There are some stories that are harder to share, not because they are difficult to recall but because we recall them all too well.  In Grace Through Fire, author Deborah Samuel revisits one of the more painful times in her life: the horrific murder of her father at the hands of her mother nearly 18 years ago, and the uninvited media attention that ensued. Her book is more than just recounting a deep tragedy. It is an insightful look into what happens in one’s life after the media buzz fades and we are forced to continue writing our own stories.

Pulling from years of journaling and reflection, Samuel recounts these chapters of her past with active honesty while examining her own choices, battles, and growth. What surfaces is a story of trauma, resilience, love, and the refusal to allow the absolute worst moments from our pasts to determine the trajectory of our ongoing stories. In our interview, Samuel talks about why she now felt ready to share her story, how confronting it also allowed for healing, and what she’d hope readers might take away from her journey.

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Your new memoir, Grace Through Fire, starts off with a significantly difficult family crisis involving your mother and father and the media attention that ensued. What felt right about sharing this story now?

We are approaching the 18th anniversary of my father’s murder by my mother, and I finally felt it was time.

It took me many years to be ready to tell this story. There is no way I could have written this book ten years ago. About three years ago, I began thinking seriously about documenting my life as it actually happened—not only because I didn’t want to forget what happened, but because I wanted to acknowledge that I survived it and made it to the other side.

More importantly, I began to believe my story might help someone else look at their own life through a wider lens. Life has many seasons and many chapters. One or two terrible chapters do not have to determine how the rest of your story is written.

I had hundreds and hundreds of pages of journals, so when I began reconstructing scenes, conversations, and experiences, so much of it was there—including the painful details. Going back through those journals was difficult, but they allowed me to tell the story honestly.

What led you to understanding your story as one involving trauma, love, and perseverance, and how did the creation of this project play in your healing process?

The most powerful moment came when I recorded the audiobook and had to read the entire memoir aloud. Hearing myself speak those words made me realize, without a shadow of a doubt, how much personal work I had done.

I could see that I had made a conscious choice not to remain a victim—not to become bitter or allow the terrible things that happened to define the rest of my life.

I am proud that I told the story authentically. I did not leave out the ugly parts, including the parts about myself. I had to look honestly at my own decisions, failures, growth, and responsibility.

Writing Grace Through Fire made me stronger because I stopped running from the story and faced it. I can now look back at that woman with compassion while also recognizing how far I have come.

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Your relationship with your wife, Susan, is a significant part of your story. What role did this partnership—and her love—play in the navigation of caregiving while dealing with your own family crisis?

This is one of the most complicated and painful parts of my story.

I never wanted to leave Susan. At one time, I believed I would stay with her for the rest of my life. But circumstances beyond either of our control changed our lives dramatically, and eventually I had to accept that what we had was broken beyond my ability to repair it.

Leaving was not about a lack of love. It was about survival.

I reached a point where I understood I couldn’t fix everything that had happened, and I couldn’t save everyone I loved. The only person I could finally take responsibility for saving was myself.

I believe deeply that if I had stayed, I would not be here today. That realization was devastating, but it ultimately gave me permission to choose life.

So many who have yet to experience it often see caregiving as a noble act of love when, in reality, it often involves feelings of resentment, fear, and financial strain. What do you wish more folks understood about the less glamorous realities of caregiving?

Caregiving is incredibly complex. We often romanticize it as a beautiful, selfless expression of love—and it can be—but there is another side we don’t talk about enough.

It can exhaust you mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally, and financially. You can love someone deeply and still feel angry, resentful, frightened, trapped, or completely depleted. Those feelings do not mean the love isn’t real.

My memoir goes deeply into this because I lived it. Caregiving affected virtually every part of my life. There were moments of tenderness and extraordinary love, but there were also moments when I lost myself.

I hope we can have more honest conversations about what caregiving actually asks of people—and recognize that caregivers need care, too.

How did your experience growing up in Arkansas influence your comprehension of “womanhood,” and, eventually, what it means to exist as a queer woman?

Growing up in the South and later becoming a gay teacher presented challenges that are difficult to explain unless you lived through that period.

I was teaching before many of the legal protections and social changes LGBTQ+ people have today, and I learned very quickly that my marriage and family were not always going to be treated the same as everyone else’s.

In the memoir, I describe what happened when my spouse became critically injured while we were living in a state that did not recognize our marriage. My employer also did not recognize my marriage, and after 14 years of service, I was initially denied the sick leave I needed to care for my spouse and had to take leave without pay.

Eventually, I went before the school board and challenged the policy. The district ultimately changed it, but it became a very public and stressful fight during an already devastating period of my life.

