Author fulfills need to discuss sexuality> Bepko turned to her journals to tell personal story of life as a lesbian

Ellen Degeneres spent a year telling America she was going to come out of the closet. Last month the actress and the character she plays on her weekly sitcom finally burst through the door and shouted, “I’m gay!”

Writer Claudia Bepko spent the past year editing her book, “The Heart’s Progress: A Lesbian Memoir” (Viking; $23.95). While Ellen was confessing to Diane Sawyer, Bepko was promoting her book. The Brunswick family therapist was telling audiences how she came to terms with her sexuality, and the impact her sexual orientation has had on her life as well as the lives of her friends and family.

“I had a deep need to talk about the depth and richness of my life as a lesbian,” said Bepko, 49. “I looked at the literature that was available, and saw there wasn’t very much that told a personal story. I really wanted to tell that story.”

So Bepko, who has lived and worked in Brunswick since 1988, turned to the journals she had kept since her college days. Reading the book is a bit like sneaking a peek at someone’s diary, despite the fact that the author changed names, fictionalized certain details and events, and changed much identifying data.

Bepko grew up in a small industrial town in Connecticut, the eldest child in a working-class, Italian-Catholic family. From her alcoholic parents she learned to hide her feelings, including those she had for women. She found solace in school where she excelled academically, lost herself in extracurricular activities, and decided to become a nun, like her favorite teacher “K.”

In college, Bepko began questioning her attraction to women, and had her first sexual relationship with “Molly,” her college roommate. After their lovemaking they “knew that something holy has happened, something ageless and pure, and that no matter what happens, this connection, this knowing between us, can never be taken away. We feel burned through and purified.”

But neither woman was prepared to face society’s or their families’ disapproval, so they ended the relationship, each eventually marrying a man. As Bepko continued her education, she met “Alice,” the woman who would become her partner in business and life for the next 18 years.

“In describing my life with `Alice,”‘ Bepko explained, “I wanted to show the routine, the ordinariness of the life of a same-sex couple …” and “how the dailiness of life can be deadly unless you make a lot of conscious decisions to work with it.”

“Alice” and Bepko ended their personal and professional relationship with the same kind of acrimony many married couples experience during divorce. But they “did not succumb to bitterness,” Bepko wrote. “We had more passion than most people I know; we had problems as deep as those that most people experience. We did not break up because we are gay; we broke up because we are people — people who know what it feels like to suffer and to love.”

During her nine years in Maine, Bepko has seen life for homosexuals change dramatically because of the increased visibility and political activism of gays and lesbians. “Now we even have rights,” she added, referring to the bill Gov. Angus King recently signed that will make discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation illegal.

While Bepko was active in the Maine Won’t Discriminate campaign two years ago, she does not think of herself as a political activist. “My writing is my activism,” the author said.

With her partner “Alice,” Bepko wrote three books, including the best seller, “Too Good for Her Own Good” and “Singing at the Top Our Lungs: Women, Love, and Creativity.” Together they appeared on the television programs “Oprah” and “20/20” discussing their work.

Although the real identity of “Alice” can be found in local bookstores and libraries, Bepko refuses to give interviews if her identity is to be revealed. “To protect the privacy of others,” the author changed other facts in her book, including moving Bangor closer to Brunswick, and some details about a fatal accident in which she was involved.

Today Bepko divides her time between her family therapy practice — with offices in Portland and Brunswick — and New York, where she has reunited with her first love, “Molly.”

Bepko will appear at 7:30 p.m. June 23 at Borders in Bangor.