MADE FROM CLAY, NOT THE RIB

His memoir — a series of essays and vignettes that starts out fairly experimental, at first reflecting on his life as a homeless teenage prostitute at truck stops and in Times Square, then progressively becoming more lucid and political as his partner dies from AIDS — is one of the best, most underrated American memoirs. It’s called Close to the Knives, one of my absolute favorite books of all time.

It was deeply painful for me to leave home. You see, everything dear to my heart was left behind. When I looked at those rugs – that's our lives, they had cost a fortune back in the day. Everything is soaked with our spirit. I asked Olenka what we should do with them, how we could take them with us. But how could we? Do you know what we did? We took them down, rolled them up, and hid them deep away, under the sofa, under the bed. I’ve lived most of my life without them, so I can manage now too; let them just wait there for us. We closed the door and left.