The year is 1989 and Mark Doty's life has reached a state of enviable equilibrium. His reputation as a poet of formidable talent is growing, he enjoys his work as a college professor and, perhaps most importantly, he is deeply in love with his partner of many years, Wally Roberts. The harmonious existence these two men share is shattered, however, when they learn that Wally has tested positive for the HIV virus. From diagnosis to the initial signs of deterioration to the heartbreaking hour when Wally is released from his body's ruined vessel, Heaven's Coast is an intimate chronicle of love, its hardships, and its innumerable gifts. We witness Doty's passage through the deepest phase of grief — letting his lover go while keeping him firmly alive in memory and heart — and, eventually beyond, to the slow reawakening of the possibilities of pleasure. Part memoir, part journal, part elegy for a life of rare communication and beauty, Heaven's Coast evinces the same stunning honesty, resplendent descriptive power and rapt attention to the physical landscape that has won Doty's poetry such attention and acclaim.Author Biography: Mark Doty is the author of five poetry collections and the memoir Heaven's Coast, which won the PEN/ Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction. He is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Witter Bynner Prize for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and the T. S. Eliot Prize. He has also been a finalist for the National Book Award and has received numerous other grants for his work. He teaches at the University ofHouston, and lives in Houston and in Provincetown, Massachusetts.