Saturday, July 11, 2015

Teacher Accused




Teacher Accused by Alvin Granowsky







  • Paperback: 308 pages *
  • Publisher: iUniverse (January 30, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0595490727
  • ISBN-13: 978-0595490721


Alvin Granowsky’s “Teacher Accused” touches on timely topics, especially the struggle of an abused child in an abusive environment both at home and school and the man who hopes to interfere for good. The problem of gay and straight children who are mistreated through institutional indifference has risen in public awareness due to the recent murders and suicides that have caught the world’s attention. The pride of being gay, open, and demanding to be seen tears away the argument that says what we don’t see isn’t truly there. Without that frank openness crimes against the LGBT community would most likely continue to get short shrift. Thank God, no longer.
This story explores the belief that we are our brother’s keeper, even if it means trouble for us, and above all the powerful human need for love and companionship, whether straight or gay.
Unconditional love of parents and friends, acceptance of one’s personhood, even when acceptance isn’t always easy is addressed with sincerity and compassion in “Teacher Accused”. This acceptance is at the heart of the story—acceptance, a long word for a long journey.
In “Teacher Accused” readers find that the gay community can act as a supportive and willing extended family. This too is a subject not often addressed.
These are strong issues that many writing gay themed books shy away from, tending instead to focus on stories that in many cases are little more than thinly veiled porn. Alvin Granowsky takes these issues head on with clarity and compassion. This was an enjoyable read. I believe it would be especially so for young adults, gay or straight.

*This book is available in e-format and hardcopy. 




Sunday, May 3, 2015

Christopher and His Kind by Christopher Isherwood

Christopher and His Kind





  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Reprint edition (February 10, 2015)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0374535221
  • ISBN-13: 978-0374535223

  • File Size: 870 KB
  • Print Length: 352 pages
  • Publisher: North Point Press; Reprint edition (November 19, 2013)
  • Sold by: Macmillan
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B00F8FXF0E
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled 


Christopher and His Kind is an autobiography. It’s intended to be read as such, but it is more than that! Isherwood writes his story as an observer rather than a diarist. One gets the sense that someone else writes the book and that Isherwood is simply the main character. Of course anyone who has read Christopher Isherwood’s other books will recognize his voice.
The most famous, or should I say notorious, years of Isherwood’s life are those he spent in Germany (mainly Berlin). Berlin in the buoyant years just after WWI and before WWII was a hothouse homosexuality where boys grew into men like mushrooms, almost overnight. Some were gay, some were bi, and others were straight and almost all had one thing in common. They were on the make for money. The fact that this young Englishman could travel to Germany, find lodging, buy food, frequent nightclubs, all with no visible means of support other than his writing, meant that he at least had some financial underpinning. To the boys and men of that time, with little or no skills other than sexual, Isherwood was a field worth plowing.
Isherwood is urged to travel to Berlin by his friend WH Auden. It is an invitation that will mark the end of his English identity and mark him as a perpetual ‘foreigner’ — a citizen of the world rather than of a single country. One can only marvel at his bravado. In Berlin, young men drift in and out of Isherwood’s life (as young men are so often wont to do). Isherwood discusses them all, and here is where I feel I must offer a caveat. Most of Isherwood’s close friends, and some of his lovers, both serious and casual, find their way into his professional writing, and he alters their names. Fred will become Jack, and so on. The reader  while reading Christopher and His Kind must either have a catalogue memory, or be willing to keep a scoreboard. As I neared the end of the book, I likened it to the famous Abbot and Costello comedy skit, Who’s on First. That said, Christopher and His Kind is a fascinating look at a time and place lost in all but sepia colored photographs and grainy films. And that is why I recommend it. 

Wednesday, February 18, 2015


Singled Out: A Civilized Guide to Sex and Sensibility for the Suddenly Single Man or Woman



      Hardcover: 115 pages
            Publisher: Viking Press; 1ST edition (1981)
            Language: English
            ISBN-10: 0670647101
            ISBN-13: 978-0670647101
            ASIN: B0006E1WPW
            Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
            Shipping Weight: 8 ounces

I first read Richard Schickel’s Singled Out: A Civilized Guide to Sex and Sensibility for the Suddenly Single Man or Woman in 1981. A few days ago I pulled the slim volume off my bookshelf and reread it in a single afternoon. What struck me, aside from Schickel’s witty and sometimes downright funny prose, is that although we’ve all packed on a few years since its first publication, myself especially, men and women, gay or straight, still have the same uncertainties and fears when faced with being suddenly single. The difference is that presumably along with our added years comes added experience, polish and a bit of dash if you like. This Schickel says will be invaluable in navigating waters that haven’t been sailed in a long time. In just one hundred and fifteen pages he reminds us how it is done, and better still how it is done well. For example, in Chapter 4 A More Realistic Assessment, Schickel writes, ‘The first thing to do is to remind yourself that you are no longer a 24-year-old idiot. You have probably acquired over the years since you were, a certain amount of wit and wisdom which, though lost on your sometime spouse [ longtime partner/lover/BF ], may very well prove interesting, even entertaining, to an intelligent stranger….’  
Who knew?
In the last chapter of this book A Final Confession, Schickel reveals that he has indeed found a person to love and be loved by. Here is how he expresses part of his feelings. ‘…when we are apart on our separate errands, we are armored by our knowledge that what we have had is safe, beyond hurt in memory, while what we may have yet together is fragile, entirely susceptible to the dangers of carelessness and indifference, and therefore to be cared for by the best spirits we can summon up from within us.’
It is my firm belief that anyone who can write a line that that deserves to be read. And so this is my recommendation, as I begin a new life.