I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together: A Memoir

by Maurice Vellekoop

Meet little Maurice Vellekoop, the youngest of four children raised by Dutch immigrants in the 1970s in a blue-collar suburb of Toronto. Despite their working-class milieu, the Vellekoops are devoted to art, music, and film, and they instill a deep reverence for the arts in young Maurice—except for literature. He’d much rather watch Cher and Carol Burnett on TV than read a book. He also loves playing with his girlfriends’ Barbie dolls and helping his Mum in her hair salon, which she runs out of the basement of their house. In short, he is really, really gay. Which is a huge problem, because the family is part of the Christian Reformed Church, a strict Calvinist sect. They go to church twice on Sunday, and they send their kids to a private Christian school, catechism classes, and the Calvinist Cadet Corps. Needless to say, the church is intolerant of homosexuality. Though she loves her son deeply, Maurice’s mother, Ann, cannot accept him, setting the course for a long estrangement.
Vellekoop struggles through all of this until he graduates from high school and is accepted into the Ontario College of Art in the early 1980s. Here he finds a welcoming community of bohemians, including a brilliant, flamboyantly gay professor who encourages him to come out. But just as he’s dipping his toes into the waters of gay sex and love, a series of romantic disasters, followed by a violent attack, sets him back severely. And then the shadow of the AIDS era descends. Maurice reacts by retreating to the safety of childhood obsessions, and seeks to satisfy his emotional needs with film- and theatre-going, music, boozy self-medication, and prolific art-making. When these tactics inevitably fail, Vellekoop at last embarks on a journey towards his heart’s true desire. In psychotherapy, the spiderweb of family, faith, guilt, sexuality, mental health, the intergenerational fallout of World War II, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, French Formula Hairspray, and much more at last begins to untangle. But it’s going to be a long, messy, and occasionally hilarious process.
I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together is an enthralling portrait of what it means to be true to yourself, to learn to forgive, and to be an artist.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Memoir, Nonfiction, LGBT, Comics, Biography, Queer

496 pages, Hardcover

First published February 27, 2024

About the author

Maurice Vellekoop is a Canadian artist, cartoonist, and illustrator. He is most known for his queer cartoons which often feature naked men. He has drawn pin-ups as well as multi-character comics. Vellekoop is also a fashion designer with his drawings and designs appearing in popular magazines across the United States.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can read my feature article on Maurice Vellekoop online at Publishers Weekly:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...

This is Vellekoop's magnum opus: a long, searingly honest graphic memoir about growing up gay in a strict Dutch Christian community with loving but difficult parents. Naturally this resulted in conflicted relationships, guilt, depression, and even self-hatred for Vellekoop. But lest you think this sounds like a painful read, be advised that his sense of humor is in fine form throughout, and that his artwork is as delightful as ever (and breathtakingly beautiful at times). Can't recommend this book highly enough.

[Jillian B · Rating 5 out of 5]

This deeply charming graphic memoir tells the story of the author’s upbringing and early adulthood in Toronto. It deals with him coming to terms with his sexuality as a gay man raised in a harsh Christian home.

As a Toronto transplant who moved here in 2008, it was an absolute blast getting a peek into an earlier era of the city I love. But this book will appeal to more than just Torontonians. It is both hilarious and heartfelt, and the full colour illustrations are absolutely gorgeous. I especially love the way the author used colour to depict mood (so scenes set during his depressive episodes have a grey cast and scenes where he was deeply moved by beauty use bright colours).

I think this would be a great pick for fans of literary memoirs looking to broaden their horizons into graphic novels, and vice versa.

[Drew Canole · Rating 4 out of 5]

A big in-depth memoir. I really liked Vellekoop's exploration of his sexuality from childhood, struggling to meet men in his 20 and early 30s.

The final act of the book has Maurice talking to a therapist. Which, I don't know, I feel like its a boring way to get a lot of information across. Although the payoff was pretty great. Vellekoop realizes that he holds an irrational belief that embracing his sexuality will hurt/kill his religious mother. After realizing that he talks to his mom about it and feels more confident.

I'm pretty blown away with this book. Vellekoop really hasn't done any long form comics before. He comes out of the gates late career with an excellent 500 page narrative.

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

A long and boring autobiography of a Canadian gay artist, overstuffed with all his pop culture loves, dating travails, friendships, imaginary friends, and mommy and daddy issues.

