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mehitabels's review against another edition
5.0
"That is how I will always see my love: reaching toward a world he cannot hold and loving it no less, not a stroke less."
opinionhaver69's review against another edition
5.0
the perfect balance of beauty and rawness, with neither one at all diminished by the presence of the other as might have happened in the hands of a lesser writer - i really love mark doty’s writing, his way of seeing the world and everything in it with such a measured, luminous grace. this was always going to be a desperately sad read given that it’s a memoir written during the gradual decline and death of doty’s partner wally from AIDS but there’s something so clarifying and hopeful about it too; would that we all had someone to memorialise us after our passing with such clear-eyed, eloquent devotion.
milliecorkery's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
george_krippner's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.25
this book is so heartbreaking and beautiful and crushing and inspiring and just a profound retelling of one’s grief journey.
courtneyfalling's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
I read this while in Wellfleet with my girlfriend who grew up there and it broke my heart and put it back together a different way and broke it again. Really a beautiful description of queer caregiving and queer aging and a queer life. I did cry.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Terminal illness, Grief, and Death
Moderate: Medical content
thisotherbookaccount's review against another edition
3.0
Marriage changes things. Beyond the obvious, subtler things reveal themselves to you over time. You slowly get used to the weight of the person next to you in bed, the sound of his/her deep breathing at night, or that hacking cough that doesn't sound right — you know, the little things. Another thing that you start to think about (usually right before sleep) is what happens when you grow old and one of you passes away first. You start to imagine both scenarios — if I was to die first and if she was to die first — and it keeps you up at night. Aside from the death of parents, the death of your partner is probably the next hardest thing to endure.
Heaven's Coast is author Mark Doty's record of what it was like to take care of his partner, who was stricken by AIDS in the early 1990s, from diagnosis to death. It is also a book about how he came to terms with his partner's death and lived with grief and sorrow.
Doty is a poet — an award-winning one at that. His prose is beautiful and delicate in ways that only a poet can manage. I especially enjoy his descriptions of nature, old houses and the dogs that the couple had at home. The descriptions of his partner finally passing away will be remembered by this reader for a long time. And even though I have said before that prose by poets tend to be quite difficult to get into, I find Doty's writing to be quite accessible — for the most part.
With that said, I don't think this book is for me when viewed as a whole. Most of the book reads like a series of essays, each touching on the same topics but from different points of view or told through different analogies. For example, one chapter might be the couple's decision to adopt a dog even after the AIDS diagnosis, and Doty somehow relates that experience to the illness and the grief. The next chapter might be about winter transiting into spring, and Doty thinking about living with sorrow once again. This means that a reader can essentially pick up the book, flip to any chapter and understand what the writer is going through. While that might sound like a good thing, it also means that the narrative lacks structure. Every chapter is the author making an observation around him, then relating it back to his partner. It gets a bit cumbersome really quickly.
I think this book isn't for me, but I don't think it is bad at all. I think there are passages here that will resonate with those who have been through similar situations before. For these folks, I do recommend this memoir highly.
Heaven's Coast is author Mark Doty's record of what it was like to take care of his partner, who was stricken by AIDS in the early 1990s, from diagnosis to death. It is also a book about how he came to terms with his partner's death and lived with grief and sorrow.
Doty is a poet — an award-winning one at that. His prose is beautiful and delicate in ways that only a poet can manage. I especially enjoy his descriptions of nature, old houses and the dogs that the couple had at home. The descriptions of his partner finally passing away will be remembered by this reader for a long time. And even though I have said before that prose by poets tend to be quite difficult to get into, I find Doty's writing to be quite accessible — for the most part.
With that said, I don't think this book is for me when viewed as a whole. Most of the book reads like a series of essays, each touching on the same topics but from different points of view or told through different analogies. For example, one chapter might be the couple's decision to adopt a dog even after the AIDS diagnosis, and Doty somehow relates that experience to the illness and the grief. The next chapter might be about winter transiting into spring, and Doty thinking about living with sorrow once again. This means that a reader can essentially pick up the book, flip to any chapter and understand what the writer is going through. While that might sound like a good thing, it also means that the narrative lacks structure. Every chapter is the author making an observation around him, then relating it back to his partner. It gets a bit cumbersome really quickly.
