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When Loren Olson was growing up in rural Nebraska, he aspired to be a good boy. Now he’s sick of it.
Olson grew up in a town of one thousand people. Everyone looked alike, thought alike, and believed alike. He did what was expected of him. He was an athlete, a scholar, and a good Lutheran, but he partitioned off those parts of himself that he believed were unacceptable. This left him feeling isolated and alone.
All he wanted was to fit in. But fitting in is not belonging.
By the age of thirty-two, he had served four years in the Navy, completed his psychiatry residency, passed his board examinations, become the father of two daughters, and had his medical school debts paid off. He was successful by every external social measure. But the loneliness persisted.
His perfect-appearing life was upended at age forty when he fell in love with another man. This led to his writing Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, which won the Gold Award for Nonfiction from the Independent Book Publishers’ Association.
Olson is a gifted storyteller and a well-regarded essayist whose essays have been read over one million times. His latest book, No More Neckties: A Memoir in Essays, flings open the doors on the life he once needed to hide. The title of the book whimsically hints at the opportunities we have as we age to throw off expectations. Older now and closing in on the end of his life, he has shed his need for approval and the tyranny of ambition, freeing him to write intensely personal stories about the hard stuff in his life.
Olson’s essays will make you laugh and may make you squirm with discomfort. You’ll discover he wasn’t always a good boy. His stories of intimacy, betrayal, infidelity, aging, and loss--even when they aren’t attractive or noble--show a humanness to which everyone can relate. They promise the reader they are not alone in the hard stuff in their lives.
Along with Doug, his husband of thirty-five years, and his ex-wife, Lynn, they sometimes have had to fight to hold their modern family together. Olson sends a message of hope to others that they can do it, too.
Olson writes, “If I am known at all in this world, I want to be known as myself.” He writes about life—real life. He hopes you approve, but it no longer matters if you do.
Dr. Olson’s greatest joy in writing is hearing from his readers.
www.LorenAOlson.com
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