One of These Things First

by Steven Gaines

One of These Things First is a wry and poignant reminiscence of a 15 year old gay Jewish boy in Brooklyn in the early sixties, and his unexpected trajectory from a life behind a rack of dresses in his grandmother’s bra and girdle store, to Manhattan’s fabled Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, a fashionable Charenton for wealthy neurotics and Ivy League alcoholics, whose famous alumni include writers, poets, madmen, Marilyn Monroe, and bestselling author Steven Gaines.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, LGBT, Audiobook, Queer, Gay, Biography

175 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 9, 2016

Reviews

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir is the dark, yet funny account of the author's suicide attempt and subsequent stay at a psychiatric hospital in 1962 when he was fifteen years old.

This was a good book, just not what I would consider a great book. As he recounts his time in the hospital and even growing up, he seems to focus more on stories about the people around him, rather than himself. This book is about a very deep subject matter (suicide attempt, coming to terms with the author's homosexuality) but the book never seems to delve very deep--that was my main issue with it. Still, it was a decent book, just not as good as I expected it to be.

Thank you to Netgalley and Open Road Media for an advance copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

[Jennifer Blankfein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Follow my blog https://booknationbyjen.wordpress.com for recommended reads.

In the memoir, One of These Things First, Steven Gaines, a gay, 15 year old boy from a conservative Jewish family in the 1960s, humorously shares a bizarre account of his teenage years in Brooklyn and a stint at Payne Whitney, a private mental institution in NYC.

Steven recalls a multitude of childhood memories, some disturbing, many sexually charged (think Augusten Burroughs and Running With Scissors); lawnmower guy, a nameless and shirtless young man in the suburbs who becomes the star of his fantasies, agonizing time spent in his grandfather's bra and girdle store where he secretly spies on the unknowing shoppers hidden from view and the strict salesladies in the shop who constantly scold him, the empty theater in town where by chance he befriends an aspiring actress, claustrophobic living with his parents cooped up in a small apartment, and the mean boys who bully him.  All of this leads up to his unsuccessful suicide attempt that ultimately lands him in a fancy psychiatric clinic, a place where Marilyn Monroe once spent time.

His memoir gets most interesting once Gaines is in therapy where after he discusses his fantasies about lawnmower guy, conveys his sexual confusion and concludes he is gay, the therapist convinces him that because his parents made love in the room with him as a child, he is homosexual and he can change.  Little by little the doctor tries to work with him and (unsuccessful) conversion therapy ensues.  During this time Steven becomes friendly with other patients, one of them being theater producer Richard Halliday, the professional manager and husband of actress Mary Martin of Peter Pan on Broadway.

Written in a funny, contemporary voice, the events of Gaines' childhood are reminiscent of an earlier time. Why was a 15 year old spending time in a psych ward with a bunch of adults? Where was his family during the hospital stay?  And finally, after all these years, why wasn't Steven angry with the doctor for trying to convert him?  Also, I felt I wanted to see growth and know more about his personal journey.

Although the author doesn't dig deep to tackle big, relevant issues like suicide and homosexuality, with a keen eye for observations of human behavior, a kind heart and great storytelling skills, One of These Things First is a quick, insightful read.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of These Things First: A Memoir-- is a richly detailed and delightful coming-of-age story that begins in 1962 of the writer as a gay youth. Steven Gaines (1946-) is the author of 12 books, that include the Beatles, Beach Boys, Calvin Klein, and others. As a journalist and radio broadcaster, other topics Gaines wrote about was the NYC scene and celebrity culture.

Today it seems rather unusual that Gaines spent such a large part of his boyhood under the supervision of three salesladies or “harpies” at “Rose’s Bra and Girdle Store” (NYC), where his grandmother worked. By the time he “outgrew” remaining there, he was fearful of the realization he was a “homo”-- others had noticed what he desperately attempted to keep hidden, their jokes and comments tormented him and he developed OCD behaviors that included shoplifting/petty thievery. Terribly confused, he wasn’t at all like Christine Jorgenson who had the sex change operation in Sweden, nor the weird Michael/Michelle who wore nail polish with girlish mannerisms. He wrote a long letter to Dr. Joyce Brothers asking for her advice.

