GAY PEOPLE'S Chronicle

MARCH 21, 1997

Evenings Out

The rich, rugged coast of life and death

Heaven's Coast: A Memoir

by Mark Doty

Harper Perennial, $13.00 trade paper

Reviewed by Kaizaad Kotwal

On a coast one can do many things. One can see the sun rise and set. One can watch the waves ebb and flow. One can observe reflections form and vanish in the same înstant. One can smell the soft perfume of earth, wind and salt water mingled together. One can be mesmerized by the power of the waves gently or forcefully making the rocks submit to its dance. And one can leave one's footprints in the sand that waves of millions of years ago birthed while breaking against the rocks. On heaven's coast, we are the rocks and life is the sea which beats up against us.

It is in these ever-transforming coasts that are locked all the answers and mysteries to the churnings of life. Mark Doty, in his book Heaven's Coast: A Memoir takes his readers on a sublime and cathartic journey through the life and death of Wally, his lover of twelve years, along a rich and rugged coast.

Doty asks a rhetorical question in his book when he says, "What does a writer do, when the world collapses, but write?"

Mark Doty

Heaven's Coast is a result of this crumbling cosmos, a universe throbbing with the ache of losing a loved one, and a coast being lashed at by the angry waves of an AIDSravaged sea.

Doty's book is an elegy of the most sublime nature, and it stands as a great testimony to the true love between two men, nay, two humans. It confirms beyond the shadow of a

HEAVEN'S COAST

ARK DOTY

doubt that family values has little to do with the mere recital of legal vows and more to do with actually living through

"better and worse" and actually being there both "in life and in death."

In his book, Doty weaves an intricate quilt of memories and lasting pain, in which time is the thread that binds it all together and where the colors of agony and ecstacy clash in vibrant designs to create the patchwork of their two incredible lives and those fortunate to be associated with them.

There is an African proverb that tells us that when a person dies, they take with them enough information to fill a library. The AIDS epidemic has taken with it all those volumes and more. In this book, Doty tries to prevent one such library from slipping completely away. The result

is a lyrical book, rich in poetry and pain, which reminds us that life is fragile and yet, those that live life to the fullest are often those closest to the brink of death, either their own or that of a loved one.

Doty's virtuosity lies in his intense powers of observation. The details in this book

"Emily Dickinson is a poet so encyclopedic she can be consulted like an oracle." The same can be said of Doty.

are only exceeded by the immense compassion that floods page after page of coming to terms with the impending death and its aftermath. He painstakingly etches from the deepest recesses of his heart and mind, a vivid portrait of the chaos of death and the agony of those that survive.

In this book, poetry and prose become one in a wonderful meta-literary metaphor for the inseparable bond between Doty and Wally. And there are few contemporary writers who know how to weave a metaphor better than Doty. In fact, Doty acknowledges this when he claims that "metaphor is a way of knowing the world, and no less a one than other sorts of ways of gaining knowledge." Doty is generous enough to share this knowledge with his readers.

From his opening images of seals embodying the spirit of Wally to his closing allusions of a coyote as an emblem of the life beyond, Doty blends stark narrative and earthy lyricism with myth, philosophy and a smattering of global religious musings.

Doty is unapologetic in his need to grieve and unrelentless in his search for an under-

JILL KREMENTZ

standing of what binds humans together, in the flesh and beyond. The book is a rollercoaster ride through the trauma of death, the trials and tribulations of AIDS, and the terrific transcendance of mortal love to something so much more sublime.

Doty writes that “Being in grief, it turns out, is not unlike being in love. In both states, the imagination's entirely occupied with one person. The beloved dwells at the heart of the world, and becomes a Rome: the roads of feeling all lead to him, all preceed from him. Everything that touches us seems to relate back to that center; there is no other emotional life, no place outside the universe of feeling centered on its pivotal figure. And in grief, as in love, we're porous, permeable."

This book has recieved high praise from many diverse sources, and in this day and age of the ghettoization of diversity, let it not be said that Doty's book is merely a great piece of gay literature. Heaven's Coast is a masterpiece of modern literature that will touch people across many boundaries. It transcends race, gender, sexuality and becomes a map that charts a human search for answers to the mysteries of life and death in a terrifying, poignant and painfully funny manner.

In one of the book's many literary allusions, Doty says that "Emily Dickinson [is] a poet so encyclopedic she can be consulted like an oracle." The same can be said of Doty. His ultimate gift to his reader is his ability to take us through the harsh geography of death in all its honesty, faking not one move, and at the end bring us to a better understanding of our own mortality and our own obligation to make this life a meaningful journey towards heaven's coast.

Mark Doty, award-winning author`and wordsmith extraordinaire, will be making an appearance at An Open Book in Columbus on Sunday, March 23 from 2:00 to 4:00 0 pm For more information call 614-291-0080.✔