Title: Sudden Strangers - The Story of a Gay Son and His Father Author: Aaron Fricke and Walter Fricke Published by: St. Martin's Press, 1991 ISBN: 0-312-07855-2 [trade paperback, 112 pages]
This is a story about Walter Fricke and Aaron Fricke, father and son, heterosexual and gay (respectively on all counts).The first question you are bound to ask about a book written by a heterosexual father and a gay son is, "What about the wife and mother; why wasn't she included?" My parents have been divorced for nine years, but that is not why my mother has not contributed to this book. Between my dad and me, there have been many dramatic conflicts to overcome; but between my mom and me, there have been no major struggles. My relationship with my mother would be better suited to a different kind of book -- a recipe book, perhaps.
It has taken six years to complete this book. During that time, there were periods when it was worked on steadily and times when the material was abandoned as hopeless. The book changed as our father/son relationship changed and each transformation of the book reflected the transformations in our relationship. It is neither the same book nor the same relationship that we started with six years ago. This was a book that had to be lived, not simply written.
The final product is the story of an evolving father/son relationship , a story of two people with different ways of looking at the world, and of the hurdles we needed to overcome to respect each other.
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