When his parents sought therapy for him, his doctor advised mental hospitalization. While watching late night TV Gaines saw that Marilyn Monroe had been admitted to Payne Whitney. Gaines wealthy grandfather agreed to pay for his treatment at Payne Whitney if Gaines would agree to get well. Today, it is shocking how little was known about homosexuality which was considered at the time a mental disorder/illness. Dr. Meyer, a Freudian psychoanalyst treated Gaines for over five years. Gaines was enchanted by Dr. Meyer’s strange/odd thoughts as to the origins of his homosexuality, and urged him to stop focusing on boys and think of girls instead. The popular therapeutic culture of that era largely supported that sexual orientation could be changed. Dr. Meyer would eventually apologize for portions of treatment/misdiagnosis.

Gaines was the youngest patient on the ward, and befriended the famous film director Richard Halliday. As a movie buff, Gaines was excited to talk to Halliday as they pieced together jigsaw puzzles in the dayroom. When Halliday’s famous wife Mary Martin visited, she liked Gaines so much she had the latest novels sent for him to read, influencing him to become a writer. Realizing how many famous individuals had spent time at Payne Whitney helped Gaines to feel better, which eventually led to acceptance of himself as a gay man. Towards the closing chapter Gaines recalled the changing times, culture, and what happened to the numerous individuals Gaines included in his absorbing fascinating story. Photos included.
** With thanks and appreciation to Open Road Integrated Media via NetGalley for the direct e-copy for the purpose of review

[Lorilin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steven Gaines is 15-years old when he sneaks into a back room in his grandparent's small clothing store, breaks the glass of the room's one small window, and then calmly and firmly saws his wrists over the jagged shards still stuck in the frame. With his last bit of strength, he walks out into the snowy yard, gently lowers himself to the ground, and waits to die.

But, amazingly, he doesn't die. His grandfather finds him and is able to call an ambulance in time to save Steven's life. Once Steven heals enough to be discharged from the hospital, his parents decide to send him to a psychiatric clinic. Using his grandfather's money (intended for his college fund), Steven checks into the Payne Whitney and stays for six months. The majority of this book focuses on that six-month stay--the people he meets, the crazy experiences he has, and the realizations he eventually makes.

I've read a surprising number of memoirs written by gay authors who were traumatized by their judgmental and severely homophobic upbringings. (They fascinate me, probably because I also grew up in a very rigid and intolerant environment where "different" was never okay.) But there are some things that set Gaines's memoir apart, in my opinion. First and foremost, Gaines knows how to tell a story. He has a knack for knowing what to share, how much to share, and, most importantly, when to stop. He doesn't meander through his past, forcing his reader to endure a thought or two about this and a memory or five about that. He gives us the good stuff, skips the dull, and keeps moving, moving, moving forward. It takes skill to be able to write like that.

Ironically, there were some aspects of the book that I wish had been fleshed out even more. I was surprised how little Gaines focused on his homosexuality (especially since--MINOR SPOILER ALERT--his sexuality is the reason he tries to kill himself). And I was also shocked that he didn't express more anger at his parents, grandparents, and, especially, his longtime psychiatrist for not accepting who he was. (Said psychiatrist spends YEARS trying to "turn Steven straight.") But, in the end, Gaines doesn't seem to fault them much for their lack of support. He says he's made an "uneasy peace" with his upbringing and sexuality, apparently finding comfort in the idea that we're all messed up and doing our best. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. It feels a little too tidy. (Then again, it's not like I'm exactly swimming in zen right now, so maybe Gaines knows something I don't...)

Still, this book made me think, and I always appreciate that. One of These Things First is well-written and well-told, significant and illuminating without being self-indulgent. It's not easy to get that balance right, but Gaines does.

ARC provided by author.

See more of my reviews at www.BugBugBooks.com.

