The End of Being Known: A Memoir (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog) - Softcover

Klein, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0299188744 ISBN 13: 9780299188740

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009

Synopsis

Written in poet Michael Klein’s uniquely passionate, unapologetic but humble voice, The End of Being Known explores the lines that define, yet also blur, the boundaries of sex, friendship, and compatibility. This collection of autobiographical essays probes the manifestations of sexual desire in its mystical variety: experiencing incest, falling in love, being a twin, and inhabiting the world of anonymous sex—in practice, and, in an essay about the Body Electric movement, as something recuperative and renewing.
     Each essay unfurls in a hybrid of poetry, narrative, and fragmentary literary devices. Here is an uncompromising gaze upon the quandaries of those whose sexual, emotional, and relational worlds collide, yielding no answer to the riddle of desire, yet finding meaning by piecing together personal examples of universal themes such as learning, through trial and error, about love and life.

About this title

From the Publisher

Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies David Bergman and Joan Larkin, Series Editor

From the Back Cover

"Michael Klein has the gruff voice of Lionel Stander and the fine-tuned soul of Rilke. He writes beautifully. This is not just poetic prose but a strange prose concentrate that mixes sweet metaphor and brute fact, high ideals and earthbound comedy. Klein can suggest more in a single paragraph than many of us can say in a hundred pages."-Christopher Bram, author of Father of Frankenstein and Gossip

"Michael Klein makes muscular, restless, relentless sentences that keep coming at you. This is a book of difficult, beautiful lyricism. The End of Being Known is, in the end, a knowing memoir, an archeology of a man's body and mind rendered through language. How is it such a turbulent interrogation results in a reader's joy?"-Victoria Redel, author of Swoon

"Michael Klein, like Duras, peels back the layers of his emotional life to examine the inner workings of his emotional and sexual soul. The results are stellar, Klein writes with a nearly hallucinatory attention to detail and an honesty that is as fascinating as it is disarming."-Darcey Steinke, author of Suicide Blonde

"In a world where most individuals are indifferent, dishonest, and cruel-Michael Klein is a model for truth and responsibility. He faces his trauma and illness with eyes wide open, refusing to pretend, withhold, or destroy. Instead, he does the interior work that no one else wants to do, and emerges as a man who deserves the gifts of life. This is a very very valuable book."-Sarah Schulman, author of Shimmer

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0299188744
• ISBN 13: 9780299188740
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 152