TRAVELS WITH LIZBETH (Book Review)

By Lars Eighner 

 

(St. Martin’s Griffin, 1993)

 

I stumbled on this book title after spotting an obituary last month in The New York Times. The headline caught my eye: “Lars Eighner, 73, Who Wrote About Being Homeless.” (Eighner died on December 23, 2021 in Austin but his publisher, St. Martin’s Press, found out about it more recently.) I have long been consumed by issues of homelessness and frustrated with my inertia in doing something about it. I donate to a local charity that provides meals to people living on the street, I occasionally purchase grocery gift cards and hand them out during times of the year far from the annual “season of giving” and I have often included homeless characters in my manuscripts, including my published middle grade novel, Fouling Out. 

 

I knew I absolutely had to read this book.

 

It just so happens that Eighner was a gay man who earned some money as a writer prior to being homeless and while being homeless. His genre: erotic gay fiction. Eighner intones that every story he wrote was accepted for publication. Damn! I don’t have anything like that track record. (I’m not about to enter the erotic gay fiction market. So often, writers are told “write what you know.” Thus, I must disqualify myself and, for that, avid readers of erotic gay fiction can be grateful.)

 

Eighner was homeless for much of the period from 1988 to 1991. In the 1980s, Eighner was living in Austin, Texas, working in a state mental hospital. He clashed with a supervisor, though the circumstances aren’t detailed. It seems that, in part, Eighner, objected to mistreatment of some of the patients/residents; as well, he felt he could do better working with higher functioning residents. He was given the choice to resign or be fired. By resigning, he didn’t qualify for unemployment benefits. When finding a job proved more challenging than expected, he couldn’t pay the rent for the shack he lived in and, with eviction looming, he took what possessions he could and decided to hitchhike his way to Southern California, thinking job prospects would be better in an area of the country where writers seemed to be in demand.

 

Lizbeth was his dog, a black and white mutt to whom Lars doesn’t assign Best Dog Ever qualities. She’s just a dog, not especially bright, not especially anything. But she’s his. While housing prospects would have been better without a dog in tow, giving her up was never an option. On colder nights when he’d sleeping among bushes, he and Lizbeth provided one another a trace of warmth. On hotter days in desert areas, much of time was consumed trying to find enough water for the two of them.

 

Eighner’s homelessness had nothing to do with alcoholism or drug addiction. For some, that would make him a “worthier” character study; for others, that would render the memoir less compelling, being as there was one less struggle to overcome. I hesitate to add that he comes across as highly intelligent—another factor on the “worthy” scale. The New York Times obituary mentions that Eighner studied at Rice University and the University of Texas, ultimately dropping out due to bouts with migraines and “a falling-out with his family over his sexual orientation,” a circumstance common to queer youth, sending them into adulthood at a disadvantage.

 

The hitchhiking parts of the memoir feel monotonous, probably because that’s how it was. Eighner was at the mercy of whoever stopped and, often, the drivers were dubious characters with very little money themselves, recklessly driving cars that would break down. Another writer might have played up the drama, but Eighner delivers his accounts flatly.[1] When he made a second roundtrip hitchhiking journey from Austin to L.A., I thought, Please, no…less for his sake than mine. 

 

Still, his accounts of being homeless don’t need to be emotionally heightened. There’s a relentlessness to the life. Some people offered simple kindnesses while others—particularly, it seems, the residents of Tucson—preferred to kick a guy when he was already down. There’s a section on dumpster diving, published as a stand-alone piece prior to the book, that gives a flavor of how to be resourceful and self-sufficient. Eighner kept to himself instead of joining other homeless people at makeshift encampments. As well, he didn’t access supports such as meal programs and group shelters, in part because he had Lizbeth with him. He also resolved to never beg for money. 

 

Eighner explains there’s an art to knowing where the best dumpsters are and learning the times of year when they yield greater finds. His account speaks to how wasteful society is, even as that’s to his benefit. Eighner also offers insights into how to make the best guesses as to what food finds are less risky to eat than others although he mentions having dysentery about once a month since there are always risks. This comment, more than anything, has added to my empathy for homeless people I see in Vancouver. Many times, I come across people who have soiled themselves and, on one occasion, I searched to find a thrift shop to get the passed-out individual a towel and another pair of pants, wanting to spare the fellow the indignities that would greet him upon his awakening. Alas, there’s nothing available at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning.   