[Fr. Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started my own coming-out process at around 19, though nothing is ever sharply or simply delineated that way. Maybe it began when it dawned on me that "gay" applied to me, or when I stopped telling myself that maybe there was a girl out there who would make me certain I was bisexual (never happened). Or maybe it was in younger childhood, when I had crushes on boys but didn't have the conception that such a thing was possible.

Is this a coming-out memoir? Basically, though more in its coming-out to oneself than to the world. In Gaines' story, it is his own fear and disgust at his own gay identity with which he must contend. He does this in the face of a certain Jewish conservatism, a less-understanding time, and pre-enlightened psychiatry. We are fortunate to have this book, because it is a story of a man who came of age before homosexuality was removed from the list of mental disorders, and then spans the time afterward (briefly, in the final chapter).

So real were the adolescent physicalities of desire that I instantly found myself present in mid-century Brooklyn, side by side with the author. Chest-to-chest is a concept similar to my own painful yearning for other males as I was growing up. I had my own lawnmower boys, some stronger presences in my mental obsessions than others, and the reaching out and the eventual crawling inward. No, my life is not a mirror to Steven Gaines', but there are enough points of connection that this story spoke to me deeply.

I won't go into specifics of the story, as I too had very little foreknowledge of what I was going to be reading. "Gay autobiography" is enough for me to open a book, and when the writing is as immaculate as this, I'm in for the full ride. I wanted the book to go on longer, but perhaps that was not the story Gaines wanted to tell. Or perhaps he'll gift us with another volume. I'm on board should that happen.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steven Gaines'(nee Goldberg) darkly comic and often poignant memoir 'had me' from the first page. He opens with a cast of eccentric relatives and neighbors in his Brooklyn neighborhood, with the dawning realization that he is gay and his attempted suicide at age 15. Things really get interesting once he enters Payne Whitney (the" Ivy League of mental hospitals"), begins therapy to "cure" his homosexuality (you can imagine how well THAT turns out) and goes on to present us with
a group of famous and infamous residents whom he befriends there. The author has the wit and the wisdom as well as the literary skill to provide us with a coming of age narrative that is both outrageous and funny and yet we never lose sight of the pain and heartbreak.
I have heard this book compared to "Running With Scissors" or "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" and although those are apt comparisons, this memoir stands on its own in it's honesty, black humor and memorable characters. Kudos to Steven Gaines.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although most of this memoir about the author's attempted suicide at age 15, due to his unhappiness over his nascent homosexuality, and his subsequent stay at the Paine Whitney mental hospital moves quickly and is fairly interesting, it feels padded in some places and rushed in others. A lot of the 'backstory' seems extraneous, and the book really doesn't get going till the halfway point with his incarceration... and then the ending chapter glosses over the following 40 years in a daze. Also, I haven't a clue what the odd title means... but the chapters on Gaines' friendship with Broadway producer Richard Halliday and his wife, the legendary Mary Martin are fun.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully touching and witty memoir of a boy growing up in Brooklyn and gradually realising that he is gay – and this at a time when this would not have been acceptable. Although he endures some real suffering, eventually trying to commit suicide, this is essentially a life-affirming book and Gaines is so generous and open-hearted in his descriptions of the people around him, and so acute in his observations, that I found this a really enjoyable and compelling account.

[Charlie Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't love this book, and here, in a nutshell, from author, Steven Gaines, himself, why:

"The gay world in the 1970s was shallow and unforgiving. Since we were outlaws, we had outlaw sex. Gay men were dissolute beyond belief. When I whined to my peers that liberation wasn’t the same thing as promiscuity, I was told that I was a “bad homosexual.” I was indeed. In any event, the intensely hedonistic world in New York had its appeal, and I tried to embrace that world, thinking it was all that was left me. How I missed getting the plague is a miracle. I still do not feel entirely comfortable inside the gay world, despite its enormous strides toward equality. When I told a therapist that I didn’t think gay men on the whole liked me, he said that was because on the whole, I didn’t like gay men. I have none of the stereotypical talents ascribed to gay people. I can’t arrange flowers, decorate houses, or cut hair, and I don’t know or care what the best hotel is in Positano. And yet, if you asked me my blessings, chief among them was that I was born gay. And a Jew."

