Rarely have I had such a wide range of opinions about a book or it’s author. This memoir subtitled “A Gay Life Before Stonewall” is sometimes that but is much more other things. Written in three sections, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, more correctly “Early Abused Life,” “Glamorous Gay Life,” and “Soul Searching Mature Life,” this book gives new meaning to the word ambivalance, both the author’s and mine as reader/reviewer.
Alan Helms, the protagonist, spends a third of this well paced work providing the background for who he is. He was a bright, handsome child, inquisitive, sensitive, and gay...gay in an era when it wasn’t possible to be gay. This alone would make growing up difficult but for young Al these early years were further disorienting. He was raised in a seriously abusive household in which his alcoholic father beat, threatened, intimidated and demeaned his mother, the author and his two younger siblings.
These early years are genuinely felt and recounted in painful perspective. Whether or not factual (who can tell...even Al), it still has the ring of truth. It serves two purposes. It sets the contrast for the gay life of the second section...more importantly, it is a very necessary cathartic exercize for the author.
The “Glamorous Gay Life” section creates major ambivalance for the reader if he is anything like me. Gossipy, waspish and WASPish, I have never read any litany of such unabashed name-dropping. I am envious of this life, one that I could never hope to have lived. At the same time I felt repulsed by the sheer arrogance of the writer. I had the same feeling watching La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2, both Fellini films of the era. Oddly, Alan lived that life, knew those people, and even had a small part in 8 1/2.
“Soul Searching Mature Life” rounds out the memoir. Here we learn of the author’s gradual maturing, his questioning his earlier life and his coming to terms with himself and the aging process. The words are appropriate but the mood they evoke seem to me disingenuious. This may be because I remain envious of the great sex, the terrific drugs, the fantasitc parties, but even more of the wonderful, intelligent, creative people who so idolized the writer. Only in the short passages at the book’s end where he descibes his mother’s death do I empathize.
What’s to say...I believe that “you are who you are because of where you’ve been.” Alan Helms for sure has “been.” It has made him articulate, sophisticated, urbane, and screwed up. He is clearly one of the more complicated men around. Did I like the book? No. Recommend it? No! Sour grapes? Yep!!