A Scandalous Memoir About the Spiritual Challenges a Gay Man Faces
The name, Alive After Dying, means when a loved one dies, a piece of us dies with them, leaving us feeling alive after dying. I became a widower in 2019 after 26 years with a man I loved deeply. When I began writing the story, I had the LGBTQ+ demographic in mind. Many authors believe that whatever they write, their tale will be hailed and desired by everyone. I did not go into writing this believing my target audience was the entire world.
However, those whom I thought were my audience weren’t dazzled by it. Why? Because they were expecting erotica. While I do touch on the subject of sex for obvious reasons, it is not a blatant descriptive form, although there are a few graphic scenes that make a point. I don’t write in a crass style. It was sadly disappointing that my PG-13 story written with a goodly amount of satire, scandal, shocks, and revelations, was not acceptable to most of my target audience who were looking for a tale about gay sex
A Deep Dive into Family, Faith, and Identity: Destigmatizing LGBTQ+ Narratives in a Catholic Upbringing
This is a character study about family and its psychological effects on someone gay, particularly raised in a Catholic environment. I didn’t fit the expected mold of a mere tale about the exploits of a homosexual. However, something surprising happened as the book gained momentum. The heterosexual audience liked it a lot because I destigmatized the demographic. A fellow graduate in gerontology, who is heterosexual, believes it should be considered by universities as supplemental reading in psychology studies for classes that discuss LGBTQ+ issues. I haven’t pursued this with fervor yet as this has only recently been brought to my attention. I would like to thank the Authors’ Lounge in ReadersMagnet for allowing me the opportunity for the story to be seen by more eyes.
Unraveling Identity: A Lifelong Struggle with Faith, Family, and LGBTQ Stigma in a Catholic World
My parents were excommunicated Catholics yet wanted me to be raised in those traditions. The Vatican, all the way down the ladder to the archdioses of the state where I was born, doesn’t take kindly to anyone who is LGBTQ. It was regarded as deviant behavior in the 1960s.
As a middle-aged man close to entering older adulthood in the 21st century, I analyzed the discovery of my sexual orientation from the age of six. Many gay men and women with whom I discussed this topic have thought that it was an unusual time of life to make such a strange self-discovery as most children that age aren’t thinking about sex. I hadn’t been either until something bizarre happened in 1967, which is laid out in the first chapter. It is not a typical memoir where there is a problem at the beginning and a resolution by the end. My struggle has been ongoing, though the reader is satisfied when reading the last chapter as is evidenced by the reviews I’ve received thus far. It’s written like a mystery novel.
A Candid Search for Truth: Chronicling Life’s Complexities Through Vignettes of Vulnerability and Honesty
Having hired several editors (two developmental—one who did not wish to be named) to help shape the continuity, it became clear how it had to be written in stages as vignettes chronicled as I aged with narrative by a middle-aged man looking back on his life. As everyone knows, it’s next to impossible to be objective when writing one’s own story. Other authors who were beta readers were surprised by my honesty. I am neither the hero, nor do I paint a portrait of a tidy blameless life. Taking full responsibility for my actions, and writing it as someone about to enter older adulthood, I give you a shocking search for truth—not my personal truth, but the truth. Can such truth be found? I present what I found, which is unexpected and a bit terrifying. I opened myself up to a lot of vulnerabilities due to a myriad of information revealed that could be damaging to someone still in the workforce. However, at the time of the writing, I was disabled, Covid19 had hit the planet, and now I am retired.
Exploring Spirituality: From Catholic Dogma to the Paranormal, A Journey Through Family Legacy and Mystical Encounter
The spiritual challenges were not only about my eventual separation from the Catholic Church, but also my entrance into the world of the paranormal and occultism. My father was born in Italy, a place where Catholicism’s man-made rules and dogma were never questioned. He was born in 1910. My mother was born in the United States and was 23 years younger than him. Oddly enough, my late husband of twenty-six years was 23 years older than me. This plays into the strangeness and mystery of the story. Before I met him, the reader finds out that after my parents were excommunicated from the church, my mother eventually becomes an accredited psychic with the Edgar Cayce Foundation and the Rosicrucians—thus, enter the element of the paranormal.
I hope I have tantalized your taste-buds to find out more. For information, please explore about me. To purchase, please visit my book on Amazon. While there, if you click on my name it will pull up other books I have written.
