Beautiful and moving memoir

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In 1975, 24-year-old Laura Hall was shocked when her father revealed to her that he was gay, and that her mother knew, but no one else in the family did. In sharing this information with her, he moved her into the closet with him, keeping this secret together.

Hall writes beautifully of her father's struggles, his marriage to her mother, and the bits and pieces of his life pre-marriage as they are revealed. I loved reading about the complexity of this family and her simultaneous closeness/distance from her father - if you're close to someone, how can you keep such a big secret?

This book is an important addition to the story of anti-gay discrimination; Hall tells the heartbreaking story of her dad being arrested in a bathroom sting, a conviction that leads to his firing from a government job. Contrast this with Hall's granddaughter's reaction to Papa being gay. Hall's childhood is also a window into the 60s/70s boom of San Francisco. If you enjoy memoirs, I'd recommend this book.

Thank you to BookishFirst and SheWrites Press for providing a copy of this book from a raffle.