I think this book isn't for me, but I don't think it is bad at all. I think there are passages here that will resonate with those who have been through similar situations before. For these folks, I do recommend this memoir highly.
george_salis's review
5.0
"We are elements of the world's consciousness of itself, and thus we are necessary: replaceable and irreplaceable at once."
"The future's an absence, a dark space up ahead like the socket of a pulled tooth."
I first came across Doty's work about a decade ago, when he visited my university for a reading. In preparation for that, I read his collection of poetry Fire to Fire and his childhood memoir Firebird, both of which I loved. The latter is about realizing one's identity and growing up as a gay man. It's as poetic as it is heartbreaking. The same can be said of Heaven's Coast, which I finally got around to reading after all this time. It's about Doty's partner, Wally, the love of his life who died from AIDS. Not only is it also poetic and heartbreaking, but it ventures into feelings and experiences that are practically inexpressible yet Doty does an impressive and admirable job of trying to express them, from grief to wonder and many other emotions in between ("Leave room, doubt says, for the unknowable, for it will never quite be your share to see. The one thing we can say with great certainty about human perception is that it is partial. And perhaps that is why we are, of necessity, creatures of doubt."). It is also an eye-opening picture of the AIDS epidemic, which was ignored quite a bit then, and ignored even more now. The gay men who were alive during that period, who survived that period, had to watch as all their friends died one by one, or even in droves, so the memoir is worth even more for drawing attention to this tragic history. I highly recommended it.
"The day before he died all the life in him seemed to move into his face and eyes, just burning there, and he was staring at me and our dogs and everything with such intensity, taking us all in. [...] And while I felt absolutely stuck in the world where he wasn't, I also felt this terrific sort of secret sense of intimacy with him, so connected. I felt like I had a seat on both sides of the veil, you know--part of me with him, looking back at this world which seemed so radiant and lovely and peculiar, and a part of me squarely here and miserable in a place without him, bereft and totally helpless."
"The future's an absence, a dark space up ahead like the socket of a pulled tooth."
I first came across Doty's work about a decade ago, when he visited my university for a reading. In preparation for that, I read his collection of poetry Fire to Fire and his childhood memoir Firebird, both of which I loved. The latter is about realizing one's identity and growing up as a gay man. It's as poetic as it is heartbreaking. The same can be said of Heaven's Coast, which I finally got around to reading after all this time. It's about Doty's partner, Wally, the love of his life who died from AIDS. Not only is it also poetic and heartbreaking, but it ventures into feelings and experiences that are practically inexpressible yet Doty does an impressive and admirable job of trying to express them, from grief to wonder and many other emotions in between ("Leave room, doubt says, for the unknowable, for it will never quite be your share to see. The one thing we can say with great certainty about human perception is that it is partial. And perhaps that is why we are, of necessity, creatures of doubt."). It is also an eye-opening picture of the AIDS epidemic, which was ignored quite a bit then, and ignored even more now. The gay men who were alive during that period, who survived that period, had to watch as all their friends died one by one, or even in droves, so the memoir is worth even more for drawing attention to this tragic history. I highly recommended it.
"The day before he died all the life in him seemed to move into his face and eyes, just burning there, and he was staring at me and our dogs and everything with such intensity, taking us all in. [...] And while I felt absolutely stuck in the world where he wasn't, I also felt this terrific sort of secret sense of intimacy with him, so connected. I felt like I had a seat on both sides of the veil, you know--part of me with him, looking back at this world which seemed so radiant and lovely and peculiar, and a part of me squarely here and miserable in a place without him, bereft and totally helpless."
woolfardis's review against another edition
1.0
There is nothing wrong with the book, or memoir, but it is all me. I went in to it not knowing what it was or who it was written by, and there is no fault there but my own. I can say nothing more.