Discover the difference between living a life and simply enduring on in this cross-campus, cross-country comedy of manners, queerness, poetry and HIV.

Stephen is middle-aged. He’s gay. He’s content, except when he isn’t. Stephen is a teacher. He’s a poet. He has a new teaching job in Kamloops, BC. Stephen has HIV.

DR SAD is the story of one man’s journey across Canada and through his diagnosis. It is the story of the distance between queer urban spaces and a small campus in a small city in small-town BC. It is the story of discovering the self within the world, and the world within the self, of discovering the difference between living a life and simply enduring one. This is a tragicomic cross-campus, cross-country romp that believes in the power of romance.

Weaving together narratives of past and present, of Toronto’s Gay Village and the streets of Kamloops, BC this lively and dynamic semi-autobiographical novel dives deeply into gender and queerness, class and privilege, and the realities of aging. It is a dynamic and engaging hybrid, stylistically daring while remaining intimate and human.

Leaping through time and mixing the playfully serious with the seriously playful, DR SAD blends poetry with prose and finds the humour in despair in one complete, glittering tragedy of triumph

David Bateman is a freelance arts journalist, painter, and performance poet. He has published numerous books of poetry and has taught literature and creative writing at post-secondary institutions across Canada. He lives in Toronto, Ontario

Dr Sad is available from University of Calgary Press.

Read an interview with David in the February issue of theBUZZ.

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.