Customer Reviews

Young Man From The Provinces: A Gay Life Before Stonewall

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
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I don't want to give away the ending, but most readers can tell that this memoir is about re-assessing the past - using some insight gained later in life to review and accept what was bewildering in the rush of living it. This raises it above autobiography and makes it a work of art searching for meaning. Those who thought the book an exercise in name-dropping have totally missed the point. For those readers searching for some sense out of life, this can be a valuable and moving experience. Although certainly not limited to this audience, it will have special relevance for gay men in one form of recovery or the other. You will feel as if you are reading your own story - and that is a gift. The fact that it is also beautifully written and captures a history now lost only adds value.

This is the only autobiography of any former glamour-boy worth reading. The first third could stand alone as a powerful story of an abused and lonely childhood. The second third is the record of the glamorous period, but even there, the author is discreet about details--disappointingly discreet, perhaps, to some readers. There's actually nor more name-dropping than necessary to establish the author's credentials. The author wrote this book not to record social highlights or sexual highjinks, but to share his evolving thoughts and feelings. The last third is the story of his crash, his efforts to come to terms with who he was/could be, and to build a new adult life. We have manny giddy reminiscences of crazy days, but this book is actually what used to be called a spiritual autobiography. It's real. Bravo!

As someone who has read a good deal of gay literature I alighted upon this book with a great deal of anticipation and was not disappointed.
I have a keen interest in many of the people mentioned by Alan Helms yet found myself becoming very interested in him. As far as dishing the dirt (who isn't interested in a bit of juicy gossip) well there's not much of it, it's very restrained. Yet I found myself grateful for the lack of it, in an age where things are stripped bare and nothing is left unsaid, it was suddenly refreshing not to be regaled with someone's intimate bedroom habits.
I found it a lyrical book, for example "the whole world focussed in the cone of light from a reading lamp as the words moved forward on the page, the fabric of knowledge rising in the expectant silence" melodious prose indeed.

Touching on the subject of name dropping - well it's hard to know what else he could do, this is a memoir of someone unknown to much of the public, but his fame for the rest of us lay in the people he associated with, not much point writing the whole book about the boy next door.

It will surprise some when I say I found it humble, certainly those for whom there are too many references to his beauty. This is deliberate, setting the scene nicely ready to turn the tables on himself and us and make us experience the despair of losing youth, beauty, body and hair (things that he has relied on so heavily) - never sparing, he acknowledges his faults, the fact that he lied, that he has stolen, that he has a dark side (haven't we all).

It is a skilfully crafted, accomplished book - the death of his mother is very moving - international boy prostitute turned professor, you couldn't make it up - I so hoped that in the end he might find true love but remembered that this is real life - not the movies.

Perhaps the only criticism was the lack of photographs; they are always helpful in drawing the reader that little bit closer.

At this point I would like to add that I am a straight, middle aged woman and realise that the subject matter of this book is not for everyone which is to be regretted as it is brave and at times, beautiful. Having finished it my one regret is that I will never meet Mr Helms.

Throughout (and I mean throughout) this book, Alan Helms performs a neat trick of rhetoric. On nearly every page he reiterates the fact of his former gobsmacking beauty. Every head turns when he enters a restaurant, people forget themselves, their very language, people boil with envy. Yet he manages when telling us this to make it simultaneously a proof of his former fatuity. So we must forgive him his appalling vanity -- because he has (!) and, besides, he's no longer that "golden boyman." What this reader most longed for was more photographic evidence. I would accept these self-testimonials had they come from Guy Madison (a 50's actor Helms himself grants was "that most handsome"), young Paul Newman or 70's male model Jeff Aquilon. There IS a bell-shaped curve and the vast majority of us fall within it, even the extremely attractive Hollywood actor or successful male model. The one-in-ten-thousand gobsmacker we truly don't see every day, the one whom it hurts to look at. Jon-Erik Hexum was perhaps another. But the mild-looking (yes, very handsome but not impossible) John Boy Walton staring at us from the cover? When the only evidence comes from the man himself . . .

This is a candid and powerful account of Helms' journey of growing up in 1940's Indianapolis in an alcoholic home, attending Columbia University on a scholarship, navigating his way through the gay beau monde of New York in the 1950's and 60's as a highly desirable young man, burning out on his lifestyle, and eventually settling into a more sedate life in Boston as a middle-aged professor.

In large part, the memoir swings between the poles of Helms' agony and ecstasy. The agony was that Helms was a deeply wounded and insecure young man who was emotionally unprepared for his high octane life in New York. Despite the constant stimulation of sex, drugs, travel, and celebrity, he feels depleted and empty, suffering, at times, from insomnia, bulimia, and suicidal thoughts. The ecstasy was the thrill of that same lifestyle. Helms was one of the most desirable young men of his time, and the temptations surrounding him were thrilling and irresistible. It's titillating and exhausting simply reading about his constant exploits.

Helms was lucky to survive all his excesses; many of his contemporaries did not. Some of his recovery was due to that nascent part of him that wanted to be whole, the person who sought out therapy, a twelve-step program, and a teaching career outside New York. And much of it was simply the result of the diminishing opportunities that come with middle age.

This book tells a remarkable story. It shows that so many of the forces that compel us through life are unchosen: our family background, our sexual orientation, our physical and intellectual capabilities, the era in which we come of age. It's also a cautionary tale that no one can get enough of what he really doesn't need, be it sex, money, drugs, power, or fame. This account also shows that with courage, luck, and grace we can find our way to a more authentic life, one we can respect and call our own.

This is a wonderfully insightful book. Filled with both uplifting joys and terrible tragedies, Helms' story brings together the most potent emotions from homosexuality, alcoholism, substance abuse and even aging. The broad range of the piece is staggering and, in such a short book, quite an accomplishment. There's something in this book for everyone with a troubled soul, and troubles enough for those without. Its end, though, brings some closure. No empty promises of a bright tomorrow, but hope for better today.

Want to know what it was like to be a young, attractive gay man living in New York in the 1950s and '60s? Was it Glamorous? Sexy? Intriguing? For Alan Helms, it was all those things. However, that's only a small part of the fascinating story of Alan Helms' life, and although Alan has experienced some extraordinary things, his search for self-awareness and ordinary happiness is one many gay men should find familiar and insightful. Helms is a talented writer and he delivers a message with his honest and very entertaining style. As Alan observes, "life is a mixed bag of blessings and an endless paradox." He's right, and that's what makes it so interesting.

This book is a touchiing biography of almost every gay mans life. It deals with everything from parents to posessive lovers. The feeling of isolation and the evental realisation that there may never be that one true love for the rest of your days. Life for gay men is usually good, but it is at the same time hell on earth. Helms captures this very eloquently in his novel.

What an exercise in self-indulgence. I am so tired of reading the writing of people who "had it all" (and can't wait to tell everyone) - led a glamorous life, extremely good-looking, a body to die for, a sex life to rival that of a rabbit, courted and wanted by everyone, etc., etc., etc...and then complain about how unhappy they were - page after page. Poor thing.

Give me your (past) life for just 15 minutes, and you would NEVER hear a peep of complaint out of me. 200+ pages of "I had it all, but woe is me" is too much.

Finally a book that dares to discuss what being an object is like. We put people on pedestals so high that anything they do is subject to judgement. A sneeze or a burp is cause for us to re-evaluate their worth of our desire. This indepth look at what a man of intellignce went through as a object is wonderfully frank, sweet, unusual, hopefull and well worth a read. Nervous envious types should open their minds and let this experience overwelm them. Everyone can learn something from Alan Helms