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Zusatztext “Psychologically astute and literarily informed! Amy Hollingsworth makes poetry of closets—closed ones! bursting ones! neat ones! and fearful ones. Yet there is one closet she does not mention! and it is that one that is central to this deeply insightful memoir. It is the one that a child enters! one filled with ghosts and frightful encounters! and one through which she can only feel her way until she bursts through the back and falls into maturity! wisdom! and what might well be called New Creation.” Informationen zum Autor Amy Hollingsworth is the author of The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor (2005), based on her nine-year friendship with television's Fred Rogers; and Gifts of Passage: What the Dying Tell Us with the Gifts They Leave Behind (2008). She taught as an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where she lives with her husband, Jeff, and their children, Jonathan and Emily. She has written for various magazines, including ParentLife, and was a writer for eight years for a national television program. She was named one of USA Today entertainment blog's Top 100 People of 2010 for her influence on pop culture and featured in the documentary by MTV News VP/producer Benjamin Wagner titled "Mister Rogers & Me." Klappentext An honest and poignant look into the deeply intimate yet platonic relationship between a gay English teacher and his young female protégée—each seeking connection and acceptance—as reflected by the decade of letters they exchanged.It was an improbable relationship from the start—a high school English teacher, still in the closet, and his best student. From the confines—and protection—of his closet, Amy’s teacher wrote these letters, letters that were read, cherished, answered, and then locked away for years. Now Amy looks back at the decade of intimate letters that preceded her teacher’s untimely death, collects the shards left by their clumsy, sometimes violent attempts to unmask each other, and counts again the cost of knowing and being known. Every writer needs a room of his own, but for some people, at certain times, and in certain circumstances, the best you can do is a closet. Timely and relevant, this is a love story of the most contemporary kind, a rare glimpse into an intimate relationship between teacher and student—a relationship whose effects are still being felt decades later. It’s raw and honest and moving, a poignant commentary on the values that unite us all.Letters from the Closet 1 INTRODUCTION Boy Meets Girl I destroyed every page of my college journals. There were eight journals in all, two for each year, every empty space within swallowed up by my perfect Catholic school script: a chronicle of my life as a coed. I wasn’t getting rid of evidence exactly (although there was much to incriminate me), but I was starting over, and this was proof I wasn’t that person anymore. I can’t remember if I burned all the pages or simply tore them to shreds to prevent their being pieced back together (should the garbageman be tempted) and threw them away. In either case, they were disposed of. I have a friend whose husband demanded she destroy a photo of Elvis kissing her during one of his Vegas performances, taken before she’d even met her husband. He wanted proof she wasn’t that person anymore. She promised she would, then mailed it off to a friend for safekeeping. I wish I had done the same with my journals, but I was young and convinced that rashness was the quickest path to righteousness. My high school English teacher was young and alive, so he lacked the gravitas that comes with...
