SOURCE: Cooper, Bernard. “What the Waves Take Away.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (14 April 1996): 2.

In the following review, Cooper extols the sense of urgency and despair evident in Heaven's Coast.

“I can imagine the moment before he dies,” confided a friend of mine whose lover languished in the last stages of AIDS. “I can even imagine the moment of his death. What I can't imagine is the moment afterward.” This vast and seemingly uninhabitable “afterward” is the territory charted by Mark Doty in his powerful memoir, Heaven's Coast.

Doty's story is catapulted into motion by the results of an HIV test; the author tests negative and Wally Roberts, his lover of 12 years, positive. The terror and injustice of this sudden rupture takes an immediate physical toll on Doty, whose lower back is wrenched out of alignment, leaving him with the apprehension that he will be unable to bear...