In a shortish memoir in which the choice was made to focus mostly on the author's fifteen year old self, post-suicide attempt, hospitalized --- at his own request --- at Payne Whitney, which he considers the glamorous location for being psychoanalyzed --- and the author's close-dealings with Broadway star, Mary Martin's, husband, the probably gay Richard Halliday; the later years of Mr. Payne's life are crammed into one very short, very uninformative --- lacking in memory, so to speak --- chapter.

A chapter in which it is clear he has never really gotten past his urge not to be gay, or, at the very least, his belief being straight is better. He goes so far as to say he did not want an apology from the doctor who tried to convert him with long-discredited psycho-tortures, even though the psychiatrist expressed his sorrow at having taken part in such practices. The author tries to excuse it by saying it was a different time. Perhaps, but that is akin to saying, "Well, the south in the 50s and 60s was way-racist so if you were in the KKK then, all good. Who knew?"

Every right-thinking person with a heart knew. But, sadly, some trace of shame seems still to inform Mr. Gaines' world view, and life-view, and I find that sad, and a weight too heavy to be balanced by any of the amusing anecdotes and Broadway-gossip included in the rest of the book.

It's a no for me. And not something I'd like younger LGBTQ people to read.

[Iva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saying a book is both funny and sad is not going to tempt most readers. But Gaines makes his life a compelling read. He is 15 and sent to a mental hospital of the "stars" in New York. Marilyn Monroe was there for a few days, and he spends his time with many characters, including Mary Martin's husband who calls her Mother. Why was Gaines there anyway and who paid for it? He was gay, depressed, attempted suicide, and had struggling parents who owned a women's corset shop where he spent most of his free time. (He learned that you can't put a D cup into a double CC bra.) His grandfather paid the bill. Gaines sends the reader on a wild and unforgettable trip. Again, sad and funny.

[Michael Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dark and often humorous look into how antiquated psychiatry was in recent memory. It's really a science that has fallen behind in the scientific boom of the past century or so. It's a touching and thoughtful memoir, written with a sense of honesty and realism.

[Fredrik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Selvbiografien til en jødisk homofil mann som vokste opp på 50-tallet.

Interesant å høre på.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has some parallels with David Sedaris's life and character: young gay boy with extreme OCD who likes to hide out and observe what's going on around him without anybody knowing. Like Sedaris hiding in his mother's closet and listening to her antic statements to herself in front of the mirror, Gaines climbs into large boxes at his mother's lingerie store and listens to and watches what's going on.

The book is more poignant than funny, with Gaines finding himself isolated at school and laughed at by various people in the public. His suicide attempt lands him in Payne Whitney, the mental hospital of the stars (Marilyn Monroe; the author of Girl, Interrupted [Susanna Kaysen]); and, as it proves, the much-hated husband of Mary Martin, whom Gaines tries to befriend only to find himself dropped like a rat with plague for reasons that defy understanding.

The characters in this book are hilarious and audacious--both the inmates of Payne Whitney and the hapless Gaines family, with the wealthy, philandering grandfather; the eternally pissed father; and the overprotective mother at the bra store.

It's impossible not to like Gaines because of his innocent confusion and vulnerability. He's desperately trying to find himself in a hospital full of raving, or closed off, or anorexic, or delusional inmates. When he first eats in the place's dining room, he holds his knife and fork through the entire meal, causing a self-important buffoon who thinks he's presiding over the meal to say, "Barbara Ann," which Gaines only later figures out is actually "barbarian."

