Books
Richard E. Cytowic explores complicated relationship with father in new book
‘The Magician’s Accomplice’ touches on camp, ‘80s gay D.C., alcoholism
Richard E. Cytowic, neurology professor at George Washington University, has written a memoir, “The Magician’s Accomplice: My Father and I in the Age of Anxiety,” about his complicated relationship with his father, Edmund R. Cytowic. “Big Ed,” also a doctor, was a larger-than-life figure who molded his family into a perfect image while hiding his drinking and drug use. In an interview edited for clarity, Dr. Cytowic spoke about magic as metaphor, memories, and gay life in D.C.
BLADE: What was your inspiration for writing this memoir?
RICHARD CYTOWIC: It was something I felt I had to do. If I didn’t write it, I would go crazy. And it’s taken me about 10 years. It’s gone through many iterations. The first version started with my first day at Duke and had a dual narrative with myself as a young man, stumbling about making mistakes, and the older, wiser neurologist looking back on his younger self and commenting on it. That didn’t work out, but I realized the story was really about my father and me and our dynamic, how he shaped me to be just like him. At the time, I didn’t realize, because, when you’re too close to the material, you can’t see it for what it is. My sister’s observation in the memoir’s opening line, “Come hell or high water, you were going to be a doctor like him,” captures all my memories of him. And I am, I was.
BLADE: The interpretations you give some of your memories are striking. For instance, your family dancing onstage at a Liberace concert. From the outside it feels charming, yet there’s pain there.
CYTOWIC: It is an amusing anecdote. But it’s also sad because it shows we were all performers. We got up on stage effortlessly, we all knew our lines. We knew what to do, how to pose in front of 4,000 people, because we were Big Ed’s puppets for many years. And we just thought it was quite natural to perform because we had been doing this all our lives.
BLADE: It’s striking how in that moment you saw yourself becoming a monster like your father, trying to be the center of attention. You told Liberace, “I have a piece ready to play if you want.”
CYTOWIC: And he said, “This is my show, Richard.” He saw that even at 10 years old, I was trying to take over the center stage. But that’s what we were taught. We were supposed to shine and perform and just be charming, in a way that made us totally false. My impetus for this memoir was to try to understand Big Ed. For stories like this where you have an alcoholic father out of control, it’s so easy for everybody to say, “Oh, my God, I hate him, I can’t stand him.” What I call “You son of a bitch, look what you did to me” stories, those are the easiest stories in the world to tell. But it doesn’t tell anything about the monster, so you have to ask: Was the monster hurt or lonely? Why did he act that way? What made him the way he was? Was there some original wound that he was acting out on himself? So, in the end, instead of a “You son of a bitch” story, it’s really a love story to Big Ed, trying to show some compassion to him and understanding what sort of creature he was.
BLADE: At one point you describe him as high camp. I wonder if you if you ever thought that he might have been gay or bisexual, if deeply closeted?
CYTOWIC: I wonder that too. I don’t have any proof one way or the other, but he certainly was sexually very outspoken. He had all those nude orgy parties and took pictures all the time. I’m sure that goes on all the time now in D.C., but back then, it must have been very unusual. The fact that he could convince people to take part in all that, have them dress up in costumes and pose for pictures, you just have to laugh and think, wow, what a force of nature he was. And mentioning camp, he was camp in the sense of Susan Sontag’s definition, which is a singular incandescent figure who is one thing, an exaggeration, and that was him. He instilled in me a taste for the offbeat and the unusual. If something was normal, I wasn’t interested, but if it was a little off, that was attractive.
BLADE: You mention being drawn to camp figures like Auntie Mame and Liberace.
CYTOWIC: When I saw “Auntie Mame” at Radio City Music Hall, I was in the first grade, so I was five years old. I loved that movie so much because all that craziness was so familiar. Patrick making drinks in the morning, I did that. And my classmates and peers didn’t do anything like that, though it took a while to realize what an unusual life we were living, my mother, sister, and I with Big Ed.
