Pain Before the Rainbow

<p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(54 54 54 1)>Pain Before the Rainbow: <em>a biomythographical anthology </em>by Jack Cooper</strong><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 255 1)> </strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>is a collection of stories anchored by Anthony's Sin. The anthology includes poetry essays and eloquent explorations of life and love.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>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. </span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>He says that Biomythography is </span><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>not our truth told simply and in a mundane way but a writing down of o</span><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>ur 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.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>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. </span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>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. </span></p>