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Yesterday afternoon I had a brief encounter with something I don't understand at all.

I attended a memorial service on a Bodega hilltop for my friend Charlie Kidwell, a 37-year-old activist and musician who died last month of AIDS. Among the other participants Charlie's lover Andy, many of his friends and fellow AIDS activists, as well as his immediate family, sisters, brothers-in-law and his parents.

I never knew Charlie well enough to get this story from him, but according to some mutual friends, Charlie and his parents hadn't communicated in five years. And for years before that their relationship was not very amiable. Apparently he left home as a teenager because his parents would not accept that he was gay.

Unfortunately its not a particularly unique story, except that they were so recalcitrant that they were willing to give up spending the last years of his life with him rather than find some means of reconciliation. That's a pretty hard line to draw, and, as a parent myself, I can't even fathom the possibility of turning such a cold shoulder to one's own child.

The funny thing is that his parents seemed like decent people. Speaking through her tears Charlie's mother told the gathering about her "fond" memories of him as a child playing with his sisters. The father said nothing, but he appeared to be remorseful.

Since Charlie was, and his sisters are, friendly loving people, it is reasonable to assume that they learned these traits at home.

What kind of fear, what kind of ignorance can turn loving parents against a child just because he has a different kind of sexuality? Certainly this was not the appropriate time to pose this question to Charlie's parents. They probably have years of painful soul-searching before they understand this themselves, if they ever do.

It would probably shed a lot of light on the whole issue of homophobia to interview parents like Charlie's after they had come out the other end of the tunnel. Does anyone out there in readerland know some people like this? If you do, could you hook me up with them for an interview?

From the other side of this parent/child dilemma comes an exquisitely crafted book of essays written by Guerneville novelist, poet and essayist Dorothy Allison." The book, which is available in paperback, is called "Skin, talking about Sex, Class and Literature."

Allison is also the author of "Bastard out of Carolina," an award winning autobiographical novel about growing up poor and sexually abused in the rural south. According to the Russian River rumor mill, this novel is soon to grace the silver screen---hopefully with the lesbian content still intact (unlike "Fried Green Tomatoes.")

To say that Allison writes honestly is like saying that Santa Claus gives generously. She tells us in breath-taking detail how she likes to fuck her girlfriend, even though her techniques do not qualify for the Politically Correct Lesbian Seal of Approval. She describes how she discovered that "Great Literature" often means literature written by socially acceptable members of the middle and upper classes, and she talks about what it is like to be an upwardly mobile member of the despised underclass.

But this is not a collection of angry, gut-wrenching polemics on growing up poor, abused and queer. It is, rather an examination of who Allison is, how she got to where she is today, and what kind of sense she can make out of the human condition, using herself as the laboratory.

The novelist doesn't proclaim any enemies. She doesn't denounce her middle class comrades because they don't understand what it's like to be poor. She does not view her abusive step-father as a demon, nor does she blame her mother who stood helplessly by while Allison and her sisters were molested. Allison is a generous and life-loving soul who chooses to move on and be happy rather than remain in victim mode.

She is also deliciously politically incorrect, doing what feels right instead of what others say is acceptable.

As you may have guessed by now I recommend this book highly to anyone who likes to think for herself (or himself). You will find Allison to be an articulate ally.