Time Out of Mind: The Diaries of Leonard Michaels, 1961-1995

I wish it had been longer. Leonard's diary is only about 47 billion times better than William Burroughs's diary. This thing is right up there with Kenneth Tynan's diary. And like Tynan, he's something of a sex-obsessive. Here's one of my favorite entries: "Big dream last night. A man wearing a dark suit sits at a table with me, talking, watching me. Gradually and obliquely he conveys a message that explains my present situation. The message is that I'm dead. As usual I don't focus on the fact, but begin to wander behind it, looking for the real message, and I begin to suppose not that I'm dead but that this is a delicate piece of information and the man wants me to receive it calmly. Not for one moment do I stop with the fact of my death and focus on it. Meanwhile the surrounding life is sensual. Women walk by in shorts and skimpy bathing suits. We're in a tropical cafe."

Leonard Michaels' diary is, as they say, a page-turner. He seductively engages the reader in his life and, collaterally, in the lives of his many friends and lovers. As I was reading, I felt like the two of us were having coffee during layover in an airport bar in Minneapolis or Manila, or that we'd been snowbound at a truckstop on Highway 90 out of Bozeman and over boilermakers he was confessing, explaining, justifying his life to me by relating particular events and dissecting the emotions and thoughts leading to and surrounding those events. I'll confess that I was in Leonard Michaels' writing class, but it was so many years ago that all I can recall about him is this: He was kind and he was cool. The book shows us that, too. Read it.