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Against My Better Judgment: An Intimate Memoir by an Eminent Gay Psychologist by Roger Brown, Harrington Park Press, 1996, 253 pages 
I thought Roger Brown's memoir would be an engaging account of the loving 40 year relationship between the author and his late partner, Albert, as well as a look at how he confronted his grief after Albert's death. Brown, Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, quickly dispelled that impression by describing life with Albert : apparently, it was no bowl of cherries. As Brown puts it, this book is more concerned with "exploring the love lives of old professors in [their] interaction[s] with young male hustlers" (p. 233).
When Albert and Roger first meet during an anonymous sexual tryst in a campus public restroom, they are graduate students at the University of Michigan. But after the honeymoon ends, they have to deal with the fact that they are very different. Roger contrasts his self-described loyalty and self-lessness with Albert's continual cruising. This problem is never resolved and they soon become emotionally distant, too. Roger attributes part of their problem to something he must lack. Although others find him attractive, he believes "I was clearly not handsome enough to make [Albert] into the kind of lover I wanted him to be" (p. 23). Roger becomes an alcoholic , Albert stops drinking, and their sex life together becomes perfunctory as the years pass. "The great thing about my forty year marriage," Roger confesses, "was not the happiness it bought, but the freedom to lay away the search for an ideal love and work on something more manageable and satisfying; for me: psycholinguistics..." (P. 7). Perhaps the most touching aspect of their long partnership is found in Roger's description of their working together on Albert's writing (Albert was an English professor). I wondered how many other productive couples, particularly gay or lesbian ones, have figured so prominently in each other's work, perhaps unbeknownst to their public. After Albert's 1989 death from lung cancer, Roger embarks on a series of relationships with call boys in an effort to quench his desire for emotional and sexual contact. Roger is uninterested in a relationship with a peer - in age, looks, or intellect - but instead seeks out younger, beautiful men. Because he doesn't want to be perceived as shallow, Brown undergoes cosmetic surgery in secret and explains to a friend "I didn't do it to meet someone. That's impossible; I'm sixty years old' (actually I was 66) and I'm only attracted to young guys, very handsome ones. I couldn't be interested in anyone my own age'" (p. 111).
Unfortunately, the quality of Brown's writing is uneven and many of the details that Brown focuses on are uninteresting while others, such as his early life, are left unexamined. One finds passages of quotes by unidentified speakers, other passages are burdened by clumsy and repetitive phrasing. Brief sections about his career path, the road to tenure and his thought processes regarding his research might interest some readers but don't do enough to round out this self-portrait. Constant references to his fondness for opera are soon lost on the uninitiated and there is a hint of elitism and snobbery on Brown's part as he name drops (dinner with Julia Child) and jet sets. In Brown's efforts to help us understand his lust, he gives short shrift to other aspects of what is presumably a life full of challenges on many fronts. Brown focuses almost entirely on his desperate pursuit of love and sex with younger men, even at great financial cost and paints a bleak picture of life in his sixties. These years are full of loneliness and disappointment, to hear him tell it, because he is unable to purchase or procure the one thing that would make him happy. He appears to place little value on friendship except for how it relates to his young man of the moment. Take heed: if you're a young gay man hoping for an inspiring account of a gay man's mature years, look elsewhere. Perhaps the saddest aspect of the book is that Brown's preoccupation with his looks and his age, even after the face-lift, left me wondering what he brings to a relationship besides his neediness and his wallet. Here's his take on himself while in the hospital, recuperating from a medical procedure and a lover's rebuff: "I looked in the mirror...An old man' face. Unrecognizably ugly and evil. All tucks and puckers and slack lines and squinty red eyes" (p. 198). In his introduction he writes, "In a good light I can barely like myself." Why, as a psychologist, doesn't he seek professional help in dealing with his anxieties and addictions? I wondered. Looking at it from a wider perspective, this book raises interesting questions about society's view of aging and the rules of attraction. Whether or not the gay male community is as ageist as Brown believes and how to combat the discrimination to the extent that is exists is open for debate. Nor can I discredit Brown for 'telling it like it is', or at least as he experiences 'it'. But it's surprising, and disturbing, to find that such a distinguished psychologist consistently made such glaring errors in judging the characters of the people he let into his life. His memoir reads more like a detailed case study; unfortunately, it appears that Brown has not had an opportunity to be healed. Joy B. Davis is a doctoral student in the Counseling Psychology program at the University of Southern California. Her areas of interest include the intersection of ethnicity and sexuality. Courtesy of One Institute |
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