AmosL
08-27-2006, 08:00 AM
"Grief", a book review
AMOS LASSEN and LITERARY PRIDE
Holleran, Andrew, "Grief". Hyperion, 2006. 150 pages
It is not often that I run to get a book when I hear it is about to be released but when Andrew Holloran writes a new book I feel I have to be one of the first to read it. So when I saw a review in the New York Times of Andrew Hollaran's Grief I rushed out to get it. I met Holloran when his book The Beauty of Men came out ten years ago and interviewed him for a gay paper in New Orleans. I first became acquainted with his writing with his seminal gay classic Dancer from the Day, a gritty novel which relayed what gay life was back in the good old days. I sat down to read Grief in one sitting and it blew me away. Everything about the book is prefect and if I have to find a fault it is that it is too short and was over before I knew it-----like eating a fantastic meal with more than ample servings and still wanting more after the plate has been cleaned.
***********
Grief is the story of one semester in the life of a college English professor and the pain he feels looking back on his life. Coming to Washington, D. C. to escape his previous life--one of loneliness and frustration the professor finds in a book containing the letters of Mary Todd Lincoln in the room he has rented. Reading the letters he finds unexpected truths about America and what it is to lose something. He attempts to find a place in the world around him and tries to find comfort with a student, a mother of a dead friend and even his landlord's dog. He eventually realizes that the grief he feels over his own mother's recent death is really very different than the definition of grief he had before. He evokes voices from his past and they mirror the troubled times America has seen and is seeing.*
***********
This is a unique and moving story that appears to have happened while we were all busy doing something else. In fact on closing the covers one thinks to himself — this is what we are going through now. The plot is a mesh of the pain of the characters and the pain of America. It is elegiac and full of joy at the same time. Holloran dwells on the relentlessness of loss and the importance of grief in our lives.* "...grief", he says. "is what you have after someone you love dies. It's the only thing left of that person.... As long as you have that you are not alone--you have them." Grief becomes a major part of our lives as it enables us to remember those who are no longer here. Holloran's personal grief, aside from the loss of his mother, is interwoven with the loss of those he lost to AIDS.
***********
The book is terse bur extremely powerful. Holloran's language flows and engulfs the reader. His plot is beautiful and heartbreaking and humorous at the same time. Every paragraph, every sentence is carefully chosen with courage.
Is this a gay story? Indeed it is. It is the story of one having survived the holocaust of AIDS who thinks back to the friends he has lost and the pain he has felt. It is the story of a man looking back at his life and remembering in a language so beautiful that it is almost like reading an epic poem-- written in that moment before death. Yet this is the story of a man who is not going to die but will continue through life shouldering the grief that many of us are afraid to show.
***********
I have to admit that I shed tears while reading this book as it forced me to bring my feelings to the forefront. Having been in Israel when AIDS hit America and took so many of my age it was grief that I faced when I came back to visit in 1993 and found that most of my friends were no longer alive. Holloran taught me to express my grief and in doing so those who are no longer here will be with me forever.*
***********
You may find what I have written a bit depressing but the opposite is true. Once you grieve you pick up your life and move forward and you are no longer alone. You have the memories of those you have known with you always.
Andrew Holleran will be a guest of LITERARY PRIDE at the Arkansas Literary Festival in April.
AMOS LASSEN and LITERARY PRIDE
Holleran, Andrew, "Grief". Hyperion, 2006. 150 pages
It is not often that I run to get a book when I hear it is about to be released but when Andrew Holloran writes a new book I feel I have to be one of the first to read it. So when I saw a review in the New York Times of Andrew Hollaran's Grief I rushed out to get it. I met Holloran when his book The Beauty of Men came out ten years ago and interviewed him for a gay paper in New Orleans. I first became acquainted with his writing with his seminal gay classic Dancer from the Day, a gritty novel which relayed what gay life was back in the good old days. I sat down to read Grief in one sitting and it blew me away. Everything about the book is prefect and if I have to find a fault it is that it is too short and was over before I knew it-----like eating a fantastic meal with more than ample servings and still wanting more after the plate has been cleaned.
***********
Grief is the story of one semester in the life of a college English professor and the pain he feels looking back on his life. Coming to Washington, D. C. to escape his previous life--one of loneliness and frustration the professor finds in a book containing the letters of Mary Todd Lincoln in the room he has rented. Reading the letters he finds unexpected truths about America and what it is to lose something. He attempts to find a place in the world around him and tries to find comfort with a student, a mother of a dead friend and even his landlord's dog. He eventually realizes that the grief he feels over his own mother's recent death is really very different than the definition of grief he had before. He evokes voices from his past and they mirror the troubled times America has seen and is seeing.*
***********
This is a unique and moving story that appears to have happened while we were all busy doing something else. In fact on closing the covers one thinks to himself — this is what we are going through now. The plot is a mesh of the pain of the characters and the pain of America. It is elegiac and full of joy at the same time. Holloran dwells on the relentlessness of loss and the importance of grief in our lives.* "...grief", he says. "is what you have after someone you love dies. It's the only thing left of that person.... As long as you have that you are not alone--you have them." Grief becomes a major part of our lives as it enables us to remember those who are no longer here. Holloran's personal grief, aside from the loss of his mother, is interwoven with the loss of those he lost to AIDS.
***********
The book is terse bur extremely powerful. Holloran's language flows and engulfs the reader. His plot is beautiful and heartbreaking and humorous at the same time. Every paragraph, every sentence is carefully chosen with courage.
Is this a gay story? Indeed it is. It is the story of one having survived the holocaust of AIDS who thinks back to the friends he has lost and the pain he has felt. It is the story of a man looking back at his life and remembering in a language so beautiful that it is almost like reading an epic poem-- written in that moment before death. Yet this is the story of a man who is not going to die but will continue through life shouldering the grief that many of us are afraid to show.
***********
I have to admit that I shed tears while reading this book as it forced me to bring my feelings to the forefront. Having been in Israel when AIDS hit America and took so many of my age it was grief that I faced when I came back to visit in 1993 and found that most of my friends were no longer alive. Holloran taught me to express my grief and in doing so those who are no longer here will be with me forever.*
***********
You may find what I have written a bit depressing but the opposite is true. Once you grieve you pick up your life and move forward and you are no longer alone. You have the memories of those you have known with you always.
Andrew Holleran will be a guest of LITERARY PRIDE at the Arkansas Literary Festival in April.