Arts & Entertainment
Husband, wives and memories
Bi dandy shares stories of yesteryear in new memoir
Change is good but sometimes, you have to know where you came from to appreciate where you are. In the new book “My Husband and My Wives: A Gay Man’s Odyssey” by Charles Rowan Beye, you’ll see why.
Growing up in Iowa City, Iowa, in pre-World War II years, Charles Rowan Beye was taught to maintain a genteel deportment.
His widowed mother insisted that all six of her offspring dress for dinner and conversation was never provocative. Servants were to be ignored and children weren’t allowed in certain parts of the house.
Despite that his family was well off, Beye went to public school and remembers feeling different from his peers, in part because of his mannerisms and demeanor. Still, other boys readily accepted him.
It was with one of them that Beye had his first sexual experience.
Though he’d kissed girls and paired up like other adolescents his age, Beye was definitely more attracted to boys than he was to girls. He dated girls and they loved him for his gentlemanly ways. Young men liked him because he was willing to do anything they wanted, on the spot, no questions asked.
But then, in the middle of going to college and becoming a teacher, Beye fell in love with a woman.
He met her nine days after his 21st birthday and they were married four months later. She knew he was attracted to men and she accepted it until her death four years after their wedding. Not quite a year later, Beye married another woman, then became a father four times over while continuing to sleep with men. His wife also had flings of her own, until she divorced Beye in about 1976.
“I always say to myself, I just can’t do gay,” Beye writes. But he finally did and in 2008, he married the man he hopes to spend the rest of his life with.
As a look back at small-town gay America, pre-World War II and pre-AIDS, “My Husband and My Wives” is a delightful (albeit sometimes wordy) surprise.
With droll wit and the teensiest bit of self-depreciation, author Charles Rowan Beye writes about a time when homosexuality was a subject left on the highest shelf of the deepest closet. Still, despite any former furtiveness, Beye is unrestrained and unafraid to tell tales; in fact, he admits that his graphic remembrances could make readers uncomfortable.
He’s not far off in that warning, yet this book is such a perfect look into gay life gone by, that you almost can’t help but enjoy it. For anyone who craves that step back in time, if just for a peek, “My Husband and My Wives” is a delightful change of pace.
The 2026 World Pride March was held on Saturday, Aug. 8 in Amsterdam. Tens of thousands of thousand participants marched from Martin Luther Kingpark to the grounds of the Pride Village at Museumplein.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)








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The weekly drag show “Daddy Issues” was held at Kiki on Wednesday, Aug. 5. Performers included Evry Pleasure, Indiana Bones and Tiara Missou-Sidora.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)









Books
Something’s off about Dad. When is it time to step in?
‘When Memory Fades’ can help when families face dementia
‘When Memory Fades’
By Nathaniel Chin, MD
c.2026, St. Martin’s Essentials
$30/422 pages
Mom called you in a panic the other day.
She’d lost her keys and by the time you arrived to help, she’d found them. In the refrigerator.
These kinds of things keep happening, not often but often enough, and you don’t know quite what to worry about. But in the new book “When Memory Fades” by Nathaniel Chin, MD, you’ll learn about the journey ahead, for both of you.
You can’t remember why you walked into a room. You got lost last week, going to the bank. Popular wisdom says that things like that are normal as we age, but Chin says that’s not true – although the answer may not be a worst-case scenario, either. Yes, memory problems could just be signs of stress, dehydration, or lack of sleep – or is it time to see a doctor?
Chin says maybe, yes.
He was working his way through medical residency when his father, a geriatrician in Madison, Wisc., was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Chin, now a geriatrician, was blindsided, but that diagnosis also changed his life.
Here, he writes about the brain, and how Alzheimer’s and dementia are diagnosed, explaining that dementia has many faces and, depending on a doctor’s evaluation, memory problems might be slowed or improved. He shares his father’s illness with readers, but he also writes about his mother, a steadfast, steady caretaker.
Her story reminds reader-guardians to care for themselves, too.
Know how to talk the talk, so that you can have “a more productive” conversation with your doctor. Understand that there’s nothing “normal” about dementia or Alzheimer’s. Know the statistics – African Americans are affected with dementia twice as much as whites – and know how to lower your risks. Learn here what questions to ask, how to break the news to everyone, and any legal matters that will be important soon. And know how to tend to you.
Says Chin, “The best action you can take is to educate yourself… The more you understand, the better equipped you are to make sound judgments.”
Something’s off about Dad, just a lot of little things that don’t add up. When is it time to step in? “When Memory Fades” can help you decide.
Wise, wide-spread, comprehensive, and compassionately helpful, this is a book you can read and then take it to the doctor with your loved one. It’s a book that makes sense when nothing else does, and its biggest feature is that it smoothly transitions from easy-to-grasp science and charts, to gentle coaching for caregivers. Author Nathaniel Chin, MD writes with storytelling, humility, grace, and experience from both sides of the Alzheimer’s/dementia issue, and his words are reassuring but also urgent. Learn, but don’t wait, he says. Know how to safeguard yourself. See your doctor, and don’t fear testing. Watch for signs of depression. And never, ever stop asking for help.
Read those last seven words, and find “When Memory Fades” now. It’s a book to have on your shelf, whether you’re 45 or 95 because, as you’ll see, dementia happens and knowledge is key.
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