The Reader's Shelf—Coming Out in Print: Gay and Lesbian Memoirs

By Neal Wyatt -- Library Journal, 5/1/2007

As Devon Thomas points out in her Collection Development article (p. 40–43), the world of gay and lesbian fiction is rich and diverse. So it should be no surprise that the concerns and concepts explored in fiction also find voice in the ruminations of gay and lesbian authors as they write their memoirs. Memoir is the perfect form in which to write about the struggles of coming of age and coming out. These titles, gathered from winning or honor books selected by the prestigious Stonewall, Publishing Triangle, and Lambda book award committees, offer a window into the lives of writers struggling to express both painful and joyful realizations.

Alison Bechdel, best known for her “Dykes To Watch Out For” comic strip, grew up with a distant father who was obsessed with his Gothic Revival home and who both ran a funeral parlor and taught English. Their relationship forms the narrative pull of her graphic novel memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Houghton. 2006. ISBN 978-0-618-47794-4. $19.95), as she battles the distance between them and the effect of his behavior on her life. Having kept a journal from a young age, Bechdel is able to reconstruct her quiet struggles with identity and family. The result of her self-documentation is this hauntingly illustrated story that is both powerful and tragically honest.

Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir of Becoming a Man (Beacon, dist. by Houghton. 2006. ISBN 978-0-8070-7146-5. $24.95) relates the ultimately triumphant story of Kevin Jennings, the founder of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network). Growing up in the 1960s, Jennings was the youngest son of an often unemployed Southern Baptist preacher. A series of horrible events marked his childhood: he contracted whooping cough, which his impoverished family could not afford to treat; his father died during Jennings's eighth birthday party; and he did not fit in and suffered terribly at school. It was not until Jennings earned a scholarship to Harvard that he gained any kind of respite. There he studied to become a teacher, a career that eventually enabled him to find his true self and to help other gay students prevent the harassment he had to endure.

In the angry and bitingly humorous My One-night Stand with Cancer: A Memoir (Alyson. 2005. ISBN 978-1-55583-890-4. pap. $15.95), Tania Katan recalls her battle with breast cancer. Stricken by the disease twice, once at age 21 (when it progressed to stage three) and again at 31, when the cancer resurfaced, Katan writes with authority on the process of treatment, fear, and survival. Intertwined with the cancer memoir are Katan's recollections of a young woman coming of age as a lesbian, friendless and isolated, and her subsequent life as a woman fighting a disease while trying to pick up women, cope with her fascinating family, and run 10K races.

In The Tricky Part: A Boy's Story of Sexual Trespass, A Man's Journey to Forgiveness (Anchor. 2006. ISBN 978-0-307-27653-7. pap. $14), Martin Moran recalls his sexual abuse at the hands of a church camp councilor and his lifelong struggle to find peace. At the age of 12, he is drawn into a relationship with thirtysomething Bob that will last for three years and fester for 30 more. At first the secret affair elicits a mix of desperate acceptance and heady excitement, but soon it dwindles to shame and guilt, feelings that would haunt and drive Moran for decades until support groups, New Age philosophy, and the assistance of his aunt, a contemplative nun, help him find self-acceptance and an inner balance.

Noelle Howey's Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods—My Mother's, My Father's, and Mine (Picador: St. Martin's. 2003. ISBN 978-0-312-42220-2. pap. $14) is a memoir of growing up in a household of essentially three women, for the author's father first believed he was a straight male transvestite but later realized he was actually a woman. While walking the awkward road of her own adolescent femininity, Howey developed a strong sense of honesty and affection for her unusual parents. Her story of her family's various transformations is rich in character and full of gentle self-deprecation and deep understanding.

In Naked (Back Bay: Little, Brown. 1998. ISBN 978-0-316-77773-5. pap. $14.99), David Sedaris has written a wickedly smart and generous riot of a memoir. Well known for his hilariously snide Santaland Diaries, here he turns his laser beam of observant detail and wry observation inward, skewering himself and his family in a series of finely honed essays. Be it a horribly self-aware trek to a nudist colony, a bizarre road trip, or a recounting of his mother's bitingly accurate depiction of his own foibles, Sedaris shares myriad perspectives on his life and times.