Perspectives

"First Love is some of the best writing about sex I've ever read."

-Cassandra Atherton, author of A Perfect Life

"This essayistic memoir is all about lived life, of perspectives on the present, on the past. Of place, purpose, and experience. Of professional life, of university teaching. Of the writing life. Of the prestigious literary magazine-Ploughshares. On its start-up. Of the nature of literature. Of writer friends. Of famous writer friends. On the reality of being human. On aging. On religious and philosophical perspectives. On young love and lust. On marriage. On lived life, existence, with its many complications and expressions. This hybrid of memoir and essay is a tour de force in breadth as well as depth."

-Jack Smith, author of Amor Fati

"Perspectives is as multifaceted as a diamond's surface- Henry reflects on a wide range of topics and events, on family and youth, with all the brilliance of refracted light. Past lovers and friends are cast as remarkable characters, even the more minor ones such as Peter the undertaker "who prided himself on practical jokes, such as pulling up in his hearse next to a housewife stopped at a light and going 'Boo!'" With finesse, Henry exemplifies the complexity of intercultural marriage and racial issues through the disarming of the personal. And throughout, Perspectives is imbued with the keen observational, even just from a window: of a family picking through cast-out belongings from their burnt apartment, salvaging little more than a kettle. Perspectives can't help but inspire you to take note of your own refractions; singular moments that can dazzle with a lived-life universality."

- Sandra Tyler, author of The Night Garden: of My Mother