A sequence of autobiographical essays by poet Rickel (Creative
Writing/Univ. of Arizona) kicks off the new series "Living Out: Gay
and Lesbian Autobiographies" with an elliptical whimper. Rickel
offers only a few biographical specifics: he grew up in placid
Tempe, Ariz., in the '60s, scarcely traveled, and moved to Tucson,
where he lives with his longtime partner, an artist. Here he offers
mostly quick snapshots of meaningful moments in his emotional life
from childhood to the present, in prose so humorless and smoothly
polished that it seldom communicates the wallop these epiphanies
apparently packed for the author. In one skillful essay, he tells
how at age six, in reaction to vague household tension, he killed
the family canary beloved by his pianist father; beyond this
striking moment, the author offers scant details about his parents'
breakup, though there are several sketches of his current dealings
with his aged, crippled father. More central to the story is the
history of his homosexuality, from precocious prepubescent sex play
through sublimated crushes on a succession of friends, many
heterosexual relationships in high school and college, and finally,
in his early 20s, gradual self-acceptance as a gay man. He was
troubled by the typical conundrums of repressed homosexuality in
adolescence - and less typical ones, such as what to make of a
teacher's girl of colorful nylon underpants (Rickel gave them
back). As an adult, he spent years pursuing fruitless relationships
with younger Mexicans he met in bars; he acknowledges "the racist
overtones to my obsession with these boys," but rather than examine
this, he writes about how he willed himself to be attracted to
non-"brown boys" as part of a "process of suspending my need for a
defining narrative." Such cold language obscures what makes the
author tick. An uninvolving memoir of an uneventful life. (Kirkus
Reviews)
An impressionistic memoir offers images of a life in progress,
including scenes from Boyer Rickel's rural Tempe, Arizona,
childhood in the 1950s; his relationship with a physically
shrinking father; his eccentric teenage friendships; his growing
awareness of his sexuality among young, Hispanic gays; and a trip
through Italy with his lover. A personal book, but also wholly
universal, Taboo investigates the way one breaks through taboos and
becomes a self-realized adult.
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