A Personal Letter From a Reader

Before he posted a lovely review of Woke Up in a Strange Place on his blog, HERE, Juan (who lives in Spain) sent me this very kind and touching personal message. He gave me permission to share. It was a long message, so I've edited some of the more personal parts out (for some reason, Blogger is refusing to let me separate things into paragrpahs. Sorry about that):

"I like it. I really do. I guess the most autobiographical book you ever written. That said, I'm not meaning here autobiographical in the exact sense of the term, but I guess it suits well about what "Woke Up in a Strange Place" rang inside me about you and your inner world and your hopes, miseries, fears and heart.

It's a book about your heart, your soul, your inner journey, your very own religion. And that's magic. Inside its pages we can feel magic growing up, an inner world as vast, as multiple as any other, like this little god you are inside yourself.

But now I just want to focus on your writing more, I'll let the description of what your book seeded in me to the blog.You're capable to build a whole new world with the help of words, of your very own capacity to write. It amazed me. Really it does. I mean, yes, we found in it all your wishes, your desires: men, sex, muscles, beauty, freedom, Florence, this lovely Maine place where for sure you'll be someday, this strange battle inside yourself about what it is the right decision, fate and punishment (I just recalled "Prometheus" in those pages as well as so many other short-stories you've written before) and, above all, redemption. The most important thing, the real core about your witting (to me). The search of happiness, of joy, through redemption: the real gift, the only real gift God gave to Humanity. In many chapters of this book, full of fluid and beautiful prose poetry, you let yourself go, like a medium of your own religion, your own point of view of how the world must be rule and what happened after death, the so-called afterlife. That's not easy, my friend. That's not easy. And you did masterfully.

OK, I must admit: I'm not a sci-fy reader, I'm not a fantasy fellow. I mean, I don't do comic-books or Manga, I just look to Superman and other so-called superheroes just for the looks (those spandex, those muscles...); I never reached out for role models, I even got inside gay fiction quite late (I didn't know there was a gay-fiction label until recently)... Yes, I did read "Lord of the Rings" and "The SIlmarillion" and "The Hobbit", but, man, I was 13 years old! But I'm not a fan of anything about "Peter Pan", or "The Wizard of Oz", for example. I don't look in fairy-tales what I can find in my own soul watching and searching. But I do know the importance those tales have to reflect what's inside our soul, what's human guard as a treasure so profound that they forget the immense fortune they have inside. So, maybe I'd never read your book if it was sold like a fiction recreation of heaven. And that would be a great mistake of mine. Because I'd lost a wonderful journey (not a perfect one, though) about knowing ourselves, acceptance, tolerance and forgivingness. But thanks of you, "Woke Up in a Strange Place" is more so it doesn't need that label that would scared me as a potential reader.

I've known you for quite a while now. I've read many of your production. So I can recognize where your heart is, what yours skills are and what you feel about being a man, a gay man, a broken man, a wounded man, a dreamer, a searcher and a founder. You have found yourself through your hard life and now you're giving us a real gift of living.

It's not easy build a world of our own. You're now in this group of great writers capable of construct a reality that is beyond our imagination and that keep inside it a great gift, a true message. I do firmly believe those people are mediums of the real, the very real existence we know so little of. And you're are one, one of a kind, actually.

Maybe I'd tell you this excess of point out what your point of view is, some times this effort of yours is too obvious and limit the reader freedom of taking to his own the world he's in thanks to you. Maybe you need to loose up the story, don't be so uptight about what you're wanting to say because, it's impossible and it's necessary that, us, the readers, have this liberty to believe and to dream with the description you gave to us, our own world inside your world. I'm not saying it's bad. At all. It's just a suggestion. I just love that the author trusts in me to build a parallel universe that the author suggest me and guide me to build. That's an amazing gift you're capable of, and I guess you can do it for real.

The transition between the stages are masterfully well written; ...The characters? Are profound, groundbreaking, masterfully and wonderfully described. Despite of the gay-fiction (and frictional) side, Joseph (...), Baker, this magic and scary Abigail, all the creatures, Granpa and Grandma, with this heartbreaking scene at the beach, even Guy... All are great, indeed. Beautiful and loving. All of them.

And, finally, your own point of view about afterlife, karma, reincarnation, (gay) angels and God... I truly believe heaven is whatever we need it to be. I know everything is possible with real love, real wisdom, real forgivingness and equality. Your book is an example, and it'd nice people could read it for the real reason (your own necessity to show what life has taught you about Life and Faith and Soul) above the other ones such as valid but not as greater than this.

Maybe it's time to pass from the gay-label. You can do better within gay character in gay stories that are not so gay-oriented fantasies. Not because it is not right. No, no. It's because this story, your own philosophy about Life (it's so powerful, Eric!) needs to be known beyond the gay circuit, beyond huge muscles, erected larger-than-life penises and fraternities.... This book it's a sign, my dear friend: maybe it's time to move on, to grow up a little bit and step ahead a greater and universal literature."