Hidden: Reflections on Gay Life, AIDS, and Spiritual Desire

In this memoir, Fordham University emeritus professor Giannone (Flannery O’Connor: Hermit Novelist) thoughtfully entwines his sexual and spiritual maturation as a Catholic gay man who comes to terms with death and faith over the course of four decades in New York City. His romantic partner, a Catholic ex-priest named Frank, resurrects the reclusive, sexually abstinent narrator while powering the sluggish plot line. Frank serves as a robust foil to the emotionally remote Giannone, who must tackle his fraught sexuality to confront his mother and sister’s failing health. As their caretaker, the author learns from Frank to develop his maternal, spiritual nature as he faces the death that he tried to evade by sequestering himself from the AIDS virus that ravaged his community. Although his pious wisdom can disintegrate into a soup of repetitive affirmations, Giannone manages to dish up kernels of simple truth: “All things are God’s. HIV and dust, too.” He emphasizes otherwise indiscernible patterns of grace, thereby sieving the essence of Catholicism from the dogma to redeem the gay community’s place in the Church. However, painfully bereft of scenes and concrete details, the writing tends to conceal more than it reveals. (May)