attempted murder, sexual assault, rape, and exorcisms.

Countries all around the world are celebrating Pride this month. We have made great strides in ensuring and protecting the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. However, there are still nations that still persecute people from that group, including prison and in some cases, death. I knew about this prior to reading today’s book Just Gone: True Stories of Persecution for Love and Life by Jo DeLuzio, but that book opened my eyes to the extent in which individuals endured and how they escaped to Canada. It’s a powerful story that needs to be read by everyone regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity.

 Just Gone: True Stories of Persecution for Love and Life is a collection of interviews with queer people who sought refuge in Canada. LGBTQ+ individuals have always told their stories in order to make themselves visible. However, for some, rendering themselves this way can lead to violence and death. These interviews provide them a safe outlet to share their stories from all around the world. They often tell heartbreaking tales of why and how they escaped their homelands without getting caught or killed. They are just gone from those areas. Many who came to North America still wonder if they will be found and murdered. In addition, the author adds background information to the impact of the stories of the people she interviews.

While I was in college, I was the secretary of the LGBTQ+ club for all four years. As someone who’s straight, it opened my eyes to the people in that community and tales they told. I knew about their past and present struggles, but Just Gone highlights them on a global scale to show that there are still battles that need to be fought to prove that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights. Even DeLuzio herself, who came out as queer later in life, was blown away by what the participants endured in their home countries. She may be the reader’s objective lens, but it’s clear that she too learned many things while conducting the interviews and writing this book.

Just Gone contains seven harrowing stories of the suffering the interviewees – whose real names are undisclosed – endured and how they managed to get out of their home countries. Most of them are gay men, but there’s a lesbian and a transgender woman. DeLuzio acknowledges this discrepancy by writing how being a woman adds even more pressure to live by societal expectations in certain nations (p. 6-10). 

At under 200 pages, I was able to read this in under a week. Each tale was beautifully constructed. The ones I gravitated to the most were Eric and Roberto from Mexico and Ariella from Nigeria. In Eric and Roberto’s case, they found fiberglass in their apartment’s ventilation. Later, they got drugged and beaten, and Roberto was repeatedly raped. The worst part was that Eric’s aunt was in the room when the latter episode occurred.

As for Ariella’s story, she grew up knowing that she was a girl despite being a boy’s body. However, when she told her family that she liked boys, they kicked her out of the house. She spent many years living on the streets working as a drug runner and later as a prostitute. Ariella endured several beatings and rapes, and even at one point, she was left for dead after a severe attack. Luckily, a prostitute named Chisimdi found her, took her in, and accepted her for who she was. Both stories were devastating to hear, yet they needed to be told. I’m glad all of the interviewees, including Eric, Roberto, and Ariella found ways to escape.

DeLuzio also does a great job with providing context about the countries the participants came from at the end of each chapter. For example, even though discrimination against LGBTQ+ people is illegal in Mexico, and same-sex marriage is recognized in all 32 states, that nation is notorious in its human rights violations with torture and enforced disappearances being well documented (p. 115). In addition, the situation in Nigeria has gotten worse with its treatment of LGBTQ+ people since Ariella left. Same-sex relations in that nation are punishable by imprisonment or death depending on secular or Sharia laws, and even “the mere discussion of LGBTQ rights was criminalized” by 2021 (p. 74). 

In nations like these, the fight for LGBTQ+ rights are far from over.

Another wonderful aspect of the book was how the interviewee chose their pseudonyms for the book. For instance, Ariella got hers because she asked DeLuzio to select a name that was fit for a princess. The author initially chose Ariel from The Little Mermaid, but the participant felt that it was too plain, so she changed it to Ariella (p. 73). 

Additionally, Sungai from Indonesia selected that name because it meant river or stream in Indonesian, as he put it, “They tried to wash away the gay, but they failed. I was born gay, and nothing will change it” (p. 53).

He had every right to say that. A church in his home country performed an exorcism to try to wash the gay away. It didn’t work.

Just Gone: True Stories of Persecution for Love and Life by Jo DeLuzio is a powerful book that doesn’t need additional words for how great it is. I already mentioned who I would recommend it to, but I’ll say it again: it needs to be read by everybody regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. If the author, who’s queer herself, can learn about the extent of the horrific situations that the participants went through, you can too. It’s not an easy read by any stretch, but it’s not meant to be. After all, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, pansexual, asexual, aromantic, and two-spirit people, etc., tell their stories to cement their existence and not be erased. Let’s remember that all year round and not just in June.

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