The Mentor: A Memoir of Friendship and Gay Identity [Paperback]

John Dececco Phd (Author), Jay Quinn (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1560239379 | ISBN-13: 978-1560239376 | Publication Date: March 17, 2000 | Edition: 1st

Examine a moving, personal narrative about growing up gay in the south!

Students, teachers, and anyone interested in gay studies and experiences will find that The Mentor: A Memoir of Friendship and Gay Identity (a 2001 Lambda Literary Foundation Gay Male Biography/Autobiography Award finalist) delivers a captivating and honest look into the challenges of growing up gay through the context of firsthand experiences, revelations, and realizations. This unique book is an intelligent and personal narrative that considers the social, religious, and emotional aspects of what it is like to grow up as a gay male in the south and examines the enormous social changes regarding homosexuality that have taken place in America during the last half of the century.

Written to reveal the importance of the author's mentor in helping him form his self-identity and educating him about being gay, this book challenges the stereotypical idea that, unlike heterosexuals, gay men are not able to form nurturing, fulfilling bonds between themselves. The Mentor delivers an inspiring story about accepting and understanding your sexuality with the help and guidance of other men who have traveled the road to a successful gay identity.

This unique book offers the courage, strength, and support of a mentor to help guide you through the trials that many young gay men experience, such as:

• recognizing the possibilities of exploitation by older gay men due to a lack of emotional and social experience
• creating a loyal relationship with a man that does not include sex but which satisfies emotional needs that many gay men need and long for
• discovering the importance of a mentor to gay youths, since there are few homosexual role models to learn from

Sincere and well-written, The Mentor provides insight into everything from the author's experience with intolerance of homosexuality by certain religions to struggles with fidelity and infidelity, illustrating the difficult yet universal challenges of life relationships. The Mentor contains suggestions that will help you recognize that your feelings of desire and love and your quest for human connection as a gay man are not the distorted reflections of a heterosexual image, but a healthy gay identity. With this unique book, you will discover how to make the shift from confusion to full acceptance of your gay identity, you will understand that you are not alone, and perhaps you will be encouraged to pass on the legacy of a mentor to other young gay men.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

While the title promises a study of the complex relationship between an older and younger gay man, it is clear after the first few chapters that the book is more about Quinn and his gay identity than his friendship with mentor Joe Riddick. The book could be titled The Mentee. The author draws detailed parallels between himself and Riddick, both "recovering Baptists" with complementary Southern family backgrounds, but there is little mentoring. Instead, Quinn treads the well-worn path of gay autobiography and fiction, featuring life in the hedonistic 1970s and 1980s, as he chronicles his experiences with licit and illicit drugs, his attempts at an artistic career, his manic-depressive episodes, and, above all, his sexual exploits. While Riddick never emerges as a flesh-and-blood personality, Quinn does, and an unappealing one at that. This book feels like a half-baked autobiographical novel puffed up with pop psychological and sociological background to make it relevant as nonfiction. Not recommended.
-Richard Violette, Special Libs. Cataloging, Inc., Victoria, BC
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Jay Quinn's exploration of the mentoring process within the gay community -of being taken under a wing, of being taught by the more mature, of learning from someone trusted -shines with honest grace. He's taken the very personal and amplified it into an exemplar for a community which has a lengthy, noble tradition of the older guiding the younger; but it's a tradition not much honored in our writing or in our public lives. This memoir, candid and Humane, intimate and witty, is an eloquent recognition of what one generation can teach another." -- Richard Labonte, General Manager, A Different Light Bookstores, San Francisco, California

"When you read Jay Quinn's THE MENTOR, it's as if you're reading a book written by two different men, complimentary and sympatico. One is a Southern storyteller, the kind that has made the South famous for its rich literary history -you can hear Quinn spinning a yarn up on the front porch, offering any number of juicy scandalous stories, confiding a couple of secrets, keeping a couple more to himself. And there's another writer, a thoughtful scholar who knows how to tell a tale on the page as well as the porch, who can look at his own life with enough wisdom to convey to others what he has learned. And that is what THE MENTOR is all about -teaching and telling each other effortlessly, the reader and writer at once protege and professor." -- Brian Bouldrey, Writer and editor, San Francisco, California

