The Mentor: A Memoir of Friendship and Gay Identity

The Mentor...should be required reading for every middle and high school teacher and counselor in the land. It provides insights into more aspects of gay life than any other work I have read. How Jay Quinn was able to get so much into one book is beyond me. One thing I do know is that reading this book could help you to save the lives of our gay youth, and could make living those lives more productive. READ IT! PASS IT ON!

How great it would be if all young gay men just coming out could have an older person, a Mentor, help guide them through life's trials and experiences. It certainly would have helped me. Jay Quinn's personal narrative is such a honest, no holes-barred read, and so interesting. It must have been hard to put all this down for everyone to see. Through all his troubles with relationships, drugs, and depression, he manages to pull through. All with the help of his dedicated mentor, Joe Riddick. By reading this book other gay men will relive their own similar experiences, and know that they are not alone. We are all here to experience what life has to offer us, and it would be great if the different generations could help guide each other. We should all be "Mentors." I highly recommend this book.

The process of acknowledging and accepting one's gay identity has never been easy-at any time, in any place-but it is frequently more difficult in the South, with its entrenched conservative familial, religious, and social strictures. THE MENTOR traces the path of one man, part-time surfer, part-time construction worker, full-time Southerner, as he recognizes, embraces, and ultimately balances the imperatives of his burgeoning gay identity with the values and demands of his Baptist upbringing on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It's a difficult journey, marked by false starts, dead ends, and disappointments, but ultimately illuminated by the joy of self-discovery and self-acceptance.The word mentor originates in the story of Odysseus, whose son, Telemachus, was counseled by an old family friend, Mentor, during his father's absence. Throughout his personal emotional/sexual odyssey, author Jay Quinn finds wisdom and comfort in his relationship with an older gay man, Joe Riddick. He also takes solace from an extended gay family, a common occurrence in gay life, when gay friends replace the blood kin who have rejected gay offspring or siblings.These concepts-an established gay man helping a younger one adjust to a sometimes troublesome sexual identity, a family of choice replacing a family of birth-are not unusual in the gay world. What makes Quinn's narrative remarkable is his willingness to reveal himself completely-to strip away the comfortable patina of political correctness to reveal his raw emotions, ravenous needs, and sometimes disquieting choices-while detailing his pursuit of the things most "straight" people take for granted: love, acceptance, affirmation. For me, the pivotal scene in the book takes place in the chapter "Hunters and Gatherers," when Quinn, now somewhat older and wiser, rejects the advances of a man in the parking lot of an all-night grocery store. He is obviously attracted to the man who sees him purely as sexual quarry-that much is clear by his description-but he has been down that road many times before and sees and understands it for what it frequently is: an erotic bonanza but an emotional dead end. And in that moment, he (and the reader) understands, viscerally and well as cerebrally, what it means to be a man, not a gay man, but a MAN, a human, a person of depth, character, complexity, and responsibility. That is Jay Quinn's personal homecoming, and it is one that many gay men will identify with and many more will yearn for. Quinn's writing is smart and sexy, earthy and erudite. He offers a window into his soul-and, if we are wise enough to see it, a mirror into our own.

Jay Quinn's "The Mentor" is one of those personal accounts of coming to terms with and understanding oneself that can have a profound impact on any reader. It is many things: humorous, sad, thoughtful, insightful, intellectual but most of all, necessary. Necessary for anyone interested in learning more about himself or herself, and the discovery process by which this writer takes. When I finished reading it, I thought to myself, "I wish I had had a mentor like Joe growing up."Bravo!

Author Jay Quinn has truly captured what it's like to grow up gay in the South and to have that special friend and mentor in your life. There were so many similarities between his experiences and my own life; wonderful things that brought back incredible memories. I highly recommend this book!