Episode 364: Ryan Michael Painter, Author, Gay Father Died of AIDS

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2020

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My friend Ryan Michael Painter joins us to talk about his new book called “The Unexpected Son” which talks about his gay LDS father Michael, who was the first AIDS death in Utah when Michael was 7, and his LDS mother Patti. The book is at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Unexpected-Son-Ryan-Michael-Painter/dp/1735051209 Michael, in his 40s, talks about his love for both his father and mother (who were divorced shortly after Michael’s birth but remained friends) and how is has found peace with the complexity of his family situation. It is a beautiful story of love as captured by this review on Amazon: “This book is truly a testament of love. I was particularly moved by Patti’s narrative. There are so many times during this story when anger, fear, or resentment would have been the natural reaction. Instead, this is a story of love, compassion, and charity during the most challenging of circumstances. Lessons we could all learn from. Ryan Painter has artfully told his family’s story. He has managed to balance the heavy significant subject matter with more lighthearted antidotes to keep the pace from feeling weighted.” I became aware of Ryan and his book from this excellent story from Peggy Fletcher Stack https://www.sltrib.com/artsliving/2020/11/29/different-type-ghost/ Thank you my friend Ryan for being on the podcast and teaching us how to better love and support everyone. I encourage everyone to read your book and listen to this podcast.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love, hosted by Richard Osler.
0:12.7	My guest on today's podcast is my friend Ryan Michael Painter, who's written a new book.
0:18.2	We're going to talk about this book.
0:20.7	And Ryan is here in my home,
0:22.6	the author of this book, and it brings the story of his father who has passed away to light.
0:28.8	The name of the book is called The Unexpected Son. And I became aware of this book, and I encourage
0:35.0	you to check it out when I was reading the Salt Lake Tribune and article by Peggy Peggy Fletcher Stack in November of 2020.
0:43.2	And the title of her article is, If There's a Heaven, My Father is in it.
0:48.0	Son discovers his dad the first person to die of AIDS.
0:52.2	So Ryan in my home in his 40s has written a book about his father,
0:57.1	who died of AIDS when Ryan was seven. So that's, you know, 30 plus years ago. And this is just
1:04.8	a book about coming together as the same human family. I'm active LDS. Ryan's mother who's alive is LDS. Ryan is not participating
1:15.0	in the church. His father grew up LDS and as a gay Latter-day saint has a journey there. But this is just
1:24.4	a story about coming together the same human family and Ryan's work to talk about his father and bring us together.
1:35.0	Is that okay for an introduction for the book?
1:38.0	Yeah, that's fine.
1:40.8	Will you introduce yourself to our listeners, Ryan?
1:43.8	Just where you live in Salt Lake, where you work,
1:46.7	and just kind of a little bit about you before we get into the book.
1:50.0	Sure.
1:50.6	I live right downtown in Salt Lake City,
1:52.7	right in the middle of the city,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Richard Ostler, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Richard Ostler and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.