Cromey Online

The writings of author, therapist, and priest Robert Warren Cromey.

Friday, March 02, 2018

ARMISTAD MAUPIN'S BOOK

Logical Family, a memoir
By Armistead Maupin
202 pages, Harper Collins

This is an exuberant story of a closeted gay man who became famous by writing Tales of the City for the San Francisco Chronicle. One of the characters in the story writes a most moving letter to his mother that he is gay. The letter is in the Epilogue of Logical Family. That letter is worth the price of the book.

Maupin tells vividly of his journey from childhood to the present day exploring his early feelings of arousal, shame, bewilderment, sexual fantasies and finally acting out sexually with another man. He speaks fondly about his very conservative Republican southern family. His adventures in the navy during the Vietnam War are hilarious as well as serious. He openly and casually tells of his many sexual adventures and the prominent men he knew like Christopher Isherwood and Harvey Milk. He is now married and lives in San Francisco.

It is also the story of a developing writer for newspapers, as a reporter, teller of tales and novelist. He and his family were Episcopalians. He got fired as a part time secretary by the rector of a San Francisco church because he came out as gay. The rector, whom I knew, was a closeted gay man. Homophobia was and is everywhere. Maupin says he left God and the Republican Party behind. Too bad he left the church, too. Wouldn’t it be a delight to sit next to him in church?


I loved the book. It made me laugh, cry and rage again against the injustice, prejudice and cruelty of church, family and state toward LGTB human beings.

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