Tag Archives: Wayne Hoffman

My Goodreads Review of “The End of Her” by Wayne Hoffman

The End of Her: Racing Against Alzheimer’s to Solve a Murder by Wayne Hoffman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a deeply affecting work. I sank slowly into the literary seduction constructed here. There are so many layers – the horrifying and emotional toll of Alzheimer’s on an individual and on a family, still balanced with humor and love. The mysterious conundrum of an unlikely murder in a small pioneer town. The underlays of Jewish culture and Old West history (Canadian Prairie and Canadian Old West?) which color and inform the two major threads.

Unsolved Murder

I wondered if the story of someone else’s family past would be of interest to me. Especially since the unsolved murder happened so long ago–but it was. Wayne Hoffman paints a vivid picture of these places from the early 1900s – Winnipeg, Canora (Saskatchewan) – and the people who lived there, the immigrants to whom he’s related and their fellow citizens, whether they were Polish housekeepers, illiterate laborers, befuddled cops or others. Through what must have been painstaking research, we get a sense of how lives were recorded there. Even more importantly for this story, how crimes were investigated (or not investigated) with the “primitive” tools law enforcement had at their disposal back then.

Alzheimer’s Disease

There’s lots and lots of names and relatives. Bravo for the increasingly complicated family tree graphics that start chapters. Most of all though, reading a son’s account of how his mother loses him as he also loses her due to the disease course of Alzheimer’s is just devastating to read, while also being detailed and unsparing. There’s just something about non-fiction as a genre that a writer can have a profound intimacy with, particularly when the subjects mean so much, as they obviously do here. Highly recommended.

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Wayne Hoffman, David LeBarron and Eriq Moreno read at October’s Homo-Centric

Hank Henderson at Homo-Centric

Hank Henderson gave us three wildly engaging writers last night in his monthly Homo-Centric event at Stories Books in Echo Park.

Wayne Hoffman reads from "Sweet Like Sugar" at Stories in Echo Park

First up was my good friend Wayne Hoffman from New York, who is on a book tour with his latest book, “Sweet Like Sugar.” Wayne read two selections, one, a flashback to gay teen unease, and the other, a college hook-up narrative taking place in Miami. Both were from the lead character, Benji’s, point of view. I haven’t read the book yet but am already in love with Benji! Wayne’s also reading tonight (Friday, October 21) at 7 pm at Q Trading in Palm Springs, and tomorrow night (Saturday, October 22) he will be back in L.A. on the west side at the Barnes and Noble at Westside Pavilion (Pico and Westwood) at 7 pm.

David LeBarron reads at Stories Echo Park

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David LeBarron read a delightful, hilarious, and also quite gay children’s story about two women, Ginger and Mary Ann, who struggle to get permission to marry. Rest assured fans of “Gilligan’s Island” will like this one. David hosts a monthly “series for smart adults and savvy kids,” Apt 3F, on the 3rd Friday of every month (that’s tonight, kids) at world-famous Akbar, 8 p.m. (It’s a bar, so kids in this sense means those over 21)

Eriq Moreno reads at Stories in EP

Third was Eriq Moreno, who made his reading debut at Homo-Centric! He read a short story of the day-in-the-life of a resident of L.A.’s skid row. Congratulations, Eriq, I know we’re going to be hearing much more from you.

Thanks again to Hank Henderson who fiercely holds space for Queer Words every month in L.A. It’s amazing what he’s created in a little over a year and a half!

Thoughts on "A Single Man"

OK, it’s been a week since I saw A Single Man (with Wayne Hoffman when I was in New York, at the Angelika in SoHo) and despite all its design gloriousness, I haven’t been able to like it more in the ensuing days. For me, I think the problem is character identification, or more precisely, the lack of it – SPOILER ALERT STOP READING NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW STUFF – it’s just damn hard to feel sorry for a guy who seems to have everything, yet is for some reason going to chuck it all in a suicide. I mean, successful handsome professor pretty much has all the beautiful boys and girls lusting after him, he’s got this amazing mid-century glass house near the beach, wonderful friends, what I would call a pretty enviable life. His problem seems to be that he misses his boyfriend way too much (handsome younger BF died in a car accident several months prior to the action in the movie) so he’s going to punish himself by taking his own life. MMM K. ?

Even though during this time period the closet was a prerequisite pretty much for everyone, that is not even much of an issue here as the main character (Colin Firth) seems to be surrounded by mostly very supportive individuals. He’s not even persecuted, for heaven’s sake. Which makes the motivation even than much harder to fathom. So instead of being worried, anxious that our hero is going to die I was thinking, “well, I’m really kind of sick of this self-pitying wimpy character, the sooner he croaks the sooner this movie will be over and we can go get some lunch.”

Sorry about that. Bitchy, I know. Other than that, the movie looked great, every man in 1962 LA was apparently lean and hairless, and fetishized smoking. Something about an open mouth with curled smoke in it that does it for us. Also, I did enjoy scenes at a beach bar that must have been inspired by The Friendship in Santa Monica Canyon, where of course Christopher Isherwood (who wrote the novel the movie is based on) and Don Bachardy lived – and probably hung out. I certainly did after many epic beach debaucheries in the 80s (but that’s another post, something about beer and navels).

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Not to discourage you from going, by all means do so and support independent film. From what I understand Tom Ford used his own coin to make this film, and that is a huge accomplishment in itself. I just want to see Colin Firth smile.

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