Celebrating Pride Month in Fiction
Although I don't write "gay fiction," Bernie Freed and Erik Donnekin, key characters in all three of my Sara Stories novels are gay, and their stories, including Bernie's coming out, are integral to the plots of Sara's Year, After Sara's Year and The Emmeline Papers.
Speaking of Bernie's coming out, I may not have given him a fictionalized version of the coming out story I share in Acts of Surrender: A Writer’s Memoir, but I did assign other chunks of my life to his. I also borrowed chunks of my mother's life for Esther Freed, his mother.
And although the following scene from Sara's Year didn't play out identically in my life, I did have a similar experience with a friend who, with good but misplaced intentions, tried to push me out of the closet by telling me that I was gay. He was right, of course, but it would take another year for me to get to the place I describe in Acts of Surrender.
(Flickr/ TedEytan / CC BY-SA 2.0)
Bernie stopped in front of Librairie Westmount and stared at the display of Gay, Jewish and Proud books in the window. “Gay, Jewish and proud?” he asked. “Is that even possible?” He studied the giant poster that soared up behind them, a larger-than-life photograph of the author. With his dark, curly hair, laughing eyes and magnetic smile, Ray David Blackman was as arrestingly handsome as he had always been...as he was the last time Bernie saw him, the last time Bernie spoke to him.
“I have to talk to you, Bernie.”
“Sure, Ray. What’s up?”
Ray turns away. He can’t look Bernie in the eye and pretends to look out the window. He and Bernie are sharing a padded bench in the stark, mezzanine-level lounge of Concordia University’s massive monstrosity of a main building.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Ray’s mouth moves. No words come out. Then they do. “I-I’m gay,” he says tentatively, so softly that for a moment Bernie can’t be sure he heard right.
Then he is sure and he’s just as sure that it must be some kind of joke. Ray has never been much of a kidder but….
Ray forces himself to look at his oldest friend, and the minute Bernie sees Ray’s face, he knows it’s no gag. But it’s not true. It can’t be.
“You were on the high school football team,” he argues. “You box. You go mountain-climbing. You go skiing. You’re so athletic, so...masculine. How can you be gay?”
“Mountain-climbing has nothing to do with being gay, Bernie.”
“I know, but...” Bernie shakes his head.
“I have a boyfriend, Bernie. We’re getting an apartment together. On St. Marc. We move in next week.”
“It isn’t possible,” Bernie whispers.
“I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time. I didn’t know how...and I was afraid."
Now it’s Bernie’s turn to look away. He watches the relentless river of traffic surging west along de Maisonneuve Boulevard toward St. Marc and Ray's new apartment building. “I can’t believe it,” he says. “I don’t believe it.”
“Is it so horrible?”
“No, it’s okay. I guess. I don’t know.”
There’s more, but Ray hesitates, not sure it’s the right thing to say or the right time to say it. He swallows hard and decides that it has to be the right time. If he doesn’t say this to Bernie now, he never will.
Ray forces himself to keep his eyes on Bernie. “There’s something else.” He touches Bernie’s hand. “Maybe I shouldn’t say it.”
“What?” Bernie turns his head slowly back to meet his friend’s gaze.
“I think maybe you are, too.”
Bernie jerks his hand free. “Me? You’re crazy.”
“I’m not gay, Ray,” Bernie declared to the poster. He pulled Erik’s card from his pocket and ripped it in half, then in half again. But instead of dropping it and letting the pieces scatter on the breeze, he tucked them carefully into his wallet. “I’m an idiot,” he repeated.
Adapted from Sara's Year © 2015, 2020 Mark David Gerson
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It's Never Too Late to Follow Your Dreams!
Esther and Sarah share a single passion: to be the best they can be – on an epic scale. That's easier dreamed than done in Jewish Montreal on the eve of World War II.
Fifty years later when death takes Esther, her son and her oldest friend must each decide whether Esther's abandoned dreams will defeat them or spur them on to triumphs of their own.
Book 1 of Mark David Gerson’s heartwarming Sara Stories series.
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Thrilling...bittersweet...triumphant!
– Dan Stone, author of Ice on FireGerson is a superb storyteller. I could not put it down!
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– D’Arcy Mayo, Bowral, AustraliaA compelling story. I absolutely loved it!
– Mahabba Ahmed, St. Catharines, ONI savored each page of Sara’s Year as if it was a sip of fine wine.
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Find out why everyone loves Sara. Get your copy of Sara's Year today!
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A Spellbinding Tale of Love, Friendship, Transformation & Transcendence!
Marc-Allan Cameron hasn't felt alive in thirty years. For Sadie Finkel, it has been more than fifty. When life comes knocking, will they let it in?
Book 2 of Mark David Gerson’s heartwarming Sara Stories series.
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An emotionally charged page-turner!
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- Karen Helene Walker, author of The Wishing StepsA superb, page-turning read!
– Paola Rizzato, Glasgow, ScotlandIf you can make it to the end of this tenderly aching read without a sigh or a tear, you're a more stoic soul than I. If after the end, you are not eagerly awaiting the next of Sara's stories, then we must not have read the same book.
– Dan Stone, author of Ice on Fire
Find out why everyone loves Sara. Get your copy of After Sara's Year today!
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"It's a Matter of Death...and Life!"
When Emmeline Mandeville spends the final months of her 93rd year reflecting on her eccentric, iconoclastic past, she cannot know how profoundly her reminiscences will weave through the lives of the men and women who find themselves living in her house a decade and a half later.
Book 3 of Mark David Gerson’s heartwarming Sara Stories series.
View illustrated quotes and vintage images from The Sara Stories on Pinterest.
Honest and heartfelt. Brilliant!
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Find out why everyone loves Emmeline. Get your copy of The Emmeline Papers today!
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An Exceptional Telling of an Exceptional Story!
Mark David Gerson never wanted to be a writer, never believed in a world beyond that of his five senses. But when life began to chip away at his identity with a relentlessness that he couldn't ignore, he found himself launched on a spiritual journey that would redefine everything about him – multiple times. It was a journey of surrender that ultimately birthed a timeless fantasy series...and a new life he could never have imagined.
One of the 10 books that has most shaped my life. Read it, love it, pass it on, and share Mark David Gerson's gift with someone you love.
– Paola Rizzato, Heysham, EnglandI couldn't put it down. I read nearly the whole book in one day!
– Ali Maxfield, Santa Fe, NMActs of Surrender has been like a sign from the Divine for me. What a blessing!
Wendell Keithan, Shoreham, VTGripping, uplifting, joyful, triumphant. A must-read for anyone interested in engaging life…in becoming whom they were meant to be…fully embracing aliveness.
– Dr. Brent Potter, author of Elements of Self-DestructionA book that has the power to awaken, empower and inspire anyone who reads it. Bravo!
– Melissa Nator, Austin, TXA dynamic read for the creative spirit within each of us. Positive inspiration at its best.
– Hank Bruce, author of Peace Beyond All Fear: A Tribute to John Denver’s VisionEngaging. Insightful. Enriching.
– Rev. Anthony Farmer, Vision of the Heart Ministries
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