Geography of the Heart

by Fenton Johnson

Book Overview

From the author of the award-winning novels Crossing The River and Scissors, Paper, Rock comes a powerful book about the transformative power of love. Fenton Johnson recounts the history of "how I feel in love how I came to be with someone else, how he came to death and how I helped." Johnson interweaves two stories: his own upbringing as the youngest of a Kentucky whiskey maker's nine children, and that of his lover LarD Rose, the only child of German...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671009834
• ISBN13: 9780671009830
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.7" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Much more than an AIDS memoir

Two very dissimilar men meet in San Francisco, fall in love, and one cares for the other as he dies of AIDS in Paris in 1990. That's it, on the surface. But Fenton Johnson's exquisite memoir goes much deeper to explore the depths of a relationship that didn't stand much chance when it began. Rose, HIV+ but aware of his status, was asymptomatic when he met Fenton. Rose was the only child of Holocaust survivors whose father escaped the Nazis and hid for three years with broken vertebrae. Fenton, OTOH, grew up the youngest of nine in a Catholic family in isolated Appalachia.Johnson writes with crystal clarity of his working through fear, toward grief and into eventual emotional renewal. Beautiful.

Heartfelt Story of Love

I read a review of this when it first came out and felt that I had to read it. The emotion is so true and heartfelt. I felt the sadness as Fenton and Larry realized they would eventually lose each other because of AIDS. The story of their relationship is a testimony to the strength found in relationships of all kinds. This book helped me appreciate love and my sexuality. It's a must read for all who love life and want to feel how true homosexual love can be.

Exquisite writing and graceful honesty

Fenton Johnson's memoir of his partner's death is one of the most touching and honest accounts of love I have ever read. And it is Johnson's tremendous talent as a writer that enables him to convey such powerful and enduring feelings without being the slightest bit sentimental.

Touching, Warm, Loving, A work of art!

It is rare that I consider a book to be a true work of art...Fenton Johnson has made that happen and I congratulate him on his tremendous work. It is a story 'from-the-heart' and as a reader it is a treasure and a privilege to be given the opportunity to 'participate' in a love story such as this. I could not lay it down, even for coffee!!...I laughed, I cried, I was warmed inside...I could smell the hush puppies..it was a wonderful experience for me...I will remember!

Memoir as a Redemptive Human Act

Fenton Johnson has done, in Geography of the Heart, something that I have failed to see in memoirs that sold more and had a higher profile upon publication. He has brought us on a journey, yes, but with a purpose larger than exploring strange characters or landscapes. Through the death -- and the life -- of his partner, Larry Rose, he learned what it was to be human within a world of others. How to share, to cherish, to give, and to need. This memoir is both an act of redemption for Johnson, but even more so, he shares the possibility of redemption with his readers. All we have to do is be available to the possibilities around us. Available to what Larry Rose, in his particular case, had to give. This is a timeless and BEAUTIFULLY written book. It is what memoir should seek to be. More than story. Transcendent.