Two new books A Place Called Canterbury
Dudley Clendinen, whom all readers revere as the co-author of the essential gay history tome Out for Good, elegantly faces down life's hard choices as his mother enters an assisted living apartment tower in Tampa and slowly weakens after a stroke. For a time he moved there himself, so his observations are as immediate as they are poignant. In the dining room, jackets and ties are obligatory, wheelchairs are outlawed. Nagging annoyances mask far more daunting fears, yet the overall mood is a sort of jovial "dottiness." Astute critics love the book's many layered, wise, and clear-eyed examination of what Clendinen calls "the new old age," an extra decade at the end of life, unprecedented on such a large scale across society. The Baltimore Sun's reviewer said
It is a book that stands apart from so much of what is being written about aging in this country because of its confounding juxtaposition of screwball comedy and inexorably fading life; of the capacity for love in the human heart and the harsh rejection of anyone who is skittering down life's last slope too fast for the group.
And Janet Maslin, in the New York Times, wrote
Mr. Clendinen made a smart decision in structuring his book as something other than a story of decline. His mother’s health did fail at Canterbury, and he conveys his own worry and grief at seeing this happen. But he finds graceful, subtle ways to slip between the past and present, so that his mother remains a wonderfully imposing figure even at her weakest moments. And he populates the book with brightly drawn characters who give the place its reigning mood, “a slow, good-humored dottiness and dignity.”
Bob Morris's many fans from his eight years writing the New York Times column The Age of Dissonance, will immediately recognize his comic foibles even if the situation is wholly new: He attempts to pimp and Queer Eye his eighty year old father, Joe, who wants to start dating after the death of his wife following a ten-year debilitating illness. But Joe is a touch slovenly, a tad Republican, and a lot picky: He rejects one elderly woman with "She's no Dinah Shore!" because she doesn't smile enough. Another woman is dubbed "the Jewish Shirley MacLaine," because she announces she used to be a Socialist; Joe responds by signaling their waiter for the check. Bob, forty-four, gay, and single, never actually double dates with his father as the subtitle claims. You might say he "parallel dates." Helping Joe find love again makes him confront his own commitment fears and relationship phobias as he looks for a man for himself. Ultimately, their story delivers double happy endings.
As far as I'm aware, Assisted Loving has the seriously most awesomest book promotion website ever (created by Martin Zager); pump up your volume and slide your cursor over "Contacts," "Kvetch & Blab" and "Get the Book" to feel the love. One last thing: The tanned lothario on book's jacket is purely the fantasy invention of a misguided art director. The real Joe, miles more dignified, can be seen in the sweet clip below.
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