The Family of Max Desir

Robert Ferro was born in Cranford, N.J., in 1941. He graduated from Rutgers University and earned a master's degree from the University of Iowa. In late 1965 Ferro met Andrew Holleran at the Iowa Writers Workshop. He later lectured at Adelphi University. With Michael Grumley, in 1970 he co-authored Atlantis: the Autobiography of a Search. It is for his fiction, and four novels, that he was most influential. The semi-autobiographical The Family of Max Desir brought him to wide notice and acclaim. He was a member of The Violet Quill, a group of influential post-Stonewall openly gay writers in New York which included Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, Felice Picano, Christopher Cox, George Whitmore, Ferro and Grumley. He died of AIDS a few months after his partner, Michael Grumley, in 1988.

It was a family dealing with old values, acceptance and death. Max Desir loved his Italian roots and hearing his mother, Marie, recount tales of the old country. And he loved his American family, his father John a successful self-made businessman in New Jersey. As he came of age, Max discovered something else he loved - men - and met the love of his life in Italy. Now, at age 40, the family is split: Marie and his siblings accept Max and Nick as a stable, long-term couple but his father John does not. When a needlepoint family tree is to be hung at Christmas, it's too much for John. Then the spectre of death enters as Marie rapidly declines with brain cancer. Loyalties divided, acceptance of family is re-examined.In this beautiful, haunting tale, told in Robert Ferro's clear, impassioned narrative, he created a classic. "An honest, eloquent and entirely original novel ... at once realistic and mythological, intensely personal and public ... a triumph," opined Edmund White.Originally published in 1984, this edition includes a 2019 foreword by fellow author and friend Felice Picano (Like People in History).