Walt Odets's Blog

This week the NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE announced the five 2019 finalists for nonfiction books. I'm happy to say that my recent book, Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men's Lives, was one of the five. I'm glad not only for the book itself, but for the expressed interest in gay men's lives. Members of NBCC, thank you! The winner from among the five finalists will be announced on March 12 in New York .

You can read more about the book here: https://waltodets.com/books/book-outo...

And here is a link to the NBCC: https://www.bookcritics.org/…/announc...

Since "Out of the Shadows" was released on June 4, I've had a stream of personal emails from gay men who have read the book. These notes have been incredibly moving, often sending me to tears. I am so grateful after seven years of working on it that the book is helpful to so many. I'm trying to keep up and respond to every single one of these notes, for they make me want to hug the men who sent them, and wish them all authentic and happy gay lives. Here is the text of one note that just came in a few hours ago, from a young man in graduate school:

"Wow. Out of the Shadows is by far one of the most poignant and relevant books I have read during my short life. Your honesty, compassion, wisdom, and candor seem to know no bounds. As a young gay man who grew up in a conservative Texas town, your book speaks to me in a way I've never experienced. I do not feel like a "real" member of the gay community. I've always felt isolated - all alone in the world. Your writing on the common struggles of gay men, such as isolation, however, have made me feel connected to the community really for the first time. I cannot thank you enough."

"Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men's Lives," excerpt of a review by Marcus Field at the London Evening Standard:

"I’m a gay man in my early 50s and I can now see that I’ve used many of the survival tactics that Odets describes. This book has made me wonder how I might sound and feel if I did some work to uncover the character that was bullied out of me. I have previously resisted therapy but Odets’s warm and lyrical voice, his inspiring picture of how imaginative gay life can be, has sent me queuing for the couch."

Today, I had a very sweet note about "Out of the Shadows" from a friend, Bob: "Many, many thanks for writing 'Out of the Shadows.' You have deepened the thoughts and feelings that animate my psychotherapy practice and that have underscored my decades of being a gay man. I could cite so many notes of appreciation, but what woke me up in the middle of the night was the story of Matthias. I can’t remember ever being so affected by reading a biography and the recounting of love that imbues life -- and this book. The chapter is so beautifully written; I will never forget the metaphor (and vivid description) of your flying with Matthias. I only wish I had taken you up on your offer to fly with you out of Hayward when I was living in Petaluma, to experience the exaltation of journeys (…we’ll skip over my anxiety about flying).

For Pride Month, the San Francisco Chronicle writes about "Out of the Shadows" and two other books about gay lives.

Odets’ trifecta of social commentary, memoir and therapeutic analysis is an astute statement on how to overcome trauma, loss and isolation to live a proud, self-actualized and fulfilling existence as a gay man.
Perhaps the most resonant (and tears-inducing) segments of “Out of the Shadows” are Odets’ recollections of personal traumas, including the death of his mother when he was a child. The final two chapters in which he describes the long road to coming out and his deep love for his lifelong companion, Matthias, and Matthias’ partner, Hank, are some of the most on-point and beautifully written thoughts on love, acceptance and family I’ve read in some time.
https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/book...

“OUT OF THE SHADOWS,” FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW:

“. . . [Odets’s] writing is poignant and achingly beautiful—so much so, in fact, that I occasionally had to put the book down to avoid weeping on the subway. . . .The exquisitely told story of Odets’s longtime friend and lover, who fled a trailer he shared with a brutally homophobic family and built a life bursting with meaning and intimacy, is the most compelling story of gay self-actualization I’ve ever encountered. Odets and his close friends and lovers should serve as an inspiration to many gay men, as well as a reminder of what might be the book’s most enduring message. ‘All the diverse forms that true gay life has improvised,’ Odets writes, ‘constitute a special universe that should not be relinquished to meet the expectations of a pathological society.’”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/bo...
https://waltodets.com/books/book-outo...

OUT OF THE SHADOWS: REIMAGINING GAY MEN'S LIVES is about gay people finding, accepting and living their lives authentically. It's strange that much of society questions or tries to forbid gay lives and relationships, which are about nothing more or less than natural human connection and attachment. By simply sharing a mutual glance, a meal, a book, the touch of a body, or a life, humans escape much of the feeling of disconnection and isolation. This is as true for gay people as anyone else, and what we need to say to families and society is simple: we will follow the trajectories of our own gay hearts, and land where we land.

https://waltodets.com/books/book-outo...

The American Library Association’s BOOKS ONLINE offers more than 200,000 book reviews for librarians, book groups and book lovers. About "Out of the Shadows," they post, ". . . an insightful and thought-provoking book....a luminous humanity shines through, never more so than in the final chapter, the author’s highly empathetic, memorable story of the three men he has loved."

(The image is the cover from Penguin Random House edition for the U.K. and British Commonwealth)

https://waltodets.com/books/book-outo...

Legal marriage for heterosexuals has always bestowed family and community acceptance, and over the past decade, gay agendas have understandably focused heavily on the right to marry. Oddly, the Pew Research Center reported in 2014 that America has seen “decades of declining marriage rates” among heterosexuals, and that today, the “share of American adults who have never been married [is] at an historic high.” While marriage offers many pragmatic benefits for gay men—such as tax cuts, inheritance and visitation rights—there are other, more emotional reasons that gay people now pursue marriage. Because of what we’ve usually been taught, gay children and adolescents still often feel hopeless about relationships between men, and a legally-binding marriage with socially-defined expectations can feel as if it will finally allow the seemingly impossible to be both real and permanent. But without marriage, millions of gay men have found good and valuable relationships, and we know that for millennia, socially-constructed heterosexual marriages have been fraught with conflict, furtiveness and deceit, and acrimonious separations and divorce. In itself, marriage does not make a relationship flourish, and marriage should not be the criterion on which gay relationships are judged. I discuss gay relationships and the role of marriage in chapter 7 of “Out of the Shadows.”
(https://waltodets.com/books/book-outo...)

A friend in the publishing world has described Andrew McMillan as "Britain's brilliant young poet," and I thought others might be interested in his brief call to arms after reading an advance copy of "Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men’s Lives."

“A copy of this vital book should be given to every politician, every educator, every journalist to help transform the inadequacy of our dialogue about queer lives.”

(https://www.andrewmcmillanpoet.co.uk/)
(https://waltodets.com/books/book-outo...)