LATE BLOOMER

A debut author presents a memoir of coming out in midlife and other self-discoveries.

Giberson, a writer, occupational therapist, and photographer, offers a story of reinvention. It begins when the author was 44, married to a man, and living in a New York City suburb. She had an affair with a woman named Raia, which began the process that eventually led her to come out a lesbian. It’s a story that has currency and does full justice to the complexity of the situation. She talks, for instance, of how she still sometimes felt affection for her vindictive ex-husband after the breakup, and how she tried to maintain a healthy co-parenting relationship with him. Interestingly, her narrative effectively demonstrates that her children adjusted easily to her coming out; other aspects of the breakup were far more difficult for them to process. Giberson also speaks in depth about dealing with varying degrees of social stigma, but also finding sources of support, including in the LGBTQ+ vacation haven of Provincetown, Massachusetts. Along the way, the reader gets a clear sense of importance of her Jewish identity, with anecdotes that include her planning her daughter’s bat mitzvah amid a reconfiguring family dynamic, as well as a trip to Israel. This is a book about learning to live authentically that goes beyond simply affirming sexual orientation; for example, she offers an account of a visit to the Kripalu Yoga and Health Center in Western Massachusetts that involved meeting psychologist Elaine Aron, and the author’s learning about what it means to be a highly sensitive person and introvert. This later realization might have been the subject of a separate memoir, and perhaps still could be, as it’s a critical issue of self-acceptance. Still, it’s all part of her quest to live her truth, and the source of the book’s title.

A multilayered and complex remembrance.