Suggested reading to go along with Mark Doty’s “Heaven’s Coast”

by Ryan Tofil

The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

Angel’s in America, by Tony Kusner

Part One of “Angels in America”, subtitled “Millennium Approaches”, erupted on to the stage of the National Theatre in January 1992. Part Two, “Perestroika”, followed in November 1993. Since then “Angels in America” has become one of the most studied American plays, with over 30,000 copies of both parts sold in the UK alone. It has also been filmed for television by Mike Nichols, with Al Pacino, Meryl Streep – and Emma Thompson as the eponymous Angel. 

The Normal Heart, by Larry Kramer

A searing drama about public and private indifference to the AIDS plague and one man’s lonely fight to awaken the world to the crisis. Produced to acclaim in New York, London and Los Angeles, The Normal Heart follows Ned Weeks, a gay activist enraged at the indifference of public officials and the gay community. While trying to save the world from itself, he confronts the personal toll of AIDS when his lover dies of the disease.