Maurice Sendak: Gifted. Grumpy. Gay.

In a recent interview with the New York Times shortly after his 80th birthday, Maurice Sendak had this to say:

Was there anything he had never been asked? He paused for a few moments and answered, “Well, that I’m gay.”

“I just didn’t think it was anybody’s business,” Mr. Sendak added. He lived with Eugene Glynn, a psychoanalyst, for 50 years before Dr. Glynn’s death in May 2007. He never told his parents: “All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.”

Children protect their parents, Mr. Sendak said. It was like the time he had a heart attack at 39. His mother was dying from cancer in the hospital, and he decided to keep the news to himself, something he now regrets.

A gay artist in New York is not exactly uncommon, but Mr. Sendak said that the idea of a gay man writing children books would have hurt his career when he was in his 20s and 30s.

I’m so excited that Sendak has taken the big step (rumors had apparently been circulating for ages), but there’s sadness here as well. Sadness because he’s in mourning for his partner of 50 years, and sadness that he never felt comfortable enough to tell his parents that he was gay.

But most of all, sadness that he’s probably right about the impossibility of a gay man writing children’s books, especially in the 1940s or 50s.

Depression permeates his thoughts in this interview, and I can’t help but think back to the line Mr. Sendak penned 44 years ago in his Caldecott Medal winning Where The Wild Things Are:

And Max the king of all wild things was lonely
and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.