Goes On, Without the World's Understanding - Thomas Westerfield - Bog

Compassionate. Provocative. Moving.

In this new collection, Thomas Westerfield challenges our expectations about the stories that can be told regarding sexuality, race, love, abuse, trauma, art, and intergenerational relationships.
We meet, among others, a men's sexual abuse group in rebellion against their earth mother therapist; a ninety-six-year-old gay cult writer who confronts a young queer interviewer; a burnt-out white professor playing dangerous academic games with his Black lesbian colleague; a teenager in a small Kentucky town in 1971 who experiences gay life for the first time through the movie, The Boys in the Band; a retired man sharing a Las Vegas roulette table with a lonely drunk college student celebrating his twenty-first birthday; a little boy terrified of what his Barbies will do to him in the dark of night; and a sex-trafficked young man, now free, explaining why he will never return to his family.
Some find acceptance, even peace, within the many contradictory and often warring elements of their hearts; some do not. But all are embraced with compassionate acceptance as they go on, without the world's understanding.