Memoirs

In an interview in today's NYT Sunday Magazine, Christopher Hitchens says tartly that he wrote a memoir, not an autobiography, implying that the former is properly selective, not the life in full. He was responding to the interviewer's hostile point that he omits his wives and children in favor of a few of his male friends. The interviewer goes on to note his inclusion of two homosexual affairs. He replies that he wanted to be honest about the fact that homosexuality is part of everyone's makeup, adding that it's as much about love as sex. "Not everyone's!" the interviewer answers back. This contrasts with Charles Blow's noting, in Saturday's NYT, that acceptance of gays has passed the halfway mark among American men. Blow attributes this in part to the recognition that homophobia has proven to be repression in a number of well publicized cases. Meanwhile, most straight men have gay friends and colleagues (and memories of their own youth). I agree with Hitchens, and I think Blow makes his point.