Pain Before the Rainbow
a biomythographical anthology/Anthony's Sin and Other Stories
Pain Before the Rainbow: a biomythographical anthology
Book Summary →
Pain Before the Rainbow
Pain Before the Rainbow: a biomythographical anthology by Jack Cooper is a collection of stories anchored by Anthony’s Sin. The anthology includes poetry, essays, and eloquent explorations of life and love.
Cooper describes his work as Biomythography, which means weaving together myth, history, and biography in epic narrative form, a style of composition that represents all the ways in which we perceive the truth.
He says that Biomythography is not our truth told simply and in a mundane way, but a writing down of our meanings of identity, with the materials of our lives. He asserts that we are the culmination of it all; experiences are painted with imagery, perception, and mostly emotions. Details that become true in the telling.
This gripping book chronicles the life of a man who was acutely aware of being gay as a boy in an unaccepting world-a time before the rainbow. Cooper presents an eloquent narrative through a series of stories that engage the reader’s mind and heart in this skillfully composed exploration of identity and compelling perspective through the lens of a man who lives and loves outside the lines of the oppressive heterosexual boxes that society and religion drew and that condition boys to think and act according to a preset definition of masculinity.
Cooper brilliantly navigates the shame and secrecy, tragedy, and trauma, as well as strength and courage, that grow out of living one’s truth in a disapproving and often hurtful world.
What readers say about the book🧐
Pain Before the RainbowJack CooperThis thoughtful unique anthology is a must read that you will not be able to put down! Though it is not content specific to the health crisis of the 1980’s, it evoked deep memories of friends lost during the AIDS crisis. As a society, we were ignorant or intolerant to this crisis costing the lives of many young people- dear friends. Loss certainly is a theme though, and the narrator(s) of this text fictional or otherwise- experiences such deep losses but by the tone, you believe that s/he makes it through to the other side for a happier healthy life with almost unbearable trials and eventually knowledge gained by living through it. As a high school teacher, I found the teenage scenes heart breaking; knowing that I have always tried to be open to students who felt they were ‘the other” or who did not fit in. My theater program was an open arms family that welcomed the disenfranchised. But how many did we miss? At moments suspenseful, heartbreaking, intimate, victorious, full of love- the novelist writes the gambit of emotions and takes you along for the ride. And, its quite a ride. Don’t miss this important voice of the biomythographical.Joni DePerno-Zahas, Teacher
J D-Z
About the Author →
Jack Cooper
Jack Cooper lives with his husband and Great Dane, Jack, in upstate New York, where he writes and renovates properties. He has an MA from Union College, spent 20 years in the private sector, and taught at the secondary level for 25 years.Jack Cooper’s work has been published in the Flumes Literary Journal, Weasel Press, Limit Experience Journal, Coffee People Zine, Miracle Monocle, Plentitudes Journal, Prometheus Dreaming, Two Sisters Writing and Publishing, Pride and Presents, Red Noise Collective, Running Wild Press Short Story Anthology, Wingless Dreamers Publication, Wild Sounds Writing Festival, Beyond Words, Beyond Queer Words, and RIZE Short Story Anthology.