I did like the end of the book as the author worked with a therapist to figure out the source of the depression he struggles with for so long, but it couldn't help me forget the tedium of slogging through all the little details of his life up till that point.


FOR REFERENCE:

Contents:

Part One: Fairy Gifts and Curses

• Two Excursions
• Once Upon a Dream
• Life With Father
• Bewitched
• I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together
• Our Daily Bread
• Christian Deformed
• Virginia Is for Lovers
• God's Temples

Part Two: The Spindle's Prick

• Thistletown
• Teenage Wildlife
• Paul Baker: An Introduction
• Breaking Away
• Stroke
• Flowers of Romance
• Guy Trouble

Part Three: The Sleep

• Disney's Beauty
• Tooty Fruity
• Date
• Vissi d'Arte
• Party Time
• Success!
• Island Retreat
• Oklahoma!
• Down There
• Stendhal Syndrome

Part Four: Wake Up!

• Theodora Goes Wild
• Happy Birthday to Me!
• Deep Magic
• Maggie
• Messing Around
• Dad
• Bruce
• Paul
• Mum
• Deeper Magic
• Epilogue
• Coda

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a truly amazing graphic memoir. It's long, and took me all morning to read it, but it's a fascinating tale about sexuality, coming out, conservative religious values, the effects of income inequality and missed opportunities, intellectualism, family dynamics, depression, guilt, shame, therapy, self esteem, and ultimately, how to claim complete personhood.

There's so much here. The film and theater world were outside of my experience, but so much of this man's life and growing up were amazingly familiar to me, which made the entirety so personally resonant. This nearly 500 page memoir is worth your time.

[Diana Flores · Rating 3 out of 5]

Made it to almost 50% - page 234 of 479 - and its becoming a chore to read. Enjoyed the first 100 pages or so about Maurice's childhood - now we are into documenting every sexual encounter he's had, and the storyline is dragging. Could use a good edit to bring down the length and still keep the important parts about family and coming out.

[Elizabeth A · Rating 4 out of 5]

This graphic memoir is essentially a coming out/coming of age tale and a reminder that this can occur at any age. The illustrations are lovely and I appreciated that we hear from the author as an older man reflecting back on his life. The first and final thirds worked best for me, and the sessions with his therapist towards the end were quite moving. I thought this would be a 5 star read, until I hit some of those middle bumpy sections.

[Maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautifully drawn, aesthetically powerful memoir of the author's life up until his late 30s. Raised by Dutch immigrants in blue-collar Toronto in the 1970s, Vellekoop writes about the art, music, movies, and books which fired his imagination as a child, of the bullying and gay-bashing he suffered from in school and in his twenties, of influential teachers, friends, failed loves, and his growing art career. A cherub and a demon, manifestations of the author's optimism and pessimism, often comment from the sides of the panel as he wrestles with a life-long depression and self doubt. The book ran a little long for me- I think the last third could have been edited down- but I also happily read this over just a few days and luxuriated in the colors and visuals.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having grown up in a Dutch-influenced community in western Michigan and as a member of the Reformed Church of America (my wife was raised in the CRC as was the author/illustrator of this memoir), I was very interested in reading this graphic novel. But it was too long.

The early childhood stuff was as interesting as I had hoped but the middle sections became repetitive. I kept waiting for something to happen, something to give this man’s life story a resonance, a heft, a particular poignancy to justify it being told, especially for 483 pages. (That’s a bit harsh: Everyone’s life story is worthy of being told I suppose, but I wanted something more to reward my reading of it.)

The middle section details the author’s struggles with self-doubt, depression, loneliness, and especially his inability to find a significant and lasting lover/partner. (Some of his sexual encounters are graphically detailed enough to probably place this atop the Moms for Liberty’s must-be-banned list.) But there are too many failed relationships. So many friends who are kind and supportive but not particularly helpful that I couldn’t keep their names straight. And I really tired of his version of the angel vs devil sitting on your shoulder whispering contrasting ideas. This was so central to the story and so pervasive that I expected him to be diagnosed eventually as schizophrenic.

I know all that stuff leads to the ending of revelations and self-realizations but even the final scenes of therapy seem frenetic as they cut back away to his life and back to the sessions. Then it wraps up (too?) quickly and neatly. He finally makes the most significant move of the entire story on page 462.