Those experiences profoundly shaped my understanding of womanhood, equality, marriage, and what it means to stand up for your family when the institutions around you do not yet recognize it.

What does it mean to you to share a queer Southern story? Are there some complexities about Southern life that you hope to impart on your readers?

This is a complicated question because the South is complicated. I have tremendous love for Arkansas. I spent much of my life there, built a career there, and still have people there whom I love deeply. Northwest Arkansas has also changed enormously over the past 20 years.

At the same time, growing up gay in the South was incredibly challenging. Sometimes, simply being myself came with consequences, both personally and professionally.

For years, I dreamed about living in California and experiencing a life where I could feel more open and less guarded. Even today, when I return to Arkansas with my wife, there are moments when I am conscious of whether it feels safe to hold her hand walking down the street. That awareness never completely leaves you.

I hope my story shows both sides—the affection I have for where I came from and the reality of what it was like to grow up gay there during a very different time.

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How has your own personal definition of “family” changed or evolved over your life as you moved through these experiences?

My definition of family has expanded tremendously.

I remain very close to my sister, Laura, in Arkansas, but I have also created completely new roots in Santa Barbara with my wife, Kelsey. I converted to Judaism, found a spiritual home, and began building what I consider a chosen family of friends, colleagues, and people who share our core values.

When everything fell apart in my forties, I did not have that kind of spiritual community around me. I have often wondered whether things might have felt different if I had had a spiritual family to lean on. Finding that in California has been incredibly meaningful.

At 58, I am also much more intentional about the people I allow into my life. My wife and I have a small circle of wonderful friends. We value relationships that are healthy, sober, supportive, and aligned with the way we want to live. Age gives you the opportunity to make some choices more wisely. I certainly have.

One key component of your book is generational trauma. When did you first recognize patterns within your own family that extended beyond the individual, and what was it like to confront or unpack these patterns for you?

Generational trauma takes a long time to recognize because when you are living inside a family system, so much of what happens simply feels normal. You often do not understand the patterns until you have enough distance to look back and ask, “Where did this begin?” That became an important part of my healing.

I became deeply interested in understanding trauma and how experiences can remain buried within us long after the events themselves are over. I have worked with professionals who helped me address PTSD, long-buried trauma, unconscious guilt, and patterns I did not realize were still influencing my life.

I have also spent considerable time studying personal growth and changing the way I think about my future. The biggest revelation was realizing that understanding where your patterns came from doesn’t mean you have to keep them. You can honor what happened, forgive where you can, and still decide the cycle ends with you.

Your journey also involves sobriety. How did entering sobriety impact the way that you processed the past? Did it allow you to envision a different version of your future?

Sobriety changed everything because, for the first time, I could see my life clearly enough to make some very difficult decisions.

Wine had begun ruining my life. I was a high-functioning alcoholic, and drinking allowed me to postpone confronting things that were simply too painful to face. When I became sober, I could no longer hide from myself. 

Sobriety also changed some of my relationships. I lost friends along the way because not everyone understood or fit into the life I was trying to build. That was painful, but I eventually came to understand that everyone has their own journey.

I can look back now with gratitude for the good years and good memories without believing that every person or every habit from my past has to accompany me into my future.

I forgave myself. I forgave others. And I gave myself permission to begin a new chapter. I allowed myself an adult timeout for two years when I first moved to CA and truly composted the best parts of me to plant the garden I wanted to grow in. Healthy and strong!

You eventually found yourself aboard a boat in Santa Barbara. What does this move from the South to the California coast mean for you personally?

I dreamed about living on a boat in Santa Barbara Harbor for 25 years.

For nearly 20 years, I kept a photograph of myself in a red kayak on my desk at work. Whenever life became incredibly difficult, I looked at that picture and imagined another life. I visualized what it might feel like to someday live on the water.

Four years ago, I finally made that dream real.

Today, my wife and I live aboard a 1973 Grand Banks yacht in Santa Barbara Harbor with our black cat. I absolutely love the lifestyle.

There is something incredibly peaceful about sleeping on a boat every night. For me, the ocean’s movement feels almost like being held. The water brings me a sense of harmony, safety, and peace that is hard to describe.

Every morning, I sit on the stern with my coffee and say my prayers of gratitude. I look around and think about everything it took to get here. I am proud of how far I have come. 

For me, that boat represents much more than a place to live. It represents a second chance at life and love—and the realization of a dream I held onto during some of my darkest years.

After reading Grace Through Fire, what is one thing, if nothing else, that you hope stays with your readers as they navigate their own lives, wherever or whoever they may be?

May the journey begin within you. I have written those words again and again because they capture what I hope readers ultimately take away from Grace Through Fire.