He suffers therapy with a classical Freudian analyst who thinks everything means something else, and insists like Freud that Gaines "must have" seen his parents having sex and thinking his father was hurting his mother. I always thought that "must have seen" trope to be a ridiculous assumption for Freud to make, but the therapist not only reinforces it but says it's what caused his homosexuality. Had Gaines been born three decades later, he would likely have been administered psychotropic drugs, but all the hospital offers is Thorazine and electroconvulsive therapy. He is caught in the dim days of the DSM thinking homosexuality is a disease or disorder and that Freudian free association has a chance to cure it. His experiences at Payne Whitney are painful to read, but when he returns to his family, the members are so bizarre (his grandfather now has a girlfriend as well as his wife, and all three live together) that it's not much of an improvement.

Altogether a memoir of a strange and sad life, but the absolute ingenuousness of the author makes it all come together nicely, and the telling of it is sweet and poignant. Hard to put down.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tell my students that some books are mirrors and others are windows. Rare ones are both, like this memoir. No matter their orientation, readers will share in Gaines' fears, his shame, his delight, and his confusion, growing up gay in an era in which homosexuality was considered mental illness. But this book is so much more than that. It's about family, Brooklyn, Freudian psychiatry, being Jewish, real people, adolescence, celebrity, mental hospitals, books, and loving people who are fallible.

Gaines is a storyteller, and this book made me feel like he was telling it just to me--entrusting me with his story. The chronological movement between chapters was clear and easy to follow. While this book is not considered Young Adult, I could definitely see its place in a high school library. If I had any complaint, it was that I wanted more. I hope the author will write more in this genre.

Disclaimer: In a bizarre, old-school AOL chatroom-fueled twist of fate, I (a Texas public school educator) had the pleasure of meeting the author of this book online, then face to face in my first trip to NYC around 20 years ago. I purchased the Kindle version of this book, read it in 24 hours, and my review is entirely my own.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Same initial reaction as one other reviewer - do we need another gay coming of age story? Yes, if it's this one. For me the book started slowly and I put it down for a few days. Another depressed angry Jewish boy - but once we got to his stay in (a very prestigious and infamous to those in NYC and the psychotherapy profession) the psychiatric hospital as a teenager, I didn't put it down. This book is quietly and subtly thoughtful, brings back memories of not-so-good times and is VERY funny.

[Joe Kraus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stephen Gaines has a remarkable story to tell, and he has an engaging voice to tell it with.

As a teenager growing up in early 1960s Jewish Brooklyn, he has no clear idea how to deal with being gay and, in despair, tries to kill himself. As a consequence, he winds up in an upscale psychiatric hospital, one where Marilyn Monroe was recently treated. He’s essentially a child among assorted minor celebrities, a Jew among mostly WASPs, and a Brooklynite among the Manhattan elite. It’s a great fish-out-of-water experience, and the strongest part is unquestionably the color he sketches for the contrast.

The trouble here, as I see it, is that the context ultimately overwhelms the story. I’m a sucker for glimpses into that not-so-distant Jewish world, and Gaines delivers character studies of his neighbors and his bizarre family. (A highlight is his grandfather, a gentle man who seems irresistible to women. He has his wife, Gaines’s grandmother, his long-time paramour, who becomes the grandmother’s business partner and a key presence in raising him, and then he has his 40-years-younger final girlfriend with whom he mostly but not always lives in his final years.) He delivers as well in the vignettes around the people he meets in the hospital, most memorably the forgotten Broadway producer and theater reviewer Richard Halliday, a man best-known today as the second husband of actress Mary Martin. His stepson, actor Larry Hagman, hated him so much that he wrote in his own memoir about fantasies of killing him.

So the milieu is terrific and the characters memorable. They are so terrific that the central story, the place we begin, gets buried. Gaines is confused about how he feels and about how he should act on his feelings. He tries to kill himself by running his forearms through a glass window, and it’s heartbreaking. He’s skeptical of the treatments he receives in the hospital – a caring and thoughtful Freudian psychoanalyst thinks he can “cure” his homosexuality – but he does indeed become more aware of himself. The deeply troubled teen grows into a man whom I’d be happy to know, a man I get to know, in small part, through this book.