As another reviewer wrote, I’m sure Maurice Vellekoop is a nice guy, but I guess I never cared that much about him and the story of his life never achieved the weight, the impact I expected. And the telling of his life story never achieved the literary complexity that I had hoped for (even though a comparison to Bechdel’s Fun Home is perhaps unfair.)

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, nearly flawless. Some of the scenes from childhood in this graphic novel take place in settings I am very familiar with, having grown up not too far away during the same time period (Rexdale Mall, hello), so in some ways, reading this memoir felt like stepping into a time machine fuelled on nostalgia. Toronto old and new is on beautiful display here.
But then, the tenderness by which the author re-examines their life, in particular their relationship with their mother, is so astounding, it’s almost impossible not to relate no matter where you were born. It can be heartbreaking when we question why our parents raised us the way they did, especially when the answers turn out to have so little to do with us.

4.5/5

[Tatiana]

Beautiful art. Blaming his poor mom for his unhappiness and loneliness was certainly a choice. The narrative of his life didn’t lead me to the same conclusion though, to the point where I started to think Maurice’s therapist was a hack.

[Erik B.K.K. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dull and truly, supremely uneventful. I have no idea why Vellekoop ever thought his utterly boring life warranted a graphic memoir...

[Juan Naranjo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Para mí, es un libro con luces y sombras. Refleja muy bien un montón de experiencias relativas a la vida del varón soltero urbano gay, pero algunas partes (el psicoanálisis, la historia de sus padres…) son demasiado exhaustivas y de escaso interés. Lo he disfrutado mucho a ratos, pero varias partes me han aburrido. El dibujo me parece poco consistente y un pelín descuidado.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was truly floored by this graphic memoir. The astonishing art, the smooth storytelling, the depth of detail, the gorgeous look at gay life from the 60s on... there's simply so much to appreciate. I certainly didn't expect that when I hefted this coffee-table-size tome.

It's hard to explain what I found so compelling about I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together. Ostensibly, the book is overlong and meandering. It doesn't reach its "point" until 400 pages have passed. Repetition sets in as the author struggles to find love, even as he has a fulfilling career and wonderful friendships.

And yet! The struggles and the joys of the author's life are so fluidly portrayed that you can't help but be captivated. Certainly the artwork helped: I tried explaining its appeal to my wife as like those portraits of Hollywood figures from the 30s and 40s up on the wall at the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant. Everyone is strong-jawed and attractive in a totally unique way.

Both the characters and settings are compellingly rendered - you'll feel like a third member of the clan hovering over Maurice as he goes about his life. (Oh yeah, two key figures in the book are the angel and devil hanging out over Maurice's shoulders. They prompt good ideas...or depressive episodes.) As the book is filled with cultured gay men, I found myself longing for a night at the opera or a room filled with records. It's a downright enlightening read. Recommended paired with a big glass of wine (and plenty of time to absorb everything on the pages).

[Dylan Stoepel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seems like a nice guy but I don't know if his life was particularly interesting or unique enough to make a lengthy memoir for.

[Karyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely graphic memoir.

[Meggie Ramm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cartoonist Maurice vividly illustrates his relationship to his family, his art, and his own queer identity over the course of 40 or so years. 

This book is going to get compared to Fun Home by Alison Bechdel a LOT, both Vellekoop and Bechdel were raised in erudite households with skilled, albeit distant, parents. But Vallekoop's comic is a whopping 495 pages, so you also get to explore his first burgeoning queer relationship, attempts to get laid, and more queer milestones. While I had some trouble reading some expressions and panel transitions, there is no denying that this book was made by a capital A Artist. A well deserved Eisner-nom, and I'm looking forward to checking out more of his work.

[Stephen King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book. Beautifully written and illustrated. And so Toronto. I loved seeing my city through his eyes and through his art. Highly recommended.

[Hannah (hngisreading) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful memoir written by a beautiful, empathetic person. “I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together” is a triumph. Vellekoop tells his story with a brave sort of honesty, an honesty that does not flinch from the ugly parts of life.

I loved all parts of this — from childhood memories to teenage awkwardness to the messiness of his twenties. We watch his passion for art & movies flourish into a chic career. His journey to understanding and embracing his queer identity despite his religious upbringing was deeply personal to me.

I found the final part to be most powerful. As Vellekoop embarks on his therapy journey, he begins to see how much his childhood has impacted who he is and who he is afraid to be as an adult. His liberation from familial expectations gives the memoir a hopeful ending.