My story is my story. Readers will have completely different circumstances, losses, wounds, and dreams. I don’t expect anyone to follow my path.

I hope that somewhere in these pages, a reader finds one small nugget of inspiration that makes them look inward and ask, “What is possible for me now?”

You cannot rewrite the chapters that have already happened. But you can decide what you want to do with the pages that remain. That journey begins within you.

‘The Lost Brontë’
By Catherine Friend
c.2026, Bywater Books
$22.95/335 pages

Mom always said to tell the truth.

One lie leads to another and another and you have to remember them all until pretty soon, you’re caught. Fibs are hard, mistruths are messy, even little white social lies can destroy trust. Worst of all, as in the new novel, “The Lost Brontë” by Catherine Friend, a complicated lie can lead to danger.

Though Lilianne Loxley was very young when she lost her parents, she understood that her uncle didn’t really want her. As time passed, though, Lily made herself useful to Uncle, writing and signing letters for him and she became a good companion, helping him with his collection of Brontë memorabilia. Uncle was a keen enthusiast.

She had no idea that his obsession was out of control and he was deeply in arrears. The day Lily learned of his debt was the day she learned that he’d agreed to send her to his debtor’s home to work off the money owed.

It was so sudden. One minute, Lily was at Loxley House, happy and loved by Uncle’s staff … and five hours later, she was at Crag Thorn Manor, home of Lord Bexton, who informed her that she’d be working on his ledgers – work that seemed routine, but Lily tackled it.

Uncle always did say she was headstrong.

But would headstrong be enough to survive, when she was restricted from most of the Manor, when she was forced to dine with Brexton and his slimy friend, or – the worst! – when Brexton told Lily that her next task was to forge a letter from Emily Brontë? And then an entire manuscript?

Lily struggled to do what was right. She had to get Uncle out of debt but this last order horrified her. Did she dare refuse Brexton’s orders and commit a crime? It was unthinkable!

The only brightness in the whole situation was Wren, the ladies’ maid assigned to Lily’s room. Wren was adorable with freckles and the sweetest smile. But with everything else happening at Crag Thorn Manner, could Lily act upon her feelings?

This time of year, you may come to crave dark, spooky stories, and “The Last Brontë” fits those needs perfectly with its Gothic deliciousness. Think: Daphne du Maurier-type, stormy-night squirms with a dangerously chaste, sweetly romantic girl-meets-girl twist for fun.

If it’s been awhile since you’ve read a Gothic novel, you’re in for a nice reminder of why you love them here. You can almost tick off the must-haves: a novel like this is nothing without a foreboding stone manor with damp walls; stone steps to a dank basement; a mysterious portrait; and a nearby bog, and author Catherine Friend gives readers every one of them. You’d be disappointed if there was no ghost, wouldn’t you? Ha. You can practically feel the cold blow through the attic, right? Yeah, it’s that kind of book.

If you’re a fan of the Brontës, you’ll like this novel. If you love Gothic mysteries or Victorian romances, ditto. “The Lost Brontë” is good, no lie.

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“The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay: Essays”
By Eliot Glazer
c.2026, Gallery Books
$28.99/240 pages

You try and you try.

Once, twice, you go back at that thorny issue, the dream you have, the punchline that’s not hitting quite right. Sometimes, time is all you need to make it better, or a new approach, or a second look. And then there are days when you actually get things right, as in “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay” by Eliot Glazer, and it’s all good.

Throughout his life, Eliot Glazer has made mistakes. And it’s OK, everybody trips and falls now and then. In his case, though, he’s perfectly willing to document his failures, foibles, and whoopsies in this book.

He writes of his mother, Sandi, “a Queens-born balabosta” who wouldn’t tolerate laziness in herself or Glazer. He found work as soon as he was legally able to do so, and he had many jobs throughout high school. He was a gardener, ice cream scooper, camp counselor, golf caddy, chocolatier, telemarketer, and video store clerk. The one that fit him best, however, was working at Talbots, a department store for older women, where he found his people.

Even with all those jobs, he was a theater kid in his time off, little though it was. Back then, he was just a boy growing up on Long Island but swagger was important, so swagger he did. He still appreciates a good Broadway show, even the silliest ones.

Glazer says that he had just recently come out when gayness exploded on TV with “Will & Grace” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” with which he was obsessed. It helped him feel not othered, he says. Producers of the reboot asked him to be a second-generation Eye, but Glazer turned them down, though he thinks he’d have been good at it.

The show helped him with love of décor. His unexpected advisory skills came naturally, through age and wisdom and learning that wild partying isn’t really so much fun.

