About the Book

My mother, Jennie, died on January 23rd, 1998, after a long illness. She spent her final days in a nursing facility in Portland, Maine, and that was where I saw her last.

Her impending death had brought me back to Maine after a long absence, and I was having to re-discover how difficult family relationships can be. After a couple of days of sitting at my mother’s bedside I knew that I needed my partner, Ralph, to be with me. (I had insisted that I take the trip by myself, or he would have been with me in the first place.) I called him, and he made the arrangements to fly north from Kansas City, where we live.

When it was over and we had returned home, I started writing about those intense days in Maine. I spent about six months of my usual writing time just working on describing the experience, calling forth all of the images and memories I could summon. I didn’t know what I was going to do with this “material,” I only knew that I had to write it down.

In 2004, writer and editor Nick Hornack (who often used the pen name Alexander Renault) sent out a call for submissions for a book he was putting together. His idea was to collect the stories of gay men who had lost their mothers. This was a natural fit for the material I had written. The only problem was this: my Winter manuscript was some 40,000 words long, and the most he could use was 10,000.

Over the course of a few months I was able to cobble together a greatly reduced version of Winter that I hoped retained the character of the original. Nick was happy with it, and he took on the tremendous task of assembling some 30 submissions into a book. He’d been unable to get any publishers interested in Walking Higher; they all felt it was “too much of a downer” to sell. As a result Nick ended up publishing it himself through Xlibris.

The resulting book wasn’t perfect–for one thing, it was so lengthy that the print-on-demand price was really too high–but it was remarkable in several ways. It was the first time that so many diverse gay male voices had spoken to the topic of loss and bereavement in a single volume. Many contributors were not writers, either by vocation or avocation; some had never written anything before. The catharsis of writing was new to them, and as a result their accounts were direct and powerful.

Nick was disappointed that Walking Higher did not perform better in the marketplace. But selling a book can be a risky proposition even in the best of circumstances, and it’s especially difficult to market a self-published work. Nick made a lot of effort, at one time even getting an independent filmmaker to explore making a documentary about the book; but all of his efforts seemed in vain. I believe, though, that every single contributor felt good about Walking Higher.

Ups and Downs of Publishing
Having seen a portion of my book get into print, I began wondering if the full-length version might be publishable. At the suggestion of Greg Wharton at Suspect Thoughts Press, I sent the manuscript to Greg Herren at Haworth Press. The wheels of publishing often turn slowly, and Greg urged me to be patient. One year later my patience paid off: I had a contract.

The final manuscript was due to the publisher by August 2007. However…right at that time Haworth Press was sold, to a textbook publisher who had no interest in LGBT titles. Soon my contract was cancelled, and I was back to square one. I was so depressed that for a long time I didn’t even try to place the book elsewhere.

It was through my friend Tom Cardamone that I was put in touch with Steve Berman, publisher at Lethe Press. He encouraged me to send the manuscript to him, and lo, another book deal was born! This was in December of 2008; by July of 2009 Winter was ready to go.

Postscript: Nick Hornack
I am sad to say that Nick passed away in March, 2006, at the very young age of 38, from complications following a car accident. After Walking Higher came out his life had taken a restless turn, and he had moved from Pennsylvania to Savannah, Georgia with the hope of making a fresh start. When that didn’t work out he returned to Pennsylvania, and that was where he died.

One of the last messages I received from Nick began this way: “I always feel better when I hear from you!” The feeling was mutual. He is missed by many.

Reviews
Bob Lind, reviewer for Echo Magazine in Phoenix, wrote the following about A Report from Winter in the July 23, 2009 issue.

After a 20-year absence from his family home in Maine, Wayne flies home one frigid January day, in order to be with his widowed mother, who is in the last stages of cancer.

But don’t expect a nurturing or supportive Walton’s-like familiy reunion. The reality is that Wayne and his mother never really liked each other very much, nor did he care for his overbearing aunt (her caretaker). His only other family, an older brother who–like him–is gay, has always been an emotional “black hole” to Wayne and the rest of the family. To have some level of moral support, Wayne convinces his longtime partner, Ralph, to travel from their Kansas City home to be with him. Never having experienced a New England winter, Ralph is stunned by the cold and ice, not just the weather but the seemingly frosty attitudes of Wayne’s dysfunctional family as well.

The author presents a glaringly unsentimental but realistic memoir, one that will resonate best with anyone who has been, at some point, at odds with most of his family. Ultimately, it reassures and serves as a lesson, to make the best out of whatever relationships you have, to avoid regrets later. I give it four snowcapped stars out of five.