Page 1 / 2 - Home

AE: Four and a half years after Joe was killed, is that sense of connection as strong as ever?
BV: No, but that's probably a good thing. It allows me to think more about the future and possibly being with someone else at some point. In the last year I've tried dating, and that has been interesting. Everything I said is still true; I still am who I am because of the time I spent with him, but I am not as aware of his absence as I was in the past.

AE: In grieving for Joe, and in doing so by writing a journal and turning it into a book, you also have a chance to reflect on other aspects of your life. Belonging to a cult is an example, and there's an episode of sexual abuse in your early life that you talk about. Did these other points of grief find resolution as you were grieving for your life partner and writing all of that out?
BV: Part of my goal, other than just my own grieving process, was to leave behind a document that shows that we, as two men who were a couple, led a full and complicated life, just like other people do. We live in a time when some people don't believe that we really do form families. So many of the memoirs that gay men have left behind are about lives and relationships that are cut short by AIDS. I felt that I had an opportunity here to show our long-term relationship.

But, yes, the whole involvement with the cult is still a painful thing for me today, and I think that by writing about it in light of Joe's death, I was trying to forgive myself for that.

AE: This memoir is an unvarnished account, and you don't pull any punches. Did you have any concerns about making such a detailed memoir part of the public record? Did you worry about a loss of privacy?
BV: Yes, but I felt that I couldn't truthfully tell our story if I left parts out. By showing the kinds of struggles we went through, I hoped to show how important the relationship was to both of us. We put a great deal of effort into it. We each sacrificed for it. When you look at how gay men are portrayed in our society, you don't see a lot about commitment to lifelong partnerships.

I also didn't want to hide my pain. This is not a “Joe's in heaven and everything is fine” story. Grief is a very painful and personal thing. It's not pretty. And while I put on a public face and did what I needed to do to survive, in private I went where the pain took me. I hoped that by doing so I would emerge stronger in the end, and I think that is what happened.

AE: You said in an interview that grief doesn't last for one season, it's something that goes on for years. Even though you had set a deadline for yourself to finish the journal about grieving, the process continues. How is your life today? If you were to write a sequel, in what frame of mind would readers find you now?
BV: The old joke — you can't have a good apartment, a good job and a good boyfriend all at once — appears to be true. Joe's death means that I am financially independent for a while. I wrote A Season of Grief before I quit my job, but at the end of 2003 I quit my job, and I'm writing full-time. I've finished the next book.

AE: So you do have a second book.
BV: It hasn't been published yet, but I've finished writing it, and I'm trying to sell it now. It's called City Birds, and it's about birding in New York City.

AE: So this is not a sequel to A Season of Grief.
BV: It's part memoir. It contains some of the same incidents I wrote about in A Season of Grief, where I raised the possibility of Joe's spirit being present in birds. But the main focus of the book is the yearlong cycle of birding in the city.

AE: The birding incidents you just mentioned were some of the most interesting facets about A Season of Grief, especially if you consider how ancient cultures looked at birds as a means of auguring or discerning omens.
BV: I am a skeptic by nature, but there were enough mysteries surrounding my relationship with Joe that even I had to wonder if something else was going on. The way in which we met and survived the first few years of our relationship always felt providential to me. The bird sightings I wrote about are a continuation of the mystery. In the end, we don't know if our loved ones' spirits live on and if they are with us. The beauty lies in the mystery, and it's wonderful to contemplate the possibilities.

Get Season of Grief at amazon.com

Page 1 / 2 - Home