As for finding love, well, that’s a long, boy-meets-boy-meets-boy story…

So you’re looking for something to easily pick up and put down, something that speaks to your inner impatience? You’ll find that in “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay,” a book that’s practically meant for you to skip around and you don’t have to read everything.

Essays can be like that, which is nice, even refreshing. Author Eliot Glazer is entertaining enough to make things work, engaging enough to keep it moving, and funny enough to make you want more of what he has to say. He’s open with his life and, despite his fame, his writing isn’t lofty; you can expect stories that’ll make you snort and ones with spice, but also some surprisingly tender moments that soften this book in a way that’s just right.

Readers who want a quick, mostly light book to finish will find something appealing in this collection of essays. If you don’t mind a bit of non-linearity and you need a laugh, “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay.” is worth a try.

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‘Ain’t Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton’
By Martha Ackmann
c.2026, St. Martin’s Press
$30/304 pages

Not too bright.

That’s what people once thought about you. Your language didn’t conform, you had your own sense of style, and you were ignorant about modern things and places and foods. But you were no dummy. You were different, and you had a secret: as in the new biography, “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton” by Martha Ackmann, you knew exactly where you were going.

When Avie Lee Owens and Lee Parton first married, they had the very basics: “two knives, two forks, two spoons, a skillet, a butcher knife, and an old iron kettle.” He was 17; she was 15. Babies came quick. The fourth one was named Dolly, after two great-aunts.

Almost from the time she could walk, Dolly sang. Before she was old enough to attend school, she wrote poetry, and she’d begun to notice rhythms and beats she could make with her fingers. As a schoolchild, she created her own musical instruments out of scraps, and she was eager to perform whenever anyone asked her – and they asked often, because Dolly Parton was a nice girl, and her sense of humor conveyed a warmth that drew people in.

Growing up in the Tennessee mountains, Parton was independent, shunning marriage and child-raising, instead focusing on a dream of being a star. By the time she was in high school, she’d had a regular gig on local television but she recognized that there were few opportunities for fame in the mountains, so she left for Nashville the day after high school graduation, with the snickers of naysayers ringing in her ears.

She stayed with an aunt and uncle there, and she beat the streets, dined on grocery store samples to get by, and missed her family and friends. And they worried about her, but they knew nothing would derail her plans. They knew Dolly would be fine.

As a friend said, “’She had her head on pretty good.’”

Chances are that if you’ve listened to music any time in the last 60 years, you’ve heard Dolly Parton through her words or her music or both. Now you need to learn more about her, and “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool” is where to do it.

Here’s a biography that grabs you on the first page with the tiniest bit of family tree, but not so much that you get bored with it. Author Martha Ackmann writes about Dolly Parton’s early life, putting hardships and experiences in context, both personally and historically. There are name-drops, but not overly so, as Ackmann takes you through Parton’s career, her heartbreaks, her marriage, and her years with Porter Wagoner, in detail but not dramatically embellished or outrageously told. It’s a biography that’s just right, sourced well and written with a fresh take that, like its subject, tells a good story. 

Fans, of course, will want this highly researched book but music lovers of any age or type will eat it up. That means you, so use up that Christmas gift certificate. “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool” just shines.

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‘Every Inch a Lady’
By Audrey Smaltz with Alina Mitchell
c.2026, Amistad
$27.99/256 pages

Snaps, zippers, buttons, ties.

Toss that garment on, pull it up, wrap it around, you know what you like and how to wear it. The color is perfect for your skin tone, the fabric enhances your form. Yep, you always look your best and, as in the new book “Every Inch a Lady” by Audrey Smaltz (with Alina Mitchell), that best is fabulous.

”Born, bred, toasted, buttered, jellied, and honeyed in Harlem” in 1937, Audrey Smaltz was a force to be reckoned with almost from the time she could walk. Her parents imbued confidence in her, they nurtured her creativity and sent her to charm school, but they never allowed her to create a stir.

“That,” says Smaltz, “is not what ladies did.”

By the time she was a teenager, Smaltz was modeling for New York City designers. Shortly thereafter, she started working for a married man with whom she had an affair, and whom she loved very much. She broke up with him, attended college, worked a series of jobs that taught her about fashion and jobs that didn’t seem to fit her. An ill-fated marriage took her to Chicago where she ultimately landed a position that sent her to work in Ebony magazine’s New York office.

Working at Ebony was a career-changer, in a way. Smaltz was able to travel the world and learn more about fashion, but she didn’t exactly get along with her boss.

Finally, seizing an opportunity, Smaltz decided to launch her own company, Audrey Smaltz, Inc., a “fashion production business,” but she couldn’t get any designers to take a chance on her. Undaunted, she reorganized, re-branded, hit the streets, and knocked on doors until she finally found one client, which led to many others.

