If you haven’t recently seen former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, author of the new memoir “The Confession,” you haven’t been watching “The Daily Show,” the “Today Show,” Oprah or Larry King. He has been everywhere, handsome in his dark suit and tie, explaining how he stayed closeted for 47 years, through two marriages and with higher political offices beckoning. He was like a kite soaring exultantly, until the wind died and his career sharply wheeled, dove and splattered, with everyone watching.
His decision to come out as a “gay American” in 2004 was forced by his former lover, Golan Cipel, a man he had put on his payroll and named a “security adviser.” That big mistake was the catalyst that brought his political doom but also a first step in finally becoming his “authentic self.” He would never have admitted he was gay, he said; it was a step too huge, too far away from his intensely Irish Catholic upbringing, his Marine Corps drill instructor father and the good boy he had always wanted to be.
McGreevey has a quick wit, charm, perfect handshake and like the best politicians focuses totally on one person at a time. He signs his books not with a dashed-off blur but thoughtfully. At a recent Denver Press Club event, he seemed totally open, acknowledging that hard questions needed to be asked. One woman who attended hadn’t seen him in 24 years, when they both lived in Georgetown. “He’s brilliant,” she said.
Readers familiar with 12-step programs will recognize this book as a “fourth step,” which states, “Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” McGreevey uses the program based on Alcoholics Anonymous not for drug or drink but as a spiritual path he can walk and, as he says over and over, “live my truth.”
In a chapter titled “How one lives in shame,” his answer is, “You split yourself in two.” You hold onto the part that is acceptable and walk away from the other. He calls that a “metaphorical amputation,” because even abandoned, that self takes on a life of its own. Then, “in the shrubbery and behind the synagogue,” you “no longer recognize your decent self.”
This book is very good, perhaps unexpectedly so and is not only about his sexuality. Helped in part by a ghostwriter, McGreevey puts his life story in context. You can feel the suffocating syrup of his religion that covered every part of his life, the hope that he would be a priest (and he flirted with that several times), but more than anything, the pounding admonitions about homosexuality as a mortal sin, a crime against God and society, something that was against nature. Take that particular strain of Irish Catholicism and mix in New Jersey politics, often called one of the most corrupt systems with its “pay for play” ethic, and you have a fascinating story.
Homosexuality suppressed
McGreevey knew early on he was different. As he heard “homo” and “fag” (and worse) blurted with derision on the playground, he realized that was not something he could be. In high school, he dated girls, studying other boys’ manners and seductive techniques so he could be good at it. All the while, he carried on with “scores” of men in secret places. “I found a way … to become whatever was necessary in the moment.”
McGreevey went to a Catholic high school, then Catholic University of America, but graduated from Columbia. His law degree is from Georgetown University, and his master’s degree in education is from Harvard. He became a member of the New Jersey General Assembly and then was elected mayor of Woodbridge. Re-elected mayor twice, he also ran for the New Jersey Senate and was mayor and senator simultaneously. In 2001, he ran for governor against Christine Todd Whitman and was defeated 47 percent to 46 percent; four years later he ran and won.
His political star was high and came with great expectations. He was in his prime at 45, married to a beautiful woman and father of a baby girl (with another daughter by his first wife). Still, McGreevey barely left time to see his family as he frantically rushed from dinner to speech to groundbreaking, just like he did when he was running for office. Much of his shortened term as governor was pocked with criticism of bad hires, and there were charges of extortion scandals by some backers. Still, he made education and literacy top priorities, signed a comprehensive water-protection law and stepped up programs for cancer research.
After his statement and all the repercussions, he fractured. He got help from friends, spiritual advisers, therapists. Finally, he went through a recovery program and then checked himself into the psychiatric wing of a hospital for a month.
Mending fences
At first he tried to apply his frantic work ethic to getting better and finally realized that wouldn’t work. His friends are helping him reconstruct his life because he had suppressed so much of it. He wrote that his first wife was not surprised when he came out; his second wife was hurt dreadfully, a relationship that hasn’t mended. He is careful to say he understands her hurt and anger, and only wishes her well.
He has appeared on television with his life partner, Mark O’Donnell. At this point, McGreevey says his goal is to become “more authentic and integrated one day at a time.”
Diane Hartman is a principal in Hartman & Brown.
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The Confession
By James E. McGreevey
Regan, 369 pages, $26.95