BLADE: The theme of magic and magic tricks runs through the book, which connects so much of life with your father and even your life outside.
CYTOWIC: Magic is a real through line, because two things were prominent with Big Ed. One was the cameras. He had tons of cameras, and the other was the magic, which he did constantly. So would I. When we went to the lake in the summer, I would entertain neighbors and guests by putting on a big magic show. I even made up my own trick. As I say, magic is about telling people you’re going to fool them and then fooling them. Having them know what they’re seeing isn’t possible, and yet they believe it.
BLADE: It feels like such a perfect metaphor for your family.
CYTOWIC: It’s the spectator’s ability to hold two different, contradictory perspectives at the same time. That’s what we did. On the outside, we were a lovely family, everybody would compliment us when we went out to dinner. Back then, with children in restaurants, everybody said, “Oh my god, they’re going to start screaming and running around,” and we were the opposite. My sister and I were dressed up, I had a little coat and clip-on tie. We cleaned our plates, which my father really liked. And then people would come over and compliment my parents on what lovely children they had. Even the proprietor would say, “Doc, your kids are welcome here anytime.” We went against expectations. Here’s this picture perfect little family, so sweet and lovable, and yet behind the scenes, it was absolute chaos. That was the magic, the illusion that we were this lovely family on the surface, while behind the scenes, all hell was breaking loose.
My sister to this day still hates my father. Every time we talk about him, she says, “I hated him. I couldn’t get out of the house fast enough.” She’s frozen in her perspective, and I went instead and looked, to find out who he was, what made him kick? Why was he this way? How did he make me the way I am? And how did I emerge with my own personality? Also, in turning away from the “You son of a bitch” kind of approach and moving to one of trying to understand him, that’s the magic trick that that brings him back, like the dove that’s hidden, and then you produce some silk scarves and, abracadabra, the dove reappears again, all whole.
BLADE: Your descriptions of gay life in D.C. during the ‘80s are fascinating. What’s been the biggest change in that world nowadays?
CYTOWIC: When I came to D.C., you really couldn’t be out in a broad sort of way. So you cultivated a circle of friends, you learned to entertain and throw parties, you did fabulous things. There was a lot more cohesiveness in this world because we all protected one another. I was out but I didn’t make a big deal of it. And it was only when I interviewed for the position of chief resident of Neurology at GW, that it became well-known. I kept meeting people through the process, including David, a psychiatrist who was training to get his neurology certification. I went to his place and talked some more and felt so comfortable talking to him. He mentioned he and the woman he was seeing were going out that night and asked, “You want me to get a date for you?” I said, “Well, David, that’s very nice. Thank you, but I’m gay.” I didn’t realize that he would tell everybody so that when I finally accepted the job and showed up, everybody knew already that I was gay. It helped that there was a physician, an assistant Dean, in the department who was also gay. So we were naturally sympathetic to one another and he was very helpful. It really helped, too, that GW was, and still is, the gayest medical school in the country. If a student at another medical school had problems because he was gay, being bullied, he would transfer to GW. It became a magnet for medical students all over the country. Also, I remember thinking, I’m six blocks from the White House. It doesn’t get any better. At that time, D.C. was a very gay city, so it was easy to make friends and pick up tricks or whatever I wanted to do.
The cell phone has ruined so much because you can’t get people to commit to anything. Instead of saying, “Let’s have dinner next Tuesday at 7:30,” they say, “Well, I don’t know what I might be doing. Something better might come along.” I don’t how people socialize anymore because it’s all so last minute. It drives me crazy. I used to throw sex parties in the ‘90s. I called them “office parties” because they were in my office. I took over from a group that socialized first, starting with drinks and hors d’oeuvres, and then they announced, “time to take off your clothes.” And I said, “No, you cannot mix a social setting with a sexual setting. It doesn’t work like that.” I took over, and set strict rules, one being, everybody arrives at the same time. You’ve got to be here between 8 and 8:15, or else the door is locked, and you’re not getting in. Because so many other parties had people showing up two hours after it started, when things got hot. If you make things hot from the get go, then everybody has a really good time. Now, I don’t know what people do. I’m out of the loop. My orgy days are over.
