Borrowing Time: A Latino Sexual Odyssey [Paperback]

Carlos T. Mock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2006

"Whatever your orientation, no matter your ethnicity, you'll never be the same after a journey through this odyssey. A vivid and visceral portrayal of a sexual and political coming-of-age in today's America-and beyond." Laura S. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett University Professor, DePaul University; Columnist, Chicago Sun-Times "Gay literature is rich in so many areas, yet we still have a need for strong stories from the world of Latino culture-about family, about youth, about coming out, about creating adult relationships, about AIDS. Now, Carlos Mock give us a strong Puerto Rican story that deals with all these isues." -Patricia Nell Warren, author of The Front Runner and The Wild Man. In Borrowing Time: a Latino Sexual Odyssey we get a glimpse of the different manifestations of AIDS: the fear, the shame, the regrets and the final victory. The "AIDS" crisis has been an opportunity for the homosexual community for growth, for strengthening ties, for reclaiming rights from the government, and, above all, for reflection. The AIDS epidemic can be seen by many as a curse, and for others, as the opportunity to bring out the best in you. My work as a sex therapist over 23 years with couples and individuals-many of whom are gays, lesbians, and bisexuals-has put me in touch with an issue that inevitably comes up: feelings of self-hatred and shame that many homosexuals internalize. The lack of tolerance for sexual diversity and the myopic vision of many fundamentalist religious groups have contributed to the prejudices. Books like Borrowing Time: a Latino Sexual Odyssey can be antidotes for this lack of understanding and acceptance. It can also be a useful tool for any homosexual or lesbian to understand and accept him or herself, without judgments. It takes the reader, gay or straight, into the mind, heart and dreams of Juan Subirá Rexach with great candor, honesty and humor. Dra. Gloria Mock

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Floricanto Press (October 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0915745771
• ISBN-13: 978-0915745777
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,039,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico to a middle class family. Grew up in the San Francisco/Santa María suburb of San Juan and attended Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola prep school where upon graduation escaped to The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. Then proceeded to attend the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan where he obtained a Doctor in Medicine degree in 1980.

After an internship in New Orleans and a four-year obstetrics and Gynecology residency at Cook County Hospital in Chicago he went to work in the private practice in the Chicago suburbs until 1996.Currently shares life in Chicago with his life partner, Bill Rattan, and their dog Tiffany. Very active in the GLBT community by having served on the board of two organizations; Equality Illinois and Orgullo en Acción.

He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune.

Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame in October 18th, 2007.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Meditative in Tone, Introspective In Content: The Gay Everyman, May 20, 2007

By 

Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Borrowing Time: A Latino Sexual Odyssey (Paperback)

Gay and lesbian "coming of age and coming out" novels and memoirs have become so common over the past few years that they virtually constitute a subgenre in their own right, with such titles as Paul Monette's BECOMING A MAN and Augusten Burroughs' RUNNING WITH SISSORS leading the pack. In BORROWING TIME, which author Carlos T. Mock describes as fiction with a somewhat factual basis, the genre takes a slightly different turn: both author Mock and the story's narrator Juan Subira are Latinos from Pureto Rico living in "white America," and the novel offers us a image of the American gay community as seen through their eyes.

The story opens with Juan rushed to the hospital: an HIV patient suddenly suffering from acute pancreatitis. A doctor himself, he floats on morphine between present and past, contemplating the impact of his background, be it for good or ill, upon his status as gay man. The boyish uncertainties, the teenage angst, the sexual confusion, the drive to be some one of significance--all are placed on full display.

BORROWING TIME is not a "literary" work in the sense of BECOMING A MAN nor is it a story in the sense of RUNNING WITH SISSORS; it lacks the elegant formality of the former and the story drive of the latter, and there are occasions when the narrative seems self-contradictory and now and then even mundane. But that, rather surprisingly, is rather the point; our narrator is morphine-laden and the experiences he recalls, while Latin-inflected, are universal in nature. It would be difficult to find a gay man who came of age in the 1970s and 1980s who could not tell much the same. In consequence, Juan emerges an "everyman." His experiences are the coin of the realm.

Althought the prose here is more workman-like than stylish, Mock does now and then conjure up a glittering passage--most often in his descriptions of location. His passages on Puerto Rico are particularly memorable, giving one the sense of a unique location alternately sparkling with sun and mysterious with shadow. Juan's love-hate relationship with his own background, his own culture colors the novel throughout in a particularly interesting way: the social norms, the customs, the religious edges of Puerto Rico inform the work and in often provides the book's most eloquent edges.

I found the sub-title, "A Latino Sexual Odyssey," poorly chosen and rather misleading, for it implies that the book is erotica--and although Mock has a fair amount to say on the subject of sex one would hardly describe the book as sexy, much less erotica. I must also note, and with tremendous irritation, that Floricanto Press has done a great disservice to the book in terms of page lay-out. Each page is "boxed" with a thin-line frame that has the effect of highlighting some of the most awkward paragraph spacing I have ever seen. This might seem inconsequential, but in this instance the effect is horrendously distracting. One hopes that this will be corrected in any future edition of the work.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer