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Their Story - Relationships, Family, Death: It's All in His Memoir
October 1, 2009
by Damian Torres-Botello
“If there is any sentiment in the book,” author Wayne Courtois says, “… it lies in the story about me and my partner.”
Coming out is a constant process for all of us, no matter how long ago we said those life-changing words: “I’m gay.” Often we are so busy coming out to others that we neglect to come out to ourselves. And what that actually means to each of us is as different as every color in the rainbow.
I met Wayne Courtois at Lattéland on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in September. Dressed in jeans, a tucked-in striped oxford shirt and a baseball cap, this accomplished author of two books, as well as short stories and essays, turned out to be a humble man excited to receive a bit of attention for his latest work, A Report From Winter (Lethe Press).
This is his story.
Courtois was separated from his wife and living in North Carolina when he decided to come out to a coworker in 1979. It was a much different time in America, and Courtois remembers police officers arresting men because of their sexuality, bars being the only place to meet anyone, and his own need to keep looking over his shoulder. HIV/AIDS had yet to rear its deathly head and Studio 54 was wrapping up its fun. The thought of gay marriage could not even be fathomed.
“I think things have changed a lot,” he said. “…It still kind of amazes me [that gay marriage"> has become a topic of public discourse.”
Courtois was a kid from Maine, and his journey began like many artists’ have.
“I’ve been writing, really, since I was a kid. When I went to college, I was an English major [at Michigan State"> and went to graduate school and got an MFA degree in writing [from University of North Carolina – Greensboro">.”
For Courtois, being a published writer was the goal.
“The interesting thing is that for years I tried so hard … to get an agent, get a major publisher interested in me, and nothing ever worked out. So I pretty much had written off any idea of having a writing career.”
It wasn’t until 2000 that Courtois started to get noticed.
“It’s really only in the past several years that I feel I’ve had any success at all in publishing, and it was really because I signed up as a gay writer.”
Stumbling upon Suspect Thoughts: A Journal of Subversive Writing, an online gay journal, he decided to submit his work, and much to his chagrin, it was accepted. And that editor continued to accept Courtois’ work.
“I had always thought that I didn’t want to be pigeon-holed as a gay writer, I didn’t want to be stuck in that niche and limited that way,” he said. “But ever since I started identifying as a gay writer, I’ve been having a great time.”
Shortly after, the editor created Suspect Thoughts Press and approached him to write a book.
“I said ‘Sure, of course I would do a full-length project,’ ” and his first novel, My Name Is Rand, was published in 2004.
Courtois has found a slew of support from fellow LGBT writers and publishers.
In 2002 he won Best New Voice in Erotic Fiction from the Erotic Authors Association and his work was featured in Best Gay Erotica 2005 and Best Gay Erotica 2008 (Cleis Press). A short story of his will be published in the College Boys anthology (Cleis Press), and one of his essays will be published in The Lost Library: Gay Classics Rediscovered (Haiduk Press). His work has also appeared in several other publications in the last nine years.
Courtois’ latest book, A Report from Winter, is a memoir that became a love letter to his partner of 20 years.
“It’s a personal account of the time when my mother was dying. … I went back to Maine, and it was winter in January, a typical Maine winter. The weather was just horrible.”
In talking about this book, Courtois appears moved by the events that inspired it.
“It’s tough for anybody under any circumstances to lose a parent, but this just seemed like a particularly rough time,” he said.
Often, he said, when people write about the death of a parent, there is a lot of sentiment. But “if there is any sentiment in the book … it lies in the story about me and my partner, more than anything.
“My family was pretty much dysfunctional in some ways, and I didn’t particularly get along with them very well. There were difficult personalities: my mother had her own problems with depression. … I had an older brother who really did not take much interest in me – we were not close. So I was sort of having to deal with all these relatives that I hadn’t had to deal with in years. It was not an easy experience.”
After rejecting his partner’s offer to accompany him to Maine, Courtois then asked Ralph, his partner, to join him, not long after arriving at his childhood home.
“At first I told him, ‘No, you don’t want meet my family,’ but I called him up, he took off work, flew up there and helped me get through the whole experience.” It was 1998, and they had been together for 10 years.
Stories of how they built a loving relationship are sprinkled throughout the memoir.
“As you get older, you begin to form your own family, and you can choose the people you want to be in that family,” Courtois said. He chose Ralph.
“I think that going through an experience like this, where your partner loses a parent, does tend to bring you closer together, because it’s one of those major life events. And if you share it … I think it’s something that just always stays with you.”
Courtois has several projects on his plate and he is anticipating a re-release of his first book, My Name is Rand, through Lethe Press. A Report From Winter is available through any major online bookseller or his website, www.reportfromwinter.com. Courtois will appear for a reading followed by a book-signing at 1 p.m. Oct. 3 at Barnes & Noble on the Plaza, 420 W. 47th St. For more information, call 816-753-1313.
Damian Torres-Botello is looking for Kansas City-based LGBT artists of any genre — visual, performing, musical or literary — so that he can tell “Their Story,” as he explores how art can help communities see themselves more clearly. If you or someone you know would like to be interviewed for this column, please contact him at damian327@gmail.com.
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