One gay man finds pride among the ruins
When Mark King left Los Angeles in 1993 after ten years of being on television, being addicted to drugs, running a phone sex company, bedding the locals (including a certain iconic movie star), and suffering through the early, gruesome years of AIDS, he thought he had put his past behind him. Instead, he’s written a book about it. Lucky for us he did, because his journey through those years may be the most compelling read you’ve had in a while. And his book, “A Place Like This: A Memoir, has as much to say about the gay community as it does about one gay man trying to find pride among the ruins.
“I just wanted to tell the truth about those years,” King says, who will appear at a book signing event at OutLoud! Books & Gifts on Saturday, May 31. “And yes, some of it was damn scary. But there was such beautiful humanity being displayed then. Talk about pride. Our pride was tested, in ourselves and by how we treated those we cared about.
But before AIDS rears its terrifying head in his story, King establishes such an entertaining rhythm as a storyteller – self effacing humor and a pitch-black sense of comedy – that the reader is swept along for the ride. Can drug addiction and assisted suicide be that funny?
“Well, yes,” says King. “Because I only had my humor to sustain me during a time that seemed so unreal, so completely different than life as a young gay man was supposed to be like.”
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posted by Tom Jackson @ Thursday, May 01, 2008
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