But we don’t get to hear the motivating story here. If it begins with the suicide attempt, the implication is we’ll learn how he came to grips with the crisis that precipitated it. Instead, Gaines’s story takes a backseat for most of this memoir to the characters he encounters. There’s a final chapter, one that feels almost disconnected from the rest of the book, when he catches us up on what’s followed, but it moves too quickly for real satisfaction.

I enjoyed this, but, to paraphrase its title, it feels as if he put several things ‘first,’ several things before the story he seemed initially to be telling.

[Isaiah · Rating 5 out of 5]

To see more reviews check out MI Book Reviews.

I got an ARC in return for an honest review on NetGalley.

I want to start this by saying, I have never read anything by Steven Gaines or even heard of him before. I requested this book solely because I have a fascination with psychiatric hospitals. So I went into this blind.

This is the memoir of Gaines coming to terms with being gay and what that meant. He ended up in a psychiatric hospital and in years of extensive therapy trying to become straight because that is what was the zeitgeist. Gaines showed signs of OCD, depression, and anxiety. What he was treated for was homosexuality, which I am surprised was not called Inversion once in the book considering the tone the author often had around the word. He was pretty transphobic and awful when it came to Christine Jorgenson. If that had been a pattern, I would have put the book down instead of giving it a chance. Thankfully it was more of a panicked child worried about his place in the world than a hatred or judgement of a transsexual person.

The end of the book had Gaines voicing his frustration with the gay male communities obsession with promiscuity and sex. His therapist challenged him and said it was because he was still harboring a dislike of gay men. I would like to challenge that and say that it is not a hatred of gay men or an internalized homophobia to want more than just casual sex for your romantic life. Anyone who challenges that in the gay male world tends to be treated poorly or flat out ostracized. So no, Gaines, you are right. There should be more to the community than just sex. It is possible and it should be a goal.

The story didn’t really have that many plot points, it was more of a very gentle story about childhood and identity. I enjoyed the meandering look and the high emotions. It felt realistic, but distant. It was clear that these were not recent wounds.

[Mum · Rating 3 out of 5]

kindle/OD

This book is really a solid 3.5 stars for me. It isn't at all what you'd expect from the blurb. I was expecting more of the narrative to be about this young man's attempt to change his sexuality and overcoming the depression and disappointment he feels, prompting him to attempt suicide. While that was the main jumping off point of the book, it really turned into a sketch of the characters (well, actual real people) that he lived with and met in his stint at a psychiatric hospital, Payne-Whitney in NYC, and how they each influenced him, positively and negatively.

The best part of the book was Gaines' time spent at Payne-Whitney (although I did love the portrayal of his family, even with who they were and the struggle he had with them you could tell that there was love, probably some forgiveness and acceptance there). Having just read a book about Rodgers and Hammerstein which included quite a bit about Richard Halliday and Mary Martin it was interesting to find them play a prominent part in this section of the book.

I recommend it, it is a quick read and at turns hilarious and so sad. Ror me kindle was the best format because: vocabulary! I love not having to find a dictionary or open my phone.

[Noel · Rating 3 out of 5]

An often quirky, often sad coming of age memoir of a 15 year old jewish kid growing up in a New York conservative family who, after a fairly severe suicide attempt is committed to a psychiatric hospital for 6 months. Gaines realizes he is a "homosexual" and during his stay in the hospital his doctor attempts to cure him of this mental illness.

His story was interesting, told from the point of a 15 year old, but I found it a bit shallow. The story ends when Gaines is in his early 20s and the AMA has declared that "homosexuality" is no longer to be considered a mental illness and the author has to come to terms with the fact that he's been in therapy for years, his family has paid the price for this tremendous amount of therapy and, perhaps, for nothing.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was an interesting self portrait of a man growing up under some unique circumstances. I was definitely captivated by the beginning. Gaines's descriptions of mid-century Brooklyn are a delight; it's grimy, and odd, and insular, but undoubtedly HIS during his youth.

