Thursday, March 5, 2015

10. Coming Out to Play

By Robbie Rogers (222 pp)

This is a memoir by a professional soccer player who came out in 2013. As I write this he is still on the roster at LA Galaxy. Bob and I used to play this game called "celebrities who might have been interesting once but are now tiresome."  It's been a long time since we've played that game but I think some current nominees are James Franco and Seth Rogen. I felt like I went through the entire interesting-to-tiresome arc while I was reading this book. Rogers is so charming and he was so painfully tormented while he was closeted -- so worried about disappointing his family, also Catholic, and in his mind there was no way he could play professional sports and be out. It was heart-breaking to see how deeply this affected him. However, his coming out goes great, his family, friends and teammates are a million percent supportive and by the end he sounds just like any other self-involved handsome and successful athlete who benefits from enormous privilege. I honestly enjoyed the book and still think he's charming and I'm happy that he can be who he really is and I'm certain his story benefits others so I will give him a pass on the self-involved, etc.

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