The Obit Writer

Ryan Provencher

Description

Alwin Kershaw was always either fighting for people’s rights or telling their stories. While in college in the 1950s, he fought for the admittance of Blacks to Ole Miss and went on to tell their stories at Newsweek and the New York Times, eventually becoming the lead feature obituary writer at the Times. He may have told and shared others’ stories, but he was rarely true to his own. This is the story of a man’s lifelong journey through war zones, riots, and love to find the self-acceptance he so desperately needs.

Sujets

• LGBTQ+
• Historical fiction
• Civil and political rights
• Gay
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 23 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669869900
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Obit Writer
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ryan Provencher
 
Copyright © 2023 by Ryan Provencher
 
Library of Congress Control Number:
2023904704
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-6989-4

Softcover
978-1-6698-6988-7

eBook
978-1-6698-6990-0

 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Author photo by Arthur Bryan Marroquin
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
Rev. date: 04/21/2023
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
849017
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
A note from the author
Chapter 1Hot, Humid, and Rife with Hate
Chapter 2The Story Revealed
Chapter 3Truth and Consequences
Chapter 4Graduation
Chapter 5Air Force Training
Chapter 6Press Censorship and Korea
Chapter 7The Unexpected
Chapter 8Connecting
Chapter 9A Lasting Relationship
Chapter 10Columbia and Jazz
Chapter 11Searching for Someone
Chapter 12Protesting and Meeting Someone New
Chapter 13Equality at What Cost?
Chapter 14Between Love and Hate
Chapter 15Protesting and So Much More
Chapter 16Recovery
Chapter 17New Beginning
Chapter 18The Interview
Chapter 19James Meredith
Chapter 20Linda
Chapter 21Lust, Not Love
Chapter 22Martin Luther King Jr.
Chapter 23The Start of a Revolution
Chapter 24 The New York T imes
Chapter 25Arts, Entertainment and Truman Capote
Chapter 26A Promotion
Chapter 27Adjustments to a New World
Chapter 28The Upstairs Fire and Brimstone
Chapter 29Meeting Andrew
Chapter 30The Truth
Chapter 31One Last Fling
Chapter 32A Child Is Born
Chapter 33The End
Chapter 34The Gay Plague
Chapter 35Roy Cohn
Chapter 36The Return of Andrew
Chapter 37Coming Out
Chapter 38Revelations and Love
Chapter 39Meeting the Parents
Chapter 40And So It’s Love
Chapter 41Living Together
Chapter 42Leaving The New York T imes
Chapter 43Departing, but not Gone
Chapter 44Somewhere over the Rainbow
A note from the author
About the Author
 
 
 
 
 