Through it all, her personal life was a whirlwind. She dated “more men than you can shake a book at,” settling down occasionally, briefly. Fashion had always been her first love, but she accidentally found real love, “the love of a woman,” at a leadership course.

There’s an old saying that writers need to add lots of “color” into their stories. Read a little of “Every Inch a Lady,” and you’ll notice immediately that author Audrey Smaltz (with Alina Mitchell) quite literally takes that to heart by mentioning nearly every color of the spectrum here. Hmm.

That oddity aside, Smaltz is a wonderfully lively storyteller, speaking with the energy of a woman much younger to the heart of anyone who loves fashion. That glee extends to collectors of vintage clothing, who will be delighted to read about the industry long ago and the way things worked then. Smaltz says she experienced racism, which is not unusual for pre-Civil Rights America, but doors were surprisingly closed for other reasons that will astound anyone who’s savvy about the fashion industry, even today.

There’s quite a bit of name-dropping in this book but most of it belongs in the anecdotes, so you likely won’t mind. If you’re a fashionista, too, find “Every Inch a Lady,” and snap it up.

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‘Finding Renée Richards’
By Julie Kliegman
c.2026, HarperOne
$28.99/272 pages

Come on in, the water’s fine.

Wade into it up to your ankles, your calves, your waist, you’ll be OK. You’ll adjust to the waves that swirl around you so come on, dive in, it’s all good. As in the new book “Finding Renée Richards” by Julie Kliegman, that goes for swimming, and for controversy.

Assigned to do a story on books written by trans tennis great Renée Richards, Julie Kleigman read the books and became “transfixed by a woman who had fought so hard to simply live as who she had long known she was….”. Their editor had figured that, as a nonbinary and trans individual, Kleigman would have “something incisive to say…” in an article. Instead, once they met and began interviewing Richards, Kliegman was left frustrated.

Born in the late summer of 1934, Richard Henry Raskind seemed to have arrived with a tennis racket in his hand. His mother was a psychiatrist; his father was an orthopedic surgeon who hoped “Dick” would follow his footsteps but Raskind was drawn instead to ophthalmology and tennis. He was also irresistibly drawn to wearing women’s clothing.

His sister knew of this pull and Raskind eventually came out to both parents, but few others on the tennis circuit were aware. When Raskind visited his hometown of New York City, however, he enjoyed furtively going out in women’s clothing but he also tried to squash the desire; in the meantime, he fell in love, married, fathered a son, and eventually learned that it was possible to become the woman he knew he really was.

To continue playing tennis professionally was a bonus.

And right there were the disagreements Kleigman had with Richards.

Richards, “To this day… [makes] a point of describing herself as a woman, period,” says Kleigman, but she firmly acknowledged Richard, almost as a separate individual, insisting that Kleigman use “him/his” pronouns when describing her earlier life.

And as for tennis and trans women’s participation in the sport, Richards had something even more frustrating to say.

Take that as a fair warning: you might be equally surprised at what author Julie Kliegman uncovered in “Finding Renée Richards,” and you may be truly gobsmacked by reading opinions from other women about the topic of trans women in sports.

That’s the main, huge point of interest in this fascinating book; the other is Richards’s life as seen through the lens of a trans individual. Kleigman’s wrestling with the 90-year-old Richards’ firmly dug-in heels is, in itself, worth your time as a study of highly varying viewpoints. That Kleigman and Richards have both lived at least a part of trans history is somewhat of a key to understanding how this book unfolds, as Kleigman offers up Richards’s tale. Readers who are able to read between the lines will be riveted.

If you’re a sports fan and you have opinions, you must read this book – and that goes double if it’s tennis you love. Also check out “Finding Renée Richards” if you just want a raucously good and very fine read.

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‘Bromantasy’
By Maire Roche
c.2026, G.P. Putnam’s Sons
$20/339 pages

“Danger” just happens to be your middle name.

Any fray, any tussle, anytime anybody needs help, they count on you to step in and save the day. You’re brave, smart and strategic, kind to old people, children, and small animals and, as in the new book “Bromantasy” by Maire Roche, dragons.

Of all the things there were to do – preserving food, keeping house for himself and his best friend Morningthall “Mo” Elmthorn, advanced skincare, and drinking at the local tavern down the road – the one thing Juniper O’Reilly couldn’t resist was a good brawl. It happened so often that Juniper honestly looked forward to it, though Mo wasn’t a fan.

Mo was more grown-up, calm, thoughtful, able, and Juniper loved him for it. He loved Mo, in fact, since they were little boys. He loved Mo in ways that they didn’t talk about, so they kept a wall between their bedrooms in their cottage.