BLADE: What do you hope readers will take away from “The Magician’s Accomplice?”
CYTOWIC: How to be yourself. I learned how to be myself and not be at the mercy of other people’s expectations. I developed the attitude of, I don’t care what other people think, because their opinion doesn’t affect me one way or the other. So when I write something, I’m not trying to prove a point or convince people. I say, “Here’s what I know. Here’s what I’ve been through. Take a look if you find it useful.” Maybe my experiences will help you.
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Books
Laverne Cox, Liza Minnelli among authors with new books
A tome for every taste this reading season
Spring is a great time to think about vacations, spring break, lunch on the patio, or an afternoon in the park. You’ll want to bring one (or all!) of these great new books.
So let’s start here: What are you up for? How about a great new novel?
If you’re a mystery fan, you’ll want to make reservations to visit “Disaster Gay Detective Agency” by Lev AC Rosen (Poisoned Pen Press, June 2). It’s a whodunit featuring a group of gay roommates, one of whom is a swoony romantic. Add a mysterious man who disappears and a murder, of course, and you’ve got the novel you need for the beach.
Don’t discount young adult books, if you want something light to read this spring. “What Happened to Those Girls” by Carlyn Greenwald (Sourcebooks Fire, June 30) is a thriller about mean girls and a camping trip that goes terribly, bloodily wrong. Meant for teens ages 14 and up, young adult books are breezier and lighter fare for the busy grown-up reader.
If you loved “Boyfriend Material” and “Husband Material,” you’ll be eager for the next installment from author Alexis Hall. “Father Material” (Sourcebooks Casablanca, June 2) takes Luc and Oliver to the next step. First was dating. Then was marriage. Is it time for the sound of pitter-patter on the kitchen floor?
Maybe something even lighter? Then how about a book of essays – like “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay” bycomedian and writer Eliot Glazer (Gallery Books, Aug. 11). It’s a book of essays on being gay today, the irritations, the joys, and fitting in. Be aware that these essays may contain a bit of spice – but isn’t that what you want for your reading pleasure anyhow, hmmm?
But okay, let’s say you want something with a little more heft to it. How about a biography?
Look for “Transcendant” by Laverne Cox (Gallery Books, June 9), or “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This” by Liza Minnelli (Grand Central Publishing, March 10), and “Every Inch a Lady” by Audrey Smaltz with Alina Mitchell (Amistad, July 14). Keep your eyes open for “Without Prejudice: My Life as a Gay Judge” by Harvey Brownstone (ECW Press, May 26) or “The Double Dutch Fuss” by Phill Branch (Amistad, June 2).
Then again, maybe you want some history, or something different.
So here: look for “Queer Saints: A Radical Guide to Magic, Miracles, and Modern Intercession” by Antonio Pagliarulo (Weiser, June 1) for a little bit of faith-based gay. Music lovers will want “Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000” by Barry Walters (Viking, May 12). Activists will want “In the Arms of Mountains: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America” byformer Idaho state Sen. Cole Nicole LeFavour (Beacon Press, May 26).
And if these books aren’t enough, then be sure to check with your favorite bookseller or librarian. They’ll have exactly what you’re in the mood to read. They’ll find what you need for that patio, beach towel, or easy chair.
Books
Love or fear flying you’ll devour ‘Why Fly’
New book chronicles a lifetime obsession with aircraft
‘Why Fly’
By Caroline Paul
c. 2026, Bloomsbury
$27.99/256 pages
Tray table folded up.
Check. Your seat is in the upright position, the airflow above your head is just the way you like it, and you’re ready to go. The flight crew is making final preparations. The lights are off and the plane is backing up. All you need now is “Why Fly” by Caroline Paul, and buckle up.
