Masking for It

As a gay kid in a rural town in the U.K., as an actor, a social media star, and as someone with ADHD, Theo Walker has worn many masks in his daily life. This coming-of-age memoir is a rollicking, wickedly funny, yet radically honest account of what happens when you stop performing.

From the "Operation Straight Boy" survival strategies of his youth to the disorienting chaos of present-day fame, Theo explores the gradual construction-and eventual cracking-of the personas we adopt to survive. This memoir traces a path through the "heteronormative pressure cooker" of the British school system, where survival depends on diminishing yourself, toward a searingly observed and layered exploration of what it costs to finally be seen. (He'll get there. Eventually.)

Along the way he shares his experiences of being beaten up and thrown in hedges, accidentally streaming gay porn to the living room TV, him and his girlfriend making each other gay, the trauma of high school, drama school, stalkers, social media trolls paying for his influencer lifestyle and his perpetual yearn for success and love (and attention).