TALE OF TWO TIMS

A man recounts his journey from closeted minister to the leader of a gay chorus in this debut memoir.

Seelig was raised in a large Baptist family in Texas, the younger of two sons. His father was a “bigwig with the Baptist administration in downtown Dallas,” and his mother was a professional singer and voice coach. The author excelled musically and academically—it was almost a given for any Seelig in the Baptist community—but he soon discovered things about himself that did not fully square with rigid Southern Baptist teachings. He had fantasies about touching other men, though a nonconsensual experience with a man in college complicated and confused his desires. “This haunted me my entire sophomore year,” he recalls. “I did not know where to put it. Was I gay? I didn’t think so.” The author dedicated himself to his faith, particularly the musical aspects of it. He studied opera and became a music minister. He eventually got married and became a father. After falling in love with a man and admitting as much to his Christian counselor, Seelig was forced to tell his wife, which led swiftly to him losing his job and getting a divorce. At age 35, the author was pushed into beginning his life anew. He did so in a community that seemed designed for his skill set: the world of gay choirs. Seelig’s prose is full of personality, as here, where he describes the centrality of music to his life: “I started at…age three singing ‘You Are My Sunshine’ while standing on the piano bench. This evolved into The Marriage of Figaro in Switzerland and a solo recital singing Rachmaninov at Carnegie Hall. It was at my very core. It became my life, both ‘what I do’ and ‘who I am.’ ” Music brought him many things, including entering the Guinness Book of World Records for “longest choral concert,” appearing in an Emmy Award–winning documentary, carrying the 1996 Olympic torch, and meeting Maya Angelou. The memoir also chronicles Seelig’s experience of ostracization from his religious community, learning to live with HIV, and forging a new path for himself in life’s second act. It’s an inspirational story, one that deftly examines some of the contradictions of modern American life.

A buoyant, bighearted account of music and self-discovery.