When she was very young, Paul was “obsessed” with tales of adventure, devouring accounts written by men of their derring-do. The only female adventure-seeker she knew about then was Amelia Earhart; later, she learned of other adventuresome women, including aviatrix Bessie Coleman, and Paul was transfixed.
Time passed; Paul grew up to create a life of adventure all her own.
Then, the year her marriage started to fracture, she switched her obsession from general exploits to flight.
Specifically, Paul loves experimental aircraft, some of which, like her “trike,” can be made from a kit at home. Others, like Woodstock, her beloved yellow gyrocopter, are major purchases that operate under different FAA rules. All flying has rules, she says, even if it seems like it should be as freewheeling as the birds it mimics.
She loves the pre-flight checklist, which is pure anticipation as well as a series of safety measures; if only a relationship had the same ritual. Paul loves her hangar, as a place of comfort and for flight in all senses of the word. She enjoys thinking about historic tales of flying, going back before the Wright Brothers, and including a man who went aloft on a lawn chair via helium-filled weather balloons.
The mere idea that she can fly any time is like a gift to Paul.
She knows a lot of people are terrified of flying, but it’s near totally safe: generally, there’s a one in almost 14 million chance of perishing in a commercial airline disaster – although, to Paul’s embarrassment and her dismay, it’s possible that both the smallest planes and the grandest loves might crash.
If you’re a fan of flying, you know what to do here. If you fear it, pry your fingernails off the armrests, take a deep breath, and head to the shelves. “Why Fly” might help you change your mind.
It’s not just that author Caroline Paul enjoys being airborne, and she tells you. It’s not that she’s honest in her explanations of being in love and being aloft. It’s the meditative aura you’ll get as you’re reading this book that makes it so appealing, despite the sometimes technical information that may flummox you between the Zen-ness. It’s not overwhelming; it mixes well with the history Paul includes, biographies, the science, heartbreak, and exciting tales of adventure and risk, but it’s there. Readers and romantics who love the outdoors, can’t resist a good mountain, and crave activity won’t mind it, though, not at all.
If you own a plane – or want to – you’ll want this book, too. It’s a great waiting-at-the-airport tale, or a tuck-in-your-suitcase-for-later read. Find “Why Fly” and you’ll see that it’s an upright kind of book.
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Books
New book profiles LGBTQ Ukrainians, documents war experiences
Tuesday marks four years since Russia attacked Ukraine
Journalist J. Lester Feder’s new book profiles LGBTQ Ukrainians and their experiences during Russia’s war against their country.
Feder for “The Queer Face of War: Portraits and Stories from Ukraine” interviewed and photographed LGBTQ Ukrainians in Kyiv, the country’s capital, and in other cities. They include Olena Hloba, the co-founder of Tergo, a support group for parents and friends of LGBTQ Ukrainians, who fled her home in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha shortly after Russia launched its war on Feb. 24, 2022.
Russian soldiers killed civilians as they withdrew from Bucha. Videos and photographs that emerged from the Kyiv suburb showed dead bodies with their hands tied behind their back and other signs of torture.
Olena Shevchenko, chair of Insight, a Ukrainian LGBTQ rights group, wrote the book’s forward.
The book also profiles Viktor Pylypenko, a gay man who the Ukrainian military assigned to the 72nd Mechanized Black Cossack Brigade after the war began. Feder writes Pylypenko’s unit “was deployed to some of the fiercest and most important battles of the war.”
“The brigade was pivotal to beating Russian forces back from Kyiv in their initial attempt to take the capital, helping them liberate territory near Kharkiv and defending the front lines in Donbas,” wrote Feder.
Pylypenko spent two years fighting “on Ukraine’s most dangerous battlefields, serving primarily as a medic.”
“At times he felt he was living in a horror movie, watching tank shells tear his fellow soldiers apart before his eyes,” wrote Feder. “He held many men as they took their final breaths. Of the roughly one hundred who entered the unit with him, only six remained when he was discharged in 2024. He didn’t leave by choice: he went home to take care of his father, who had suffered a stroke.”
