I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together

Pantheon Books, New York City / Random House Canada
February 2024

Welcome to the world of Maurice Vellekoop, the youngest of four children raised by Dutch immigrants in 1970s suburban Toronto. Despite the working-class family’s deep reverence for the arts, young Maurice would rather watch Carol Burnett on TV than read a book. He also loves playing with Barbie dolls and helping his Mum in her basement hair salon. In short, he is really, really gay. Which is a huge problem, because the Vellekoops are devoted members of the Christian Reformed Church, a strict Calvinist sect. When he finally comes out to her, his mother, Ann, can’t accept his sexuality.

Immediately after Vellekoop’s art school graduation, his career as an illustrator takes off. But despite a life filled with making and consuming art, he is caught in a spiderweb of family, faith, guilt, fraught sexuality, shaky mental health, inherited World War II trauma, an obsession with the mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria, and French Formula hairspray. Will he ever find his heart’s desire?

I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together is a compassionate, moving, and hilarious late bloomer’s coming-of-age memoir and an enthralling portrait of what it means to be true to yourself, to learn to forgive, and to be an artist.