 

On homelessness, Eighner provides a flavor of daily life, much of it about scrounging for food and water, hiding his few belongings and hoping they’re neither stolen nor vandalized and trying to be unseen so as not to be forced to pack up and find a new place to shelter.

 

A homeless life has no storyline. It is a pointless circular rambling about the stage that can be brought to happy conclusion only by a deus ex machina. 

 

Rent, deposits, transportation, suitable clothing, living expenses: the kind of money required to obtain a home cannot be saved from pennies picked up on the street…[A homeless person’s] fate is no longer in his hands. He may survive, but no more than survive. 

 

Eighner’s writing is strongest when he makes observations of the systems set up ostensibly to offer help. It’s hardly surprising that Eighner does not speak highly of medical staff and social workers who purport to offer assistance, the offerings piecemeal and paternalistic. Of one account, he writes:

 

The social worker prolonged the interview after it was clear he could not offer me any material benefit. He wanted me to apply for a program that would allow the costs of…his services in advising me that he had no services to offer…This is of course all that social workers exist for: to keep the funds flowing to the institution, thus to preserve their own salaries. Otherwise they are just about as helpful as the average high school guidance counselor.

 

There’s an eye-opening section from Eighner’s time in Austin where he meets Daniel, a young man with AIDS who has been displaced and who is purportedly on a waiting list for a hospice in Houston:  

 

I asked Daniel what the local AIDS agency had done for him. He said they were mostly burned-out on him. Although I had donated what I could to the AIDS agency, I did not have much confidence in them. I could see, however, that Daniel was a hard case, a prickly pear.

 

Most agencies, and especially their volunteers who do so much of the real work, want cuddly, warm clients. In the case of AIDS, that means the volunteers are best prepared for people who will lie down and die quietly. Many people…envision themselves as ministering martyrs among the lepers. They imagine the work will involve many tender and touching moments as their patients struggle to express eternal gratitude before expiring gently. Such scenes are filmed through gauze and Vaseline.

 

It should be obvious that this memoir by a gay man has little to do with being gay. Eighner’s account is of a homeless man who happens to be gay. It’s more a tale of a man and his dog than a man seeking another man. (Lizbeth died in 1998 at the age of thirteen, still with Eighner.) There are a few brief references to sexual encounters. (Is it terrible that I felt jealous of a homeless man having better “luck” than me? I know…shame.) What may prove surprising, even fascinating, is that Clint,[2] a character Eighner and Lizbeth knew from their days in the shack in Austin, pops up again much later, joining Eighner in being homeless. We learn in the afterword that Clint and Lars, characterized as the beauty and the beast by the writer, remained a couple, the relationship continuing for twenty-three years as of 2012. Eighner’s obituary notes that the couple married in 2015 and remained together—thirty-three years—until Eighner’s death. Love may not overcome everything but what a testament to silver linings.  

 

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[1] In the Afterword, written in 2013, Eighner alludes to Asperger’s, noting, “Many have noticed my dispassionate tone throughout the book…Lately it occurred to me that there might be an underlying cause…I acknowledge I am indebted to Jim Parsons for his portrayal of Sheldon Cooper; I now understand so much better what has always been wrong with me.” A shame that he would word it that way.

[2] All people mentioned in the book are given fictitious names. I love Eighner’s extraordinarily logical explanation: “I have changed the names of people and of institutions…I know my perspective did not often reveal the best side of people. When it did, I think I best return the favor by respecting the privacy of those who helped me. At any rate, I thought to name some and not name others would imply a criticism that, in some cases, I did not intend.”

 

“Clint” remains so in the afterword while other people are named. “He did not sign on to be a public person and so remains ‘Clint.’ The obituary discloses that his name is Cliff Hexamer and that Eighner took Hexamer’s last name when they wed.