Feder notes one of Pylypenko’s former commanders attacked him online when he came out. Pylypenko said another commander defended him.
Feder also profiled Diana and Oleksii Polukhin, two residents of Kherson, a port city in southern Ukraine that is near the mouth of the Dnieper River.
Ukrainian forces regained control of Kherson in November 2022, nine months after Russia occupied it.
Diana, a cigarette vender, and Polukhin told Feder that Russian forces demanded they disclose the names of other LGBTQ Ukrainians in Kherson. Russian forces also tortured Diana and Polukhin while in their custody.
Polukhim is the first LGBTQ victim of Russian persecution to report their case to Ukrainian prosecutors.
Feder, who is of Ukrainian descent, first visited Ukraine in 2013 when he wrote for BuzzFeed.
He was Outright International’s Senior Fellow for Emergency Research from 2021-2023. Feder last traveled to Ukraine in December 2024.
Feder spoke about his book at Politics and Prose at the Wharf in Southwest D.C. on Feb. 6. The Washington Blade spoke with Feder on Feb. 20.
Feder told the Blade he began to work on the book when he was at Outright International and working with humanitarian groups on how to better serve LGBTQ Ukrainians. Feder said military service requirements, a lack of access to hormone therapy and documents that accurately reflect a person’s gender identity and LGBTQ-friendly shelters are among the myriad challenges that LGBTQ Ukrainians have faced since the war began.
“All of these were components of a queer experience of war that was not well documented, and we had never seen in one place, especially with photos,” he told the Blade. “I felt really called to do that, not only because of what was happening in Ukraine, but also as a way to bring to the surface issues that we’d had seen in Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan.”
Feder also spoke with the Blade about the war’s geopolitical implications.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2013 signed a law that bans the “promotion of homosexuality” to minors.
The 2014 Winter Olympics took place in Sochi, a Russian resort city on the Black Sea. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine a few weeks after the games ended.
Russia’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown has continued over the last decade.
The Russian Supreme Court in 2023 ruled the “international LGBT movement” is an extremist organization and banned it. The Russian Justice Ministry last month designated ILGA World, a global LGBTQ and intersex rights group, as an “undesirable” organization.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has sought to align itself with Europe.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after a 2021 meeting with then-President Joe Biden at the White House said his country would continue to fight discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. (Zelenskyy’s relationship with the U.S. has grown more tense since the Trump-Vance administration took office.) Zelenskyy in 2022 publicly backed civil partnerships for same-sex couples.
Then-Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova in 2023 applauded Kyiv Pride and other LGBTQ and intersex rights groups in her country when she spoke at a photo exhibit at Ukraine House in D.C. that highlighted LGBTQ and intersex soldiers. Then-Kyiv Pride Executive Director Lenny Emson, who Feder profiles in his book, was among those who attended the event.
“Thank you for everything you do in Kyiv, and thank you for everything that you do in order to fight the discrimination that still is somewhere in Ukraine,” said Markarova. “Not everything is perfect yet, but you know, I think we are moving in the right direction. And we together will not only fight the external enemy, but also will see equality.”
Feder in response to the Blade’s question about why he decided to write his book said he “didn’t feel” the “significance of Russia’s war against Ukraine” for LGBTQ people around the world “was fully understood.”
“This was an opportunity to tell that big story,” he said.
“The crackdown on LGBT rights inside Russia was essentially a laboratory for a strategy of attacking democratic values by attacking queer rights and it was one as Ukraine was getting closet to Europe back in 2013, 2014,” he added. “It was a strategy they were using as part of their foreign policy, and it was one they were using not only in Ukraine over the past decade, but around the world.”
Feder said Republicans are using “that same strategy to attack queer people, to attack democracy itself.”
“I felt like it was important that Americans understand that history,” he said.
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