Hidden : reflections on gay life, AIDS, and spiritual desire / Richard Giannone.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Giannone, Richard.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Giannone, Richard.

Catholic gay men--New York (State)--New York--Biography.

Catholic gay men.

Care of the sick.

Caring--Religious aspects--Catholic Church.

Caring.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (201 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Fordham University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Hidden—Richard Giannone’s searingly honest, richly insightful memoir—eloquently captures the author’s transformation from a solitary gay academic to a dedicated caregiver as well as a sexually and spiritually committed man. Always alone, always fearful, he initially resisted the duty to look after his dying female relatives. But his mother’s fall into dementia changed all that. Her vulnerability opened this middle-aged man to the love of another man, a former priest and Jersey boy like himself. Together the two men saw the old woman to her death and did the same for Giannone’s sister. In Hidden Giannone uncovers how, ultimately, these experiences moved him closer to participating in the vitality he believed pulsed in the world but had always eluded him.The mothering life of this gay partnership evolved alongside the AIDS crisis and within and against Italian American culture that reflected the Catholic Church’s discountenancing of homosexual love. Giannone vividly weaves his reflections on gay life in Greenwich Village and his spiritual journey as a gay man and Catholic into his experience of caring for the women of his family.In Hidden Giannone recounts a gripping religious conversion, drawing on the wisdom of the ancient desert mothers and fathers of Egypt and Palestine. Because he was raised a Catholic, the shift is not from nothing to something. Rather, it is away from the modeling power of institutional Christianity to the tempering influence of homosexuality on the Gospel. Gay or straight, so long as we remain hidden from ourselves, the true God remains hidden from us.

Contents:

An unfurnished life

The unexpected moment

School for change

School for trust

Entering my true country

Love's hiding places

Death and the remainder of life

Of guilt and sorrow

Heart's memory.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9786613893321

0-8232-4187-4

1-283-58087-X

0-8232-4665-5

OCLC:

923763555