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 206 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1st edition (March 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560239379
• ISBN-13: 978-1560239376
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,338,685 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smart, sexy, and Southern, May 19, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mentor: A Memoir of Friendship and Gay Identity (Paperback)

The process of acknowledging and accepting one's gay identity has never been easy-at any time, in any place-but it is frequently more difficult in the South, with its entrenched conservative familial, religious, and social strictures. THE MENTOR traces the path of one man, part-time surfer, part-time construction worker, full-time Southerner, as he recognizes, embraces, and ultimately balances the imperatives of his burgeoning gay identity with the values and demands of his Baptist upbringing on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It's a difficult journey, marked by false starts, dead ends, and disappointments, but ultimately illuminated by the joy of self-discovery and self-acceptance.The word mentor originates in the story of Odysseus, whose son, Telemachus, was counseled by an old family friend, Mentor, during his father's absence. Throughout his personal emotional/sexual odyssey, author Jay Quinn finds wisdom and comfort in his relationship with an older gay man, Joe Riddick. He also takes solace from an extended gay family, a common occurrence in gay life, when gay friends replace the blood kin who have rejected gay offspring or siblings.These concepts-an established gay man helping a younger one adjust to a sometimes troublesome sexual identity, a family of choice replacing a family of birth-are not unusual in the gay world. What makes Quinn's narrative remarkable is his willingness to reveal himself completely-to strip away the comfortable patina of political correctness to reveal his raw emotions, ravenous needs, and sometimes disquieting choices-while detailing his pursuit of the things most "straight" people take for granted: love, acceptance, affirmation. For me, the pivotal scene in the book takes place in the chapter "Hunters and Gatherers," when Quinn, now somewhat older and wiser, rejects the advances of a man in the parking lot of an all-night grocery store. He is obviously attracted to the man who sees him purely as sexual quarry-that much is clear by his description-but he has been down that road many times before and sees and understands it for what it frequently is: an erotic bonanza but an emotional dead end. And in that moment, he (and the reader) understands, viscerally and well as cerebrally, what it means to be a man, not a gay man, but a MAN, a human, a person of depth, character, complexity, and responsibility. That is Jay Quinn's personal homecoming, and it is one that many gay men will identify with and many more will yearn for. Quinn's writing is smart and sexy, earthy and erudite. He offers a window into his soul-and, if we are wise enough to see it, a mirror into our own.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jay Quinn 101: THE SEED!!, June 29, 2002

By 

Jon Cook (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mentor: A Memoir of Friendship and Gay Identity (Paperback)

The important point to be made about this book is that it is the first published work of Jay Quinn. I recommend that readers start with Quinn's mature, METES AND BONDS --the Lambda award winning novel-- and REBEL YELL anthology series,and then return to this first published work. Being the big fan, as I am, of Jay Quinn's books, I'm not overcritical when I say that this book is not quite "ripe"!! I just feel that most people will appreciate it more after they read the more finished books first. That way, you will better appreciate the dominating themes of his body of work. Why are Jay Quinn's books so important? Because Jay Quinn is not afraid to break taboos. That is #1. In the Lambda Book Report he talks openly about the roles of alcohol and in METES AND BOUNDS he writes about drugs affecting the lives of gay men. From Man-Boy love, to incest relations, he writes the truth. Jay Quinn is the most important new Southern writer today.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Enjoyable Read!, May 27, 2000

By 

Joseph J. Hanssen "Joe" (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mentor: A Memoir of Friendship and Gay Identity (Hardcover)

How great it would be if all young gay men just coming out could have an older person, a Mentor, help guide them through life's trials and experiences. It certainly would have helped me. Jay Quinn's personal narrative is such a honest, no holes-barred read, and so interesting. It must have been hard to put all this down for everyone to see. Through all his troubles with relationships, drugs, and depression, he manages to pull through. All with the help of his dedicated mentor, Joe Riddick.

By reading this book other gay men will relive their own similar experiences, and know that they are not alone. We are all here to experience what life has to offer us, and it would be great if the different generations could help guide each other. We should all be "Mentors." I highly recommend this book.