Behind the Mask: Living Alone in the Epicenter

by Kate Walter

Kate Walter loved her life as a single gay woman and writer living in New York City's famous Westbeth Artists Housing in Greenwich Village. In early 2020, just as the lively community was gearing up to celebrate its 50th anniversary, New York City went into Covid 19 pandemic lockdown. Westbeth turned into a ghost town. Kate's carefully constructed social life crashed. Suddenly, she was trapped at home, living in the pandemic epicenter. Kate was lonely and scared. The isolation was hard on everyone-for cultural creators, perhaps an extra degree of hard. She melted down in lockdown. She dreamed the city was on fire. She hit the wall. But she picked herself up and called upon her resilience and spiritual practices to stay safe and get through the isolation. More than a year later, as Westbeth and New York City reawakened, Kate emerged with a deeper appreciation for her home and the everyday things she took for granted. As she gradually took off her mask and started to enjoy life again, she felt forever changed.

138 pages, Paperback

Published November 16, 2021

About the author

About Kate Walter
Kate Walter is the author of two memoirs: Behind the Mask: Living Alone in the Epicenter;
and Looking for a Kiss: A Chronicle of Downtown Heartbreak and Healing. .

Her essays and opinion pieces have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, New York Daily News, AM-NY, Next Avenue, The Advocate, and many other outlets.

She taught writing at CUNY and NYU for three decades. Walter has documented her life in
downtown Manhattan since 1975. She has been dubbed "that world's Samuel Pepys"

Kate Walter views writing creative nonfiction as a way of understanding her life, healing personal pain, and making changes in society.



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Reviews

[Rebecca]

For Walter, a freelance journalist and longtime Manhattan resident, coronavirus turned life upside down. Retired from college teaching and living in Westbeth Artists Housing, she’d relied on activities outside the home for socializing. To a single extrovert, lockdown offered no benefits; she spent holidays alone instead of with her large Irish Catholic family. Even one of the world’s great cities could be a site of boredom and isolation. Still, she gamely moved her hobbies onto Zoom as much as possible, and welcomed an escape to Jersey Shore.

In short essays, she proceeds month by month through the pandemic: what changed, what kept her sane, and what she was missing. Walter considers herself a “gay elder” and was particularly sad the Pride March didn’t go ahead in 2020. She also found herself ‘coming out again’, at age 71, when she was asked by her alma mater to encapsulate the 50 years since graduation in 100 words.

There’s a lot here to relate to – being glued to the news, anxiety over Trump’s possible re-election, looking forward to vaccination appointments – and the book is also revealing on the special challenges for older people and those who don’t live with family. However, I found the whole fairly repetitive (perhaps as a result of some pieces originally appearing in The Village Sun and then being tweaked and inserted here).

Before an appendix of four short pre-Covid essays, there’s a section of pandemic writing prompts: 12 sets of questions to use to think through the last year and a half and what it’s meant. E.g. “Did living through this extraordinary experience change your outlook on life?” If you’ve been meaning to leave a written record of this time for posterity, this list would be a great place to start.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Kate]

This book chronicles the pandemic lock-down experiences of a single New York lesbian in her early 70s. What struck me the most, however, was not the pandemic experience but the lively, active life Walter lives--and the portrayal of her beloved NYC.

[Carol Wierzbicki]

Walter confronts the pandemic with grace, humor and persistent hope. When the lockdown threatens to halt her s0cial life, she gets creative, finding spiritual wellness classes on Zoom and chatting with neighbors in the hallway of her apartment building. She also finds solace in gardening and visiting the family summer home at the Jersey Shore, where there are fewer restrictions. In loosely constructed diary form, she documents the steps she takes to recoup her life once she gets over her shock and numbness from losing friends to the virus and having to make considerable adjustments to her routine. This was a quick, relatable read and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

[Jaimee Kosanke-Martello]

Behind the Mask is a personal, emotional and even humorous account of an event we all experienced, but not quite like Kate Walter. Kate's voice is honest, and breaks through the clutter of complaints we've become so use to during the pandemic. She offers a rich context to her pre-COVID life and lifestyle that keeps you rooting for her to get to the other side and back to freedom. Although, you do not want the book to end as quickly as we all wished the pandemic did.

[Kimijo]

Locked Down in Westbeth tells the story of Kate Walter, a single gay writer living in New York City’s iconic Westbeth Artists Housing, as she navigates the sudden isolation of the 2020 pandemic lockdown. Confronting loneliness, fear, and personal struggles, Kate draws on resilience and spiritual practices to survive the crisis, emerging with a renewed appreciation for her home, community, and life itself.

[Dawn French]

Bravo Kate! loved the book especially how you coped during the pandemic. Family and true friends are important, you have such great memories of your childhood home, the shore, and people you have met and crossed paths with. You could write a book on each.