Except for that one time.

They didn’t talk about that, either.

Instead, as they did often, on a warm fall night, Juniper and Mo went to the tavern, where mead was served and they could learn about the king’s weekly quests. There, Juniper could also find a good brawl, which is how he and Mo accidentally got into trouble: Juniper trounced one of the king’s men and was forced into a quest.

He didn’t want to fight dragons and he felt bad that Mo had been dragged along. He felt even worse leaving their farm, sleeping on the ground, wearing the same clothes every day, and not having enough skincare product along. A campfire added to the problem. A roving, lying prince, also in search of dragons, didn’t help. And though a quest was no place for a child, Juniper and Mo found a frightened little girl they had no choice but to protect.

A child with strange eyes, sharp teeth, and fire on her breath.

“And just like that, Juniper and Mo had a dragon.”

Bros + romance + fantasy = “Bromantasy.” It also could equal one of two other things: a romp full of humor, dragons, kings, princes, and adventure.

Or it could equal a whole lot of eye-rolling.

It’s a fact that this book is funny, in the way that a 1980s high school comedy movie is funny – meaning that it’s dippy, giddy, and very caricaturish but you’ll laugh quite often. The story contains everything you want in a fantasy romance (a “romantasy”), including human-like alternate species, a life-changing journey, and plenty of nudge-nudge-wink skirting around the attraction the two main characters have for one another. It’s a decent story, convoluted in just the right way. Purely, it’s an escape.

So why wouldn’t you want to read it? See above, and depending on your favorite reading genre. High-brow literature, this ain’t.

For the right reader, “Bromantasy” is a decent-enough vacation read, something not too taxing or hard on the brain. It’s for novel lovers, dragon hunters, king’s questers, princes, and romantics. For everyone else, this tale is just middling.

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‘When Memory Fades’
By Nathaniel Chin, MD
c.2026, St. Martin’s Essentials
$30/422 pages

Mom called you in a panic the other day.

She’d lost her keys and by the time you arrived to help, she’d found them. In the refrigerator.

These kinds of things keep happening, not often but often enough, and you don’t know quite what to worry about. But in the new book “When Memory Fades” by Nathaniel Chin, MD, you’ll learn about the journey ahead, for both of you.

You can’t remember why you walked into a room. You got lost last week, going to the bank. Popular wisdom says that things like that are normal as we age, but Chin says that’s not true – although the answer may not be a worst-case scenario, either. Yes, memory problems could just be signs of stress, dehydration, or lack of sleep – or is it time to see a doctor?

Chin says maybe, yes.

He was working his way through medical residency when his father, a geriatrician in Madison, Wisc., was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Chin, now a geriatrician, was blindsided, but that diagnosis also changed his life.

Here, he writes about the brain, and how Alzheimer’s and dementia are diagnosed, explaining that dementia has many faces and, depending on a doctor’s evaluation, memory problems might be slowed or improved. He shares his father’s illness with readers, but he also writes about his mother, a steadfast, steady caretaker.

Her story reminds reader-guardians to care for themselves, too.

Know how to talk the talk, so that you can have “a more productive” conversation with your doctor. Understand that there’s nothing “normal” about dementia or Alzheimer’s. Know the statistics – African Americans are affected with dementia twice as much as whites – and know how to lower your risks. Learn here what questions to ask, how to break the news to everyone, and any legal matters that will be important soon. And know how to tend to you.

Says Chin, “The best action you can take is to educate yourself… The more you understand, the better equipped you are to make sound judgments.”

Something’s off about Dad, just a lot of little things that don’t add up. When is it time to step in? “When Memory Fades” can help you decide.

Wise, wide-spread, comprehensive, and compassionately helpful, this is a book you can read and then take it to the doctor with your loved one. It’s a book that makes sense when nothing else does, and its biggest feature is that it smoothly transitions from easy-to-grasp science and charts, to gentle coaching for caregivers. Author Nathaniel Chin, MD writes with storytelling, humility, grace, and experience from both sides of the Alzheimer’s/dementia issue, and his words are reassuring but also urgent. Learn, but don’t wait, he says. Know how to safeguard yourself. See your doctor, and don’t fear testing. Watch for signs of depression. And never, ever stop asking for help.

Read those last seven words, and find “When Memory Fades” now. It’s a book to have on your shelf, whether you’re 45 or 95 because, as you’ll see, dementia happens and knowledge is key.

‘Qtopia: A Memoir of Love, Land and Liberation’
2026, University of Wisconsin Press
By Juda Bennett

Duffel packed, the new high school graduate could not fall asleep. “On the night before my departure, I stared at the duffel bag as if it were a body bag. We lived close to Dover, where the dead from Vietnam were shipped.” 

