Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me Anymore & Other Trials From my Queer Life

The short humorous essay is a form that few writers can master. Sure, pithy and funny are easy enough (if you are, in fact, pithy and funny), but the failings of most humorous essays come from a lack of seriousness. Humor is most effective when the writing articulates a clear, thoughtful point of view. The essays in Michael Thomas Ford's Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me & Other Trials from My Queer Life are perfect models of the form. Ford, who writes a syndicated column titled "My Queer Life," can muse on anything from Martha Stewart's manias to his devotion to Alec Baldwin's chest, from the elusive gay gene to right-wing Fundamentalist Christianity (in which he was raised), and he manages to make us laugh and sometimes even cry. His ironic view of a world that keeps threatening to be wonderful but never quite succeeds dovetails perfectly with his desire for world peace, freedom for gay people, and better sex. Witty, funny, and surprisingly moving, Michael Thomas Ford explains life to us and it actually begins to make sense.