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by: Mark Doty
List Price: $14.95Amazon.com's Price: $11.21 You Save: $3.74 (25%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.19697920092
EAN: 9780060928056
ISBN: 0060928050
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: March 12, 1997
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: January 31, 1997
Sales Rank: 365033
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The year is 1989 and Mark Doty's life has reached a state of enviable equilibrium. His reputation as a poet of formidable talent is growing, he enjoys his work as a college professor and, perhaps most importantly, he is deeply in love with his partner of many years, Wally Roberts. The harmonious existence these two men share is shattered, however, when they learn that Wally has tested positive for the HIV virus.
From diagnosis to the initial signs of deterioration to the heartbreaking hour when Wally is released from his body's ruined vessel, Heaven's Coastis an intimate chronicle of love, its hardships, and its innumerable gifts. We witness Doty's passage through the deepest phase of grief -- letting his lover go while keeping him firmly alive in memory and heart -- and, eventually beyond, to the slow reawakening of the possibilities of pleasure. Part memoir, part journal, part elegy for a life of rare communication and beauty, Heaven's Coast evinces the same stunning honesty, resplendent descriptive power and rapt attention to the physical landscape that has won Doty's poetry such attention and acclaim.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Overcoming Loss
Heaven's Coast is a book about loss. Mark Doty approaches this topic through the loss of his beloved partner through AIDS, but, to me, this was not a book about AIDS. As some other reviews note, this topic has been covered by others probably more effectively.
First and foremost, Mark Doty is a poet. He views his life through images and metaphors. It is not surprising that he approaches personal loss in this same way? The power of the metaphor is that it is universal. It allows ... Read More
Rating: - 5 stars aren't nearly enough
Doty's memoir shimmers with love, with joy, with pain, with grief. His prose is as rich and lyrical as his poetry. He invites us into his soul as he describes in unsparing detail his lover's journey through HIV. Doty honors his partner with every word; the love and respect is obvious, as well as the despair that results from knowing what is to come and being totally powerless to prevent it.
This book is certainly a tangible gift from Mark to Wally, but the sheer beauty of the writing ... Read More
Rating: - A reader is correct. It isn't about Aids.
Nor was it supposed to be a book about AIDS. Doty writes magnificently about the loss of a loved one, and the grief, in its many forms, that follows.
If you want a book about AIDS, don't buy this. If, however, you want a book that honestly portrays one man's experience with devastating loss and how he begins the process of coming through it to the other side, this is the book for you.
Rating: - A Gorgeous Exploration of Grief...and moving on
HEAVEN'S COAST is Mark Doty's his first prose book and a stirring and stunning memoir of his year of grief following the death of his lover of a dozen years Wally Roberts. With this book Doty has created a genuine masterpiece. It is a brilliant and accessible memoir conveying sorrow without cliché and making sense of death through the beauty of writing. Death is no longer simply tragic but attains a variety of meanings that result in new levels of acceptance and understanding. His powerful ... Read More
Rating:  - this book is not about AIDS
AIDS is a tragedy for the individual who experiences it, and for those who love them. But even if you have suffered at its hands, no-one should let you off the hook when you banalise it like this. 'Heaven's Coast' is over-written, self-important and embarrassing. I can only suppose that those who praise this writer's use of language come from the "more metaphors=more emotion" school of literature he favours, but like all self-indulgent writing, the effect of Doty's style is to cheat the genuine feeling ... Read More
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