"i knew heather lewis, in a way. i was a student in her writing class in 1996 where she chose my short story for inclusion in an anthology she was guest editing.
she was very supportive of my work & was instrumental in my forming an identity as a writer.
heather was a dark person who once told me over lunch that everything that happened in house rules 'was true'. this she told me in an understated way. i didn't choose to question her further, because it all seemed so bizarre, though of course, perfectly understandable.
i only learned of her suicide when i happened upon the 'posthumous' review of her book in new york magazine & was very disturbed by the news... i knew she had been making 'house rules' into a film & thought she was doing well. i hadn't realized the extent of her pain re the abuse she underwent as a teenager... she had been an alcoholic at an early age, & eventually got involved in 'deeper stuff'. i had seen her on a nyc bus yrs ago after her mother had recently passed & she was distant, especially when i called her to express my condolences. she could be hard to get close to. however, her book, house rules is a wonderful understated work which encapsulated her attitude of how she thought & who she was. it will live on forever. i'm glad other people r appreciating her work, she would be pleased. i was very saddened by her passing; i think it could have been prevented.
cheers
v.
04/15/08"
Source:
comment by Anonymous,
posted 15 April 2008 |
"I worked for a while with Heather at a shop in Westchester, and although we were never close, we had a kind of friendship based mostly on trying to stay semi-sane in the midst of our family lives, the craziness of the retail world, and when we went across the street to have a lunchtime drink or two, we talked about someday what we would do when real life finally kicked in for us.
I ran into her a couple of years later at a GLBT literary convention in Boston, and she seemed elated about her novel House Rules, she looked stronger and more confident than I had seen her look. But she told me she still felt that it was all something of a mirage - her words - that would disappear because it was just not quite meant to be. We said we would stay in touch, exchanged phone numbers and addresses, and then we never did get in touch again. I called her once - no return phone call ever came. She wasn't an easy person. At all. When I heard about her suicide, I was devastated. She was a remarkable person. Not easy, but remarkable. I think her three novels, together, are a truly important document of a life, of a time, of a style that merits close and repeated study. She had something to say - a rare quality in these days."
Source:
comment by Susan Crawford,
posted 15 May 2008 |
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