For Mom
Acknowledgments
Sometimes writing a second novel can be even more difficult than the first. The Obit Writer certainly was. It was again my mother and editor who helped turn this novel into what it is today. The time and effort she put into making sure this was the best book possible cannot be overstated enough here. She has my eternal gratitude and love. I would also like to thank my father, brother, grandmother, and my entire extended family for all their support.
Thanks must also go out to my friends Marina Catala, Steven Ostir, Rubén Romo, Robert Harrison, Marc Hofstatter, Judd Resnick, Amy Meek, Brian Cohen, Richard Hamilton, Hannah McCharen, Andrew Blau, Steven and Barbara Dretzke, Courtney Parnick, Doug Kayne, Jane Hopkins, Jarod Millsap and Aaron Hammersley. Your friendships during the process of writing this book have been invaluable.
Lastly, I must thank the most important person in my life, my husband Scott Moore. His love, support, and guidance throughout this process have been amazing. I simply could never have written this book without him.
A note from the author
This book takes place in the past when certain words were part of the vernacular for some people. The words nigger , Negro , Coloreds , faggot, fag, and transvestite are used throughout this book. These words are abhorrent but are necessary to use in this book to show the deep hatred many people harbored toward minorities. The use of these words and the actions of some individuals in the book do not reflect the views or feelings of the author. These past few years have taught many of us that racism and hatred toward LGBTQIA+ people are still very much alive and present in our country. The hope of this book is to shine a light on some real and fictional people who wanted to make a difference in our world, to make it a better place.
It is the people at The Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU, The Trevor Project, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, Planned Parenthood, and so many more who are the heroes continually trying to make our world better for everyone. Please consider donating to any of these organizations.
Chapter One Hot, Humid, and Rife with Hate
It was a particularly hot and humid April evening in Oxford, Mississippi, home of the Ole Miss Rebels, as Alwin Kershaw began his nightly routine before retiring to bed. The humidity clung to the students like a disease that had no remedy. Alwin was exhausted. He felt much more than his twenty-three years. He had spent much of the day in journalism classes and then had begun his reporting for the university newspaper, The Mississippian . The frustration he had felt earlier in the day was doubled as he washed his face at the sink in the communal bathroom. Once again, another article of his had been turned down by the lead editor.
Acceptance of Negroes into the university must happen, Alwin thought as he brushed his teeth. Why is it that no one can see that? It’s 1952 for God’s sake. The Civil War ended almost one hundred years ago! Looking into the mirror, he could see the anger and frustration that had been building throughout the entire day. If he kept this up, he’d have deep furrows in his brow before he turned thirty.
Splashing cold water on his face, he tried to calm his nerves. As his father always said, “Tomorrow is another day”—another day to fight those hypocritical bastards at the university and make them hear his voice. This was not the first time Alwin had been shot down for his writing. His need to find justice for the downtrodden ran deep. The summer he turned thirteen, he had begun working at the soup kitchen in a town just outside of Mobile, Alabama, where he was born and raised. It was here, listening to the voices of the homeless and those who were less fortunate, that Alwin began his love affair with the written word. Each day, after volunteering, he would head home and write his experiences in a black leather journal he bought with birthday money his grandmother had given him.
“I must tell their story or no one will,” he would say to his mother as he set the kitchen table for dinner. She was the one who nurtured his desire to help others. Come fall he would present those journal entries to his teachers, yet far too often they would claim his stories were overwrought with flamboyance and fabrications.
“Young man, I have passed by that very soup kitchen you claim to volunteer at during your summer recess and I know for a fact these stories you share are absolutely pure fiction. They have the appearance of fantasy, and believe me, no one in this community would believe such outlandish tales,” Ms. Priscilla Elgart would chide in her scolding manner.
But Alwin knew better than to trust this woman who must have lost her soul for teaching years ago. It was, in fact, the soul that Alwin was so interested in. Where did these people come from, and why were they relegated to such a debilitating existence? What was it that brought them to this place?
Being a young man with kind facial features allowed Alwin to get close to people. He presented no threat, and his flair for getting what he wanted allowed him to be accepted as a volunteer at such a young age. He would take his time getting to know the people at the soup kitchen, even if it was often days before he would approach an individual. He wanted—no, he needed their trust. Knowing many people there would have trust issues, he would quietly draw near to those who seemed more open and perhaps willing to share their stories. Alwin never gave any indication of wanting to write anything down until he knew he had the complete confidence of the person he was speaking with. Even at thirteen, he knew he needed to earn the trust of everyone he spoke with. It was an innate sense he possessed. One that would serve him well for decades, for in journalism mutual trust was the key to success. After hours of serving food to the needy, Alwin would spend time just listening—listening to the voices of those who had been silenced by a society that had forgotten them.
Alwin, however, always kept an emotional distance from the people he spoke to, and frankly, everyone else in his life, for that matter. He shared little, and when he did, it was just those things on the surface; nothing from his own soul.
~ ~
And now, ten years later, very little had changed for Alwin. He still spent most of his time listening and observing. The opportunity to put his years of writing in school was finally being put to good use. Although he had been extremely unnerved much of the day, he knew he was starting to wear down the staff at the Mississippian . He had been careful though not to ruffle too many feathers. If he made enemies of everyone, then non