****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
This is a candid and powerful account of Helms' journey of growing up in 1940's Indianapolis in an alcoholic home, attending Columbia University on a scholarship, navigating his way through the gay beau monde of New York in the 1950's and 60's as a highly desirable young man, burning out on his lifestyle, and eventually settling into a more sedate life in Boston as a middle-aged professor.In large part, the memoir swings between the poles of Helms' agony and ecstasy. The agony was that Helms was a deeply wounded and insecure young man who was emotionally unprepared for his high octane life in New York. Despite the constant stimulation of sex, drugs, travel, and celebrity, he feels depleted and empty, suffering, at times, from insomnia, bulimia, and suicidal thoughts. The ecstasy was the thrill of that same lifestyle. Helms was one of the most desirable young men of his time, and the temptations surrounding him were thrilling and irresistible. It's titillating and exhausting simply reading about his constant exploits.Helms was lucky to survive all his excesses; many of his contemporaries did not. Some of his recovery was due to that nascent part of him that wanted to be whole, the person who sought out therapy, a twelve-step program, and a teaching career outside New York. And much of it was simply the result of the diminishing opportunities that come with middle age.This book tells a remarkable story. It shows that so many of the forces that compel us through life are unchosen: our family background, our sexual orientation, our physical and intellectual capabilities, the era in which we come of age. It's also a cautionary tale that no one can get enough of what he really doesn't need, be it sex, money, drugs, power, or fame. This account also shows that with courage, luck, and grace we can find our way to a more authentic life, one we can respect and call our own.