It is 1971, and Charles was leaving home to join a hippie commune in rural Virginia. “I kept imagining bodies fitting into the bag and popping out in the middle of the night,” Juda Bennett writes in his memoir, “Qtopia: A Memoir of Love, Land and Liberation.” During Bennett’s high school years from 1968-1971 some 35,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in the Vietnam War, the vast majority processed at Dover Air Force Base. 

Young Bennett was clueless about what lay ahead but he had a commune’s brochure in his pocket, certain his destiny was not in the military. “My father was a walking recruitment center, and my mother could have worked for the USO. Uncle Sam and the Andrews Sisters had nothing on them.” Inspired to find his way out of suburban Wilmington, Del., he boarded a Greyhound bus to Lexington, Va., and communes yet unknown. “Qtopia” is a serious, sexy and joyous memoir about a young man who knows he’s different in search of chosen family and, over coming decades, his own queer Utopia.

“We are leaving; you don’t need us,” was the popular refrain in the day from the Crosby, Stills & Nash song “Wooden Ships.” Communards like young Charles (going by the moniker C.B. with a full beard covering his handsome, androgynous features) were living it. How far this is from urban queer stories of the ‘70s. For this reason alone, it is marvelous reading about hot naked hippies farming together in the country, living and loving in secluded teepees when everything seemed possible. Novels like “Drop City” by T.C. Boyle (2003) and “Arcadia” (2012) by Lauren Groff set in hippie communes had no gay characters, only free-love for straights. When C.B.’s parents arrive to visit his back-to-the-land commune North Mountain bearing gifts like the orange powder Tang and Frosted Flakes, he “maintained” as the saying went.  “It was a great time for visitors to see how hard we had worked—fields of sorghum swaying in the breeze, acres of vegetables in neat rows with beans, tomatoes and peppers hanging down….I was still thin as a matchstick, but I was a strong and muscular matchstick,” he tells the story of his development. By contrast, he had considered suicide before leaving home; this memoir fills in the pain, too.

There are times when C.B.’s voice as a teen communard with a secret is so authentic and rich, it is like reading fictional stories of American innocents on journeys of their own like J.D. Salinger’s character Holden Caulfield or Demon Copperhead from rural Virginia by Barbara Kingsolver. He tells us there was this guy Mark at North Mountain who had been pressuring him to sleep on the mattress next to his. C.B. was known as the only gay at North Mountain. One of the hippie women warned him Mark is “a square, the biggest downer.” Stepping out of the memoir, C.B. directly addresses the reader about the Mark issue, “I don’t want to write about Mark anymore because he’s not important to my story, and I didn’t even like him.” Got it. Hitchhiking with C.B. is like that, too.

“I got my best ride of the whole hike from a truck driver named TJ….If an eighteen wheeler…is willing to stop for you, it is because the driver wants something from you…I will forever remember this trucker as the most beautiful man I could have had sex with if I weren’t so innocent.”

North Mountain required the hippies work one week a month in Richmond to earn cash for the commune. For C.B., this translated into seven communards living in one small apartment on this cultish mission. It was in a Richmond park where he meets a stranger who would sexually abuse him over a month until C.B. ends it. Furious, the man threatens to shut down the commune if he does not obey. In a state of panic, C.B. attempts suicide by overdosing on every pill he can get his hands on. The memoir takes the reader through the author’s horror by deepening the shadows. What was the specific nature of the abuse?  How did this stranger have credible power to threaten the commune? Entitled “What It’s Like to Die,” the chapter is a skillfully told, expressionistic turning point from an innocent’s hell to salvation at the intentional queer Lavender Hill commune in Central New York. C.B. desperately needed to “find my people.” 

He’s a resilient young man after living in three communes by the time he hit San Francisco. His two gay neighbors on Ashbury Street—Crow and Moonsnake—pressure him to get a new “hippie name.” Walking home from Golden Gate Park he zeroes in on a passing streetcar, “North Judah.” Goodbye “Charles,” Judah will be his new hippie name. Crow and Moonsnake, approve: “If that’s what the Universe called out to you.” If you remember the Sixties…

 “Too often,” Bennett writes, “we think of dropouts as withdrawing from life, but in truth, I think they are in a heightened state of seeking their rightful path and purpose. Nothing stays the same.” Juda Bennett remains a believer to this day, “Always putting my faith in my journey to Utopia”.

(Charles Francis is president of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., and author of “Archive Activism:  Memoir of a ‘Uniquely Nasty’ Journey.”)

