LEAP by Brent Love (Armenia)

 A new book — 

Leap
A Memoir
by Brent Love (Armenia 2009-11)
Manuscripts Press
June 2024
452 pages
$14.99 (paperback); 14.99 (Kindle); $37.99 (Hardcover)

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In a small Texas town, Brent comes out to his parents, and on that night his place in the world cracks wide open. Unmoored from his family but unwilling to give up on his dream, Brent enters the Peace Corps with the incredible task of navigating an unfamiliar land, a new language, and a new identity as a gay man in post-Soviet Armenia.

As he grapples with a religious past and a queer future, Brent finds himself immersed in a culture he’d never imagined. He moves in with Armenian families, celebrates his first Nor Tari, hunts mushrooms in the mountain mists, and dances in Yerevan at his first gay bar, all while hoping for and trying to find romance, even love. When his Peace Corps commitment begins to take unexpected turns, Brent must decide what matters to him most and where he thinks he belongs.

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Brent Love (Armenia 2009-11)

Brent Love worked as Roving Correspondent for the American Refugee Committee. He covered stories across the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Love studied political science and international relations at Abilene Christian University and began his career in refugee resettlement in West Texas. He is the host of the surrogacy podcast Hope Works. After living and working abroad for most of his adult life, Love settled down to raise two kids with his  husband. When he isn’t playing outside with his family, you’ll find Love cooking, cleaning, or, if he’s lucky, cuddled up with a book and his dog, Cricket.