[Blane · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I first read about the imminent publishing of Vellekoop's graphic memoir, I was so excited...the retro-inspired cover illustration alone had me hooked. But, we all know it is sometimes a bad idea to judge a book by its cover.

The illustrations are great; Vellekoop's narrative is a mess. Though basically a chronological journey through his life of (so far) 60 years, too many subplots just did not advance his story. And though I appreciate that he eventually worked through & shed his considerable emotional & psychological baggage to finally find some semblance of normalcy, it took too long to get there for me to care.

2.5 stars.

[Constance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunningly beautiful in so many ways.

[Margaret Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the gay male version of Alison bechdel’s Are You My Mother. Slightly less well done but of course lesbians win. Read in one day ❤️

[Maryann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Original, funny, sad, relatable, helpful--has all my favorite aspects of a great graphic memoir. The art was playful and added so much to the story.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together" by Maurice Vellekoop. Let me start but just saying I adored this book so much. I know some of you sleep on graphic novels, but give this one a shot. 

   The art is fantastic and has so many pop culture references throughout that really triggered some great memories for me.

     But the heart of this story, which is a memoir, is finding our place in this world and where we belong in and outside of our families (as many of us queer kids know, there are often more than one), it's coming of age, it's grappling with religious upbringing, it's dealing with cultural differences, it's so much and oh so good!   

    The real treasure is how Vellekoop has told such a personal story, but in a way that has a universal appeal that I know most, if not all of us can absolutely relate to, gay or straight. Treat yourself (especially for #Pride) to this big book with an even bigger 

Special thanks for @pantheonbooks for this gem!

[Lucca Ángel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75*

Loved the art and enjoyed seeing the authors journey with self-love and acceptance, but I admittedly found this graphic novel to be a bit slow! And, in the nicest way possible, some people’s lives are not interesting or eventful enough to warrant a memoir.

[Stephanie Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t know the subject matter when picking up this graphic novel. Spoiler alert- it puts the GRAPHIC in graphic novel! The story is of the author who is a successful artist, coming to terms with his childhood, his parents, his relationships and his sexuality. The artwork is absolutely gorgeous!!! That’s what made me pick it up!!

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed every minute spent reading this one —and there was a considerable amount of them in this graphic memoir that’s well over 500 pages.

Masterfully drawn and tastefully told narrative of a young man struggling to come out to his parents, members of a conservative church. Maurice put it all out there bravely yet still kept it light and entertaining.

A paean to good therapy and self exploration; a paean to graphic novels done by Maurice. Bravo.

[BeckyisBookish · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my absolute favourite genres is graphic memoirs. They are top-tier reading and viewing when done well. And this one was done exceptionally so. There is something in me that resonates deeply with artists and gay boys, so this just hit perfectly for me. Throw in parental trauma and a complicated relationship with your mother, sexuality and religion... followed by art, music, and the classics... Does it get any better? Oh, and a Canadian to boot (ha)

Thank you for sharing your story and art because it was my pleasure entirely.

5 times you connected with the author out of 5 times you loved Sleeping Beauty too, but it was Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Op.71, Act II: No.14.5, pas de deux. andante maestoso, that had you in a chokehold and continues to do so to this very day

[Matt Chisling (MattyandtheBooks) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mini-Review: Maurice Vellekoop's graphic memoir is titanic in stature, a truly incredible work of art at nearly 500 pages of full-color, full-hearted illustrations and storytelling about his life. He's unafraid to really explore his own mental health struggles, alongside his cyclical, volatile relationship with members of his family. The relationship Vellekoop struggles to hold onto with his mother is very much the beating heart of this great piece of work, but the examinations of his queerness, and of queer life around him, are equally important in today's cultural conversation. Thanks to Pantheon Books for my gifted copy!

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always love graphic novels and was pleased to pick up this memoir. It’s graphic - both kinds of graphic, although not as scalding as some would have you think - and tells us everything we wanted to know, and everything Maurice Vellekoop wanted us to know, about Maurice Vellekoop. The best element for me was seeing a rather familiar-looking Toronto and then being whisked off to a castle in Bavaria and fashion extravaganzas in Paris and Venice. I had some difficulty following who all the various friends and lovers are, but I think that's just me. It's a large book that requires a substantial investment of time but I think it was worth it. 4 stars