Out Late: a Memoir, a Fiction

"Out Late is a story of loneliness, fear and the late-in-life rediscovery of a life suppressed, not closeted -- supressed to the point of never remembering the fear, suppression from within, oppression from without. I have learned on rediscovering that I had managed to not just push a life down into a black hole, but to cover that darkness with a remembered life that was almost entirely fiction: bright, happy, peaceful, normal, with all the dreams and expectations of the kids I grew up knowing. I was not a gay kid passing. I was not a closeted adult passing. I did not choose to marry and become a father to cover up and pass. I really did not know. It was small-town, middle-class Texas."Thus does the narrator begin a story of a man admitting far too late in his life that he is gay, has always been gay, has denied it to the peril of himself and those around him. The realization of this truth sends him into a spiral downward through scenes wicked, erotic, sometimes humorous, sometimes, bitter, tender, and scary. The novella has no center till it nears the end and love finds its way to him.