My Blue Coiling Snake, My Empty Room

Lynn Crawford

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At a dinner party in Detroit, Bill Lifton meets Jay, a high school teacher with muscular arms and a roguish grin. Their unexpected passion blooms until tragedy sends Jay in search of a more affirming existence in San Francisco. Bill follows him and they build lives in community with other gay men and lesbians. As their love grows, so does the deep contentment of lives well lived; but, the AIDS epidemic rips through claiming its victims. Facing the rupture that illness and death inevitably bring, a figure from the past provides life affirming focus. My Blue Coiling Snake, My Empty Room is a story that transcends time and place, exploring profound issues of love, grief, and forgiveness with humor, pathos, and a deep appreciation for the fragility of all life.

Book Details

Publisher: Clover Heights Publishing
Publish Date: Dec 23rd, 2021
Pages: 428
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 9.00in - 6.00in - 0.95in - 1.38lb
EAN: 9781736054529
Categories: • Literary• LGBTQ+ - Gay

About the Author

Crawford, Lynn: - Lynn Crawford was born and grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, where she began writing, drawing, and painting. She went to Henry Ford Community College and then the University of Michigan-Dearborn where she was editor of the school newspaper and literary arts journal and earned a B.A. in English with honors. In the mid-1970s she "ran away with the circus"-Theatre Group of Ann Arbor. In Ann Arbor, she continued writing, went to graduate school, met her long-time partner, and began her practice as a clinical social worker. In 1984, she moved to San Francisco, where she died in 2017. Lynn studied and practiced Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, shamanism, and Jungian psychology. She read widely, wrote, made visual art, loved, and was beloved. She was a loyal friend and daughter, a great cook, a hilarious wit, and raconteur. Her work has been published in Sinister Wisdom, The Bay Guardian, Inquiring Mind, and Tricycle.

Praise for this book

Lynn Crawford's powerful and deeply affecting novel records a love affair that begins in Detroit and concludes in San Francisco at the height of the AIDS epidemic. It recreates in closely observed detail a gay couple's experience during a perilous time, when love is threatened by homophobia in Detroit and a pandemic in the City by the Bay. Yet it also transcends time and place to explore profound issues of love and grief and forgiveness. Written in prose that is both resonant and precise, My Blue Coiling Snake, My Empty Room is the work of a gifted artist who creates unforgettable characters and confronts with unwavering courage the existential questions that all of us face. It is at once unsparing in its details, yet compassionate in its embrace of the bare, forked animal that is humankind.

Claude Summers, Stirton Professor Emeritus in the Humanities, University of Michigan-Dearborn.

A brave and beautifully written story of love and loss, rendering an insightful and compassionate portrait of San Francisco in the time of AIDS, a tale that is especially relevant in so many ways now.

Susan Griffin. Author, A Chorus of Stones.

My Blue Coiling Snake, My Empty Room is a true work of art, and is as absorbing as it is emotionally wrenching. Exploring issues of vulnerability, loss, and what it means to love without conditions, this book will leave an indelible mark on your soul.

Doran Hunter, Publisher, Opening Mind Press.