The middle to the ending slowed down a bit too much for me to truly love it. Gaines turns his lyrical pen to descriptions of people he encountered in his mid to late teens, and for whatever reason, I found those sketches much less compelling than his earlier ones. It was still satisfying, and I was happy to find that he wove in updates toward the end so the reader learned the fate of the various, colorful characters we met previously.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read by the author, this memoir invites us into the strange world of a Jewish gay teen, whose attempted suicide at the beginning spurs the action. He is sent to a mental hospital for six months, where he is surrounded by adults. Adults with mental and emotional issues serious enough to have them committed. His sharp sense of story and character enrich this strange memoir, where peers almost never appear. It's the other inmates, including Mary Martin's husband. Steven tells us the stories of his parents and grandparents. All in a wry observant tone...

This is the first piece I've read by Gaines. I'll look for more. So glad this young boy survived and found a way to navigate the world.

[Susan Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sometimes poignant, sometimes heartbreaking, but mostly funny memoir of growing up gay and Jewish in Brooklyn in the 1950s. Reading various blurbs about the book before I began it, I thought it was mostly going to focus on the gay-conversion therapy the author went through as a teenager, and how was so horrible, how it scarred him, etc. etc. But I guess I was thinking of "modern" gay-conversion therapy, often done under evangelical Christian auspices; the author's therapy was Freudian in origin, and was obviously ineffective.

Steven Gaines has crafted a very fine memoir, full of fascinating characters and circumstances. I highly recommend it.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark, witty, endearing, and emotional. It's hard to even imagine the effects of such self hatred for years. Not many books shake me so hard, especially comparing it to my own experiences of internalized homophobia in modern day without being around nearly as much stigma. I wouldn't have minded this book to be a thousand pages long honestly, the lack of resolve you can only expect from a memoir is hard to accept. A truly important book, it taught me just how necessary it is to embrace your identity beyond all else.

[Vnunez-Ms_luv2read · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good coming of age book. I really enjoyed reading this book. Well written and some of the scenarios were very funny, some are sad. I thought he would go more into his sexuality but he did not. I think this would have made a good book even better.Good read, one that makes you want to be reading when you are doing other things and cannot read at the time. I looked forward to picking up and reading from where I left off. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

[Allan van der Heiden · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author rumbles on and as a grown gay man can relate a lot to some of the memories and feelings the author expresses but this is not a great read nor is it inspirational to any other 15yo boy who may be considering his sexuality.

This is only the author putting his life to words and not passing any message on. I feel although he implies the message that all gay teens should hear he doesn’t say “It gets better” like it does.

The author also says he holds no real gay traits but gossips like a cheap periodical in a hairdresser so maybe that was a trait you missed Steven

[Mary Montgomery H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book and the quirky cast of nonfiction characters that Steven Gaines introduces. While the narrative was heartbreaking at times, most of the time I smiled as I accompanied young Steven through the halls of Payne Whitney hospital. And there were other great moments when I laughed out loud as a result of his brilliant story telling. I would definitely recommend this journey

[elissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful surprise, this book was. Not only the story of his family and his coming out, but also of his time spent in a psychiatric unit where he was the only teenager. Some of this was revealing, other parts horrifying, some parts sad, and I enjoyed the author's ability to find humor in some of the pain. The stories of his grandfather and his two "wives" (only one legal) had parts that were laugh out loud funny.

[Cynthia Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compelling read, hard to put down

I am always searching for a good memoir, and this one was excellent from beginning to end. The author’s relationships with family members and with the friends he made at the Payne Whitney Hospital were intriguing. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good life story.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first of a series of Steven Gaines pieces I’m in the middle of—loved it! It’s the story of his childhood in Brooklyn, struggling with self hatred bc he was gay, ultimately suicidal, and his memories of his experience in Payne Whitney, a psychiatric hospital where he spent several months.

Gaines’ mix of intimacy, humor, and honesty makes for some stellar writing. Highly recommend.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure how to describe this book other than it can be triggering. This poor dude as a kid was gay and having to deal with his family and society. Listening to his thoughts and thinking process was a bit rough but i think it's because it was set in a different time so that thinking is foreign to me. It's an interesting listen, but i did get mad. And that's ok.