You may have heard of Greg Louganis, Olympic champion diver who is HIV-positive. This is his story of a man who overcame the terror of dyslexia to write down why for so long he hid his secrets in the closet, so to speak. It is easy to get into as he starts out with the dive that caused his greatest fear to come to the surface. He had been denying that he was positive for the virus that causes AIDS, but when he hit his head while diving the ninth dive of the Olympic preliminaries, he was thrown into a panic, thinking he might have bled in the pool and caused another diver to be harmed.
After he was patched up by the unsuspecting doctor, he sought to do his tenth dive in front of millions watching in the stands and on TV. He explains it like this:
In preparation for the dive, I rubbed my right hand through the back of my wet hair to get some water on it. Then I rubbed my hands together to get them equally damp--that was one of my diving rituals--and for a moment I stood there trying to get focussed. Then I took a really deep breath and patted my chest so that everyone in the hall could see that my heart felt like it was pounding outside my chest. Then I smiled and everybody started laughing. The tension broke...(blah blah blah)
Once everyone quieted down, I went through the dive one more time in my mind. Then I just did it. I approached the end of the board, propelled myself in the air, executed the dive, and broke the surface of the water.
Thus, the title of his autobiography, Breaking The Surface: A Life. It is, by no stretch of the imagination, exciting, creative writing, but it does reflect the concentration of a man not born to be a writer. Louganis is very honest in his tell-all and the reason I chose to read his book is to understand who he is and what made him now pick up a pen...or whatever instrument he wrote with...with writer Eric Marcus, whose other books include And Why Suicide?, plus one about gay and lesbian rights.
From this point he flies back in time to when he was nine years old attempting dives off his backyard pool's diving board and usually crashing on his back. He was already involved in gymnastics since the ripe age of eighteen months with his older sister and outgrew his asthma. At age three he was paired up with a girl who he danced with and went to gymnastics with. His father never saw any of his dance competitions, so he was surrounded by women in his early years.
Louganis takes us through his lonely childhood, describing his love for his adoptive mother, Frances Louganis, yet feeling abandoned by his birth parents. His adoptive father, Pete Louganis, sounds like a very uptight, bread-winning type who couldn't be bothered with the emotional needs of a family. I really felt for Greg dancing his heart out, winning competitions, and missing his biological father who, he was told, wanted him to be his brother.
Names of Some Chapters
To give you a better idea of what to expect in the rest of his book, let me tell you some of the titles of the chapters.
Sissy, Nigg--, Retard; Suicide; Olympic Dreams; Coming Out; Depression; Kevin (an abusive lover);Show Biz; Living with HIV; Seoul 1988; Rebirth; Gay Games 1994.
Final Comments
This is the first time I've read a gay person's autobiography and so it was a real eye-opening experience for me. Now that I know the struggle Greg had relating to his father and school kids because of his dark skin and dyslexia (reading problem), which led him into using drugs and a suicide attempt, and his confusion over his sexual identity, I can understand that his sexual orientation is not one of his choice, but one that he struggled to accept and live with.
I think this is a good book for you to begin with if you haven't read books by homosexuals. I honestly can't remember more than a handful of exclamation points in the entire book and the language is clean, except for some dialogue from ex-lovers. If you want a more expressive, gay autobiography, I have heard of Paul Monette, but cannot find it in town at all. You should enjoy Greg's book, though, which is put before you in simple truth, no frills. I know I will never look at homosexuals in the same way. Greg is a model of courage, inspiring us to go after our dreams in spite of the odds. He certainly broke the surface of his fears...and mine.
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