Eliot Glazer is a self-proclaimed ‘very bad gay guy.’ It’s a title the man wears with pride; he got his start writing for hit shows like The Boys and New Girl, imbuing every series with the dry, constantly dark humor that has come to define him as a creator. It’s a style of comedy that he carried into his career as a comedian, with the past few years seeing Glazer alternate between writing on hit shows and making audiences laugh through his stand-up. He uses each platform to hilariously describe his many mistakes, commenting on the chaotic gay community while emphasizing how bad he is at fitting in with the rest of his homosexual species. 

While his many fans have heard Glazer speak about this, these observations are often packaged through TV writing or punchlines, rarely getting to the heart of what it means to feel like you’re bad at being yourself. His audience has never gotten the chance to know the moments that forged Eliot as a ‘bad gay’ and what he truly means with this label — until now. 

In his new book, The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay, Eliot Glazer writes a collection of essays that show a side audiences have never seen before. In his own words, it is “a documentation of gay failures” and a “catalog of wrongs and misses,” a vulnerable exposé on the artist that audiences have loved for years. He humorously describes the lessons that built him and the moments that left him feeling distanced from his own community. And, throughout all the laughs (and occasional tears), Glazer makes readers question if maybe they’re a ‘bad gay’ too — and would that really be such a bad thing?

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“[Comedy] is the only language that I speak,” laughed Glazer, as he discussed what made him pursue a career in the genre. “Clearly it’s a defense mechanism…but I also feel like it’s the only way I can communicate with other people.” And he certainly does communicate; each of the book’s essays provides an almost too-relatable anecdote from the man’s life. Whether it’s almost getting outed by a ruthless high school drama teacher or dealing with ‘demon twinks’ on Fire Island, Eliot’s exploits will resonate with most gay men who grew up in the closet and have dabbled in their city’s local nightlife. 

Yet while funny, readers may be shocked at the amount of vulnerability that Glazer offers within each page. Readers quickly learn that his self-prescribed status as a ‘bad gay’ comes from a lack of easy connection with the other gay men around him. Living in larger cities means that he is constantly thrust into loud parties, drug-fueled exchanges, and otherwise boisterous outings that those around him seem to love. He emphasizes that he in no way judges that lifestyle, but that he’s never felt at ease in these bombastic settings, causing the anxiety in these essays…as well as some of the funniest jokes. Because, as Glazer explains, “I just kind of have to find a way to joke about it to keep it from being more uncomfortable than it might already be…it’s just a way to survive.”

In the humor, Glazer offers an uncomfortably relatable image of queer anxiety. He recounts moments most would try to forget, like one heartbreaking scene where of being so nervous about being judged at a party that he suffers a panic attack and never even goes in, leaving before anyone even has the chance to judge him. Eliot expressed how uncomfortable it was to transcribe moments like this — a far cry from his usual comedic writing — but knew that it was because they were so uncomfortable that he had to include them in his book. 

“The more vulnerable you are, the more you connect to people, the more they relate to you,” he said. “I like the idea of reaching other queer people and gay men who don’t necessarily feel the opportunity to share that sense of social anxiety or whatever feelings might bring shame to them, because I do feel like we as a community self-impose a level of pressure that I’m just yearning to break through.”

It’s an unfortunate truth of many gay circles; in the age of social media, countless groups in society have become fixated on appearing perfect, with many gay men desperately evading any chance of appearing ‘cringe’ to their judgmental peers. This is not everyone, of course, but it’s an issue pervasive enough that countless men just like Glazer feel uncomfortable being their genuine selves in gay spaces, not even finding the freedom of authenticity within their own community.

Glazer has faced this issue all his life, but through each essay of The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay, readers watch as the man comes to love himself beyond some pre-set image he’s been told to fit into. It’s a realization that only came from years of self-work, time that Eliot hopes to spare readers by being so vulnerable and inviting them into his own journey through his writing. 

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Eliot lives in Los Angeles and is actually hosting a discussion of the book at BookSoup — moderated by renowned Drag Queen and LA local, Trixie Mattel —on Tuesday, August 11th. He raved about how excited he was, and how he hopes this event will help connect him with anyone else who thinks they’re a ‘bad gay,’ saying, “I want other people to feel the comfort to acknowledge what makes them feel awkward or weird in the world…I do really hope, very selfishly, that I can meet other people who need to express and have catharsis in just also being like me too, me too.”

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And that is the core message of The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay: there is no wrong way to be queer. Eliot Glazer invites you to laugh at his many fumbles while reminding you that if you connect with him, that doesn’t mean you’re wrong! Rather, it means you’re not alone. And that for however isolated you may ever feel in the queer community, there are always people like Eliot out there, ready to relate to all of your mishaps and show you you’re not a ‘bad gay’ — you’re just a different kind of queer.