Almost Bad, The Book
The book is my true story about growing up with a gay parent in the 80s, in an American era when being gay was not an OK thing. About how God broke up with my family, how friends walked away from us, how preachers said mom was the reason tornadoes were ripping apart the heartland, how AIDS was coming for her kind. They said if they allowed people like mom to marry, they might as well let St. Bernards get hitched as well. In many states, same-sex couples weren’t allowed to adopt. So my mom wasn’t even considered legally fit to be my mom.
I wrote about my crippling fear of the gay gene, and what would happen if she’d passed it onto me. One day a rogue chromosome would stage a coup and kill off my hetero genes. I’d have to watch people walk away, too. I’d seen her life, and I didn’t want it. I wrote about the undoing of an American bigot, and that bigot was me.
I found a champion of the book in iconic New York publisher, Richard Seaver. He released the hardcover nationally under his label, Arcade Publishing. It was a great honor. And right as we put it out, the American economy took an epic swan dive. It ravaged publishing, Arcade was sold, and the book was lost forever.
People I trust have told me to move on. Write a book about food. Make YouTube videos. Focus on the now, the future. I saw their point. I was going to just let it die. Cue the bugle, cut the flowers. But then, the morning after the 2016 election, all mentions of LGBTQ were scrubbed from the White House website. They deleted my mom.
This story needed to live. A story of how it was before things got better.
So I dusted off the manuscript. There had been things I didn’t love about the book. I originally wrote it in the voice of a callous 13-year-old boy. It had too many jokes, too little heart. I didn’t like the title (“Family Outing”). I didn’t like the cover art. I wrote the final six chapters in five days, and re-reading it, I could tell.
I stripped the original story down to what I think were some pretty lovely bones. I rewrote the whole thing. I’ve added all that I’ve learned about being the son of a gay parent in a time when most of America treated them like second-class citizens, like broken people who couldn’t be trusted around us kids.
After three long years (during which I ignored it for long stretches), it’s nearly done. It’s still my story, but a completely different book.
This is where this book and my story will live. In the coming months, I’ll post excerpts and read some of the stories. Thanks to everyone in my life for the patience, and I hope it adds something valuable to a crucial national conversation.
Thanks for reading, guys.