NEW YORK, NY – The suicide of a popular gay New York City therapist received a sad post-script last month when his publisher announced what the late Bob Bergeron had already predicted: there would be no release of his selfwritten self-help guide, “The Right Side of Forty: The Complete Guide to Happiness for Gay Men at Midlife and Beyond.”
Bergeron’s suicide on or around New Year’s Day shocked his friends and colleagues. He had built a popular and busy private mental health practice which specialized in treating wealthy gay men. In addition, Bergeron, 49, had spent time on the lecture circuit, booking motivational speaking tours in Gay Pride centers in Chicago and Los Angeles. “The Right Side of Forty” was scheduled for a February release by his publisher, Magnus Books, a New York City-based firm specializing in LGBT-interest titles.
“I’ve got a concise picture of what being over 40 is about and it’s a great perspective filled with happiness, feeling sexy, possessing comfort relating to other men and taking good care of ourselves,” Bergeron wrote on his Web site. “This picture will get you results that flourish long-term.”
Through his book, he hoped to help gay men achieve turning gray with grace.
His own lifestyle bespoke of his personal qualifications to opine on the subject: a Manhattan condo, regular trips to Europe, model good looks, and an accepting family. But on Jan. 5, Bergeron was found in his apartment by his ex-partner, dead with a plastic bag tied over his head.
Bergeron’s death was ruled suicide due to asphyxiation.
The scene that Bergeron arranged just before he took his own life spoke of the organized manner in which he conducted his life, at least publicly: he had placed a pile of folders upon the kitchen island countertop, with papers that contained specific instructions for the disposal of his personal finances.
Next to this, he placed his book’s title page: it was on this that he penned his suicide note, in which he told friends and family that he loved them but that he was “done.” Next to a drawn arrow that pointed to the name of the book (“The Right Side of Forty: The Complete Guide to Happiness for Gay Men at Midlife and Beyond”), Bergeron had written, “It’s a lie based on bad information.”
According to Don Weise, his publisher at Magnus Books, Bergeron took over a year to draft and rewrite the book.
“There would be pages just covered in blue scribble,” Weise told the New York Times. “Every single sentence was rewritten. I thought he was going to have a nervous breakdown.” Bergeron, who held a master’s in social work from Hunter College at City University of New York, finished the manuscript sometime around Christmas 2011.
His family and friends say that Bergeron had become “anxious” about the scheduled February release of the book. His mother said that Bergeron believed he had written too much about online “dating” and “hookups,” and had not spent enough time writing about newer technologies such as the Grindr phone app. Bergeron became increasingly convinced that his work would be ridiculed as out-of-date before it hit the shelves.
“It was easily fixable,” said his mother, Athena Bergeron, who last spoke with him on New Year’s Eve 2011. “I figured they could easily go back in and change that.”
Magnus Books announced that under the circumstances, they were cancelling publication of Bergeron’s book. While trying to make sense of their loss, his still disconsolate friends and family recall the encouraging words Bergeron had posted on his professional Web site: “When I learned new ways to relate with gay men, I returned to the confidence of my thirties but with less cockiness and more civility. As a result while quickly approaching the right side of fifty, I can say with deep sincerity: this is the best time of my life!”
