The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Ziyad, Hari. Black Boy Out of Time. Little A, 2021.

Hari Ziyad's memoir Black Boy Out of Time traces the author's process of reconnecting with their childhood self. The author writes the memoir from their first person point of view. Because they consistently combine personal narrative with cultural criticism, the author toggles between the past and the present tenses. The following summary offers a more streamlined mode of explanation.

Ziyad opens the memoir by describing their experience taking walks with their grandmother. Although Ziyad was never close with her as a child, these outings help Ziyad see and understand their grandmother better. Over time, they also help Ziyad recover facets of themself they thought they had lost.

After Ziyad's mother Mata is diagnosed with uterine cancer, Ziyad becomes desperate to rediscover and relay the truth of their identity to Mata. They want to heal this relationship before Mata passes away and before their marriage to their partner Timothy.

Ziyad takes their friend's advice and begins to see a therapist. The therapist recommends that Ziyad read Margaret Paul's Inner Bonding: Becoming a Loving Adult to Your Inner Child. Through the book, Ziyad learns that the Inner Child is one's childhood self. Communicating with this version of self, Paul argues, might help the individual heal from past trauma and rediscover their essential nature.

Ziyad begins conversing with their childhood self by writing letters. In the letters, Ziyad addresses their Inner Child as Hari-Gaura. In their letters to Hari-Gaura, Ziyad begins to recollect childhood memories. These memories help Ziyad to understand who they were. They also begin to understand the ways in which they learned to quash their true self to satisfy their culture's, community's, and family's expectations of them. Both of Ziyad's parents were religious, and both believed that homosexuality was a sin. Therefore, once Ziyad experienced their sexual awakening, they did everything in their power to shield their identity from their family.

When Ziyad started seeing a boy named Michael, they kept the relationship secret. They would do anything to see Michael even if it meant defying their mother. Meanwhile, they started reading Mercedes Lackey’s Magic’s Pawn, a book about two young boys who fall in love. The book validated Ziyad's experience. Their mother ultimately confiscated the book not long later.

After Ziyad finally finished high school, they decided to move away from their home and family in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. They were moving to New York City to attend New York University's film program. They hoped that New York would finally be the place where they could embrace, inhabit, and express their truest self. However, they soon learned that their environment was not the only factor dictating their expression of self. Rather, over the years, they had learned to quiet their queerness as a way to protect themself and to satisfy others' expectations of them, independent of where they were. Even as an adult on the verge of marriage to their loving partner, Ziyad continues to wrestle with how they might be their most authentic self without shame or fear.

The more letters that Ziyad writes to their Inner Child, the closer they come to healing. Through these letters they have not only reconnected with their childhood self, but discovered a way to apology to them. In freeing Hari-Gaura from the shame and guilt of their past, Ziyad ultimately learns how to free themself as well.