Download Truth Serum A Memoir Bernard Cooper 9780395859940 Books
Download As PDF : Truth Serum A Memoir Bernard Cooper 9780395859940 Books
Bernard Cooper recalls his 1960s adolescence in Los Angeles and the emotional rollercoaster of puberty in this painfully honest memoir. He recounts the schoolboy crushes, the family strife, and the ebb and flow of youthful desire, all with a "humor that animates just about every sentence" (New York Times Book Review).
Download Truth Serum A Memoir Bernard Cooper 9780395859940 Books
"I found _My Year of Rhymes_ by accident and loved it so much I got _Truth Serum_ immediately. I loved it even more.
My friends who read gay writers are increasingly crabby with all the "negative" books being currently written. I guess they mean the self-tortured protagonists of Holleran and White and Picano and Peck and Monette. I offered this book as a remedy for their pique.
There is some description of the torture of growing up gay (and it is exquisite), but, in this book, I promise that you would have felt gypped without experiencing that aspect of the narrator's life. But there is also, for example, "The Fine Art of Sighing" and "Train of Thought," two short pieces that have nothing to do with gayness or angst or turmoil; "Train of Thought" made me weepy without a tragic incident anywhere in sight: the sheer beauty of the language moved me so much.
It's not hard to believe that Cooper spends hours and hours over one sentence. It shows. He is a remarkable writer."
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Tags : Truth Serum A Memoir [Bernard Cooper] on . Bernard Cooper recalls his 1960s adolescence in Los Angeles and the emotional rollercoaster of puberty in this painfully honest memoir. He recounts the schoolboy crushes,Bernard Cooper,Truth Serum A Memoir,Houghton Mifflin,0395859948,Literary,American authors;Biography,Authors, American;20th century;Biography.,Gay men;United States;Biography.,20th century,American authors,Authors, American,Biography,Biography Autobiography,Biography Autobiography / Literary,Biography / Autobiography,Biography/Autobiography,Biography general,Gay men,Literature History Criticism,Specific Groups - Male Gay Studies,United States
Truth Serum A Memoir Bernard Cooper 9780395859940 Books Reviews :
Truth Serum A Memoir Bernard Cooper 9780395859940 Books Reviews
- I didn't really want to be reminded of the great die-off of the 1980s. I love Bernard Cooper through and through, but this one was so somber and so associated with sad, bad memories that I didn't enjoy the experience.
- Moving, beautifully written. Cooper's memoir of his struggles with his sexual identity is candid and sensitive.
- after reading this and The Bill From My Father, I feel like Bernard Cooper is a close friend. In Truth Serum, he gives us another look even deeper into his life and into his heart. I hope and pray that things are going well for Bernard and his partner, Brian. A wonderful, spellbinding book that grabs your attention immediately and never lets go. I would recommend this to anyone, including my two sons.
- I just read this because I went to school with this guy (author) and was curious. It was well written, easy reading, and actually kept my interest even though I'm not that interested in the plight of homosexuals in our society. Its indeed sad and my heart goes out to them all for the added burden they face living in our society. Life's hard enough, right? Anyway, the chapters about school were of special interest to me as I knew all the people he mentions (names changed of course). Gave me a chuckle reading it. I suspect that since the school stuff seems quite believable, the rest of the book is too. I understand he's still writing and probably even better at it by now.
- The honesty is riveting and the wordplay divine. I've been inspired by the phrases to write more poetry in the style.
- Great read!
- I found _My Year of Rhymes_ by accident and loved it so much I got _Truth Serum_ immediately. I loved it even more.
My friends who read gay writers are increasingly crabby with all the "negative" books being currently written. I guess they mean the self-tortured protagonists of Holleran and White and Picano and Peck and Monette. I offered this book as a remedy for their pique.
There is some description of the torture of growing up gay (and it is exquisite), but, in this book, I promise that you would have felt gypped without experiencing that aspect of the narrator's life. But there is also, for example, "The Fine Art of Sighing" and "Train of Thought," two short pieces that have nothing to do with gayness or angst or turmoil; "Train of Thought" made me weepy without a tragic incident anywhere in sight the sheer beauty of the language moved me so much.
It's not hard to believe that Cooper spends hours and hours over one sentence. It shows. He is a remarkable writer. - I checked this book out of the library and read half of it before I realized that I had to own it, so I bought a copy the next day and picked up where I'd left off in the other copy. It's not a book-length memoir as much as it's a series of shorter memoirs. And what I find the most compelling in this book is his sense of focus. He writes a rather extensive essay about high school called "101 Ways to Cook Hamburger," and it essentially consists of three scenes. But from those scenes, I get a strong sense of his high school experience as a whole.
Also, he covers his entire life in this relatively short book. He has an essay on his mother that centers on the freezer she coveted, and an essay on his father. He talks about joining the gym, and the various gyms of his life, and that leads him to a discussion of AIDS. He has a short essay that categorizes all of the different kinds of sighs.
One of the greatest compliments I can give a book is to say that I wish I'd written it. I'm going through this book again, underlining passages and studying his use of scene, description, and exposition. He's a writer to learn from, in a lot of ways.
