Anyone who has ever desired or aspired to be a parent --- whether biological, adoptive or step --- knows the weight with which the anticipation burdens the soul and the heart. In the best of impending parenthood situations, the clock moves slower than imaginable and the pages of the calendar turn at a snail's pace. But add to that the fact of being a gay man who wants to adopt in a time (the ’90s) and place (Hong Kong and China) where your hopes for fatherhood were implausible and unacceptable, and that wait for a child can be agonizing. This is Peter Rupert Lighte's story: STRAIGHT THROUGH THE LABYRINTH: Becoming a Gay Father in China.

This love story --- and it is a love story in the purest form --- begins with the watching of old home movies, in which Peter sees himself first as an infant bathing and then his happy parents honeymooning (although, for the record, the events occurred in the opposite order). “Assaulted by memories,” the films triggered reminders of a childhood fraught with self-described acrimony and disaster --- an absentee father, a cyclically depressed mother, a painful divorce, remarriages, new resemblances to family. The reader is treated to Peter’s youth in all its ups and downs; as he witnesses the dissolution of his core family, we witness the dawning of his personal wish to build one of his own. Peter does not shy away from the details of his upbringing or the desire it creates. He candidly recounts his bumpy trip to parenthood, including the “doubt to be associated with the granting of [his] wish.”

"STRAIGHT THROUGH THE LABYRINTH is universal, the story of craving and hope, intermingled with vast love --- the story of going as far as one must to achieve what one wants and needs."

Along the way, Peter’s wit shines through in stories of his youth and education, how he came to be a scholar of China, his foray into dating (women and men), his upward trajectory in the many iterations of J.P. Morgan Chase, and how he landed in a London bar one night near a loud “gaggle of fops” that held, unbeknownst to him in the moment, his future. “Such a collision was not to be ignored!”

When Peter met Julian, the dream of creating his own family, which never dulled, seemed more a probability than ever before. The route to parental reality in that moment was conceiving the old-fashioned way, with women from Peter’s past serving as potential incubators. But these misguided adventures, over nearly six years, went nowhere. Peter, still steeped in a visceral need, saw parenthood vanishing on the horizon. Buoyed by the endurance and depth of his relationship with Julian, he accepted a position that had them “pulling up their London stakes and [making their] way to Asia,” much to Peter’s delight.

Once they found themselves in Asia, the notion of adoption appeared as the means to reignite Peter’s paternal goal. Despite restrictions that might have daunted another man, he embarked on what he described as “akin to my beginning a courtship --- with a chimera.” Determined more than ever to have a child, Peter set out on a lengthy, often frustrating process. But the paperwork, lawyers, testimonials and standard fare of adoptions were nothing compared to the hoops that a gay man in Hong Kong had to jump through. Hiding his sexuality and often his partner involved solo trips to meet with administrators, stashing couple photos in drawers during home visits, and basically presenting himself as a single man who wished to be a parent.

Expensive gifts were bought for high-ranking government officials, jobs secured for their relatives, elaborate meals eaten in their company. And yet, the security that success finally would be had was elusive; the dread of discovery of who he really was hung over him like the proverbial sword of Damocles. Throughout the months of subterfuge, a fear weighed heavily that all would be for naught, that a child would never come. What Peter describes is often painful, for himself and the reader. Even the talisman of a red watchband that he wore for good luck can’t assuage the emotion-laden waiting that hangs at the end of each step along the way. Though not a thriller, there is a suspenseful element of the book that turns the page often of divine volition.

And then, finally and gloriously, a match is made. Peter’s heartfelt description of that moment is quite beautiful as he watches the announcement spit out of the fax machine page after page: “Then came the image of a baby. The paper was still warm to the touch, as though this child had just been born into the world, forever changing mine…. She was now Harriet, named for my mother. Even her nickname, Hattie, agreed upon by Julian and me, took hold in this very instant.”

Not even the last-minute paperwork for Hattie could detract from the joy in Peter’s world and writing. (I defy you not to cry when reading that Peter occasionally whispered “My baby” in her ear as he triumphantly carried her about those first few days.) In a particularly touching vignette, Peter and Julian marvel at their sleeping girl. Peter writes that “of all things, I wondered if our own imperfect parents, hovering in the ether, were finally looking after us to secure the future of our family.” And then there was Tillie, a second daughter, whose appearance in their lives had its own travails but with the ultimate outcome of a family of four.

Throughout Peter’s masterful retelling of his search for family, he starts each chapter with an appropriate quote. Perhaps the most apt of them all is the one that comes at the penultimate chapter: “Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go” (T.S. Eliot). STRAIGHT THROUGH THE LABYRINTH is universal, the story of craving and hope, intermingled with vast love --- the story of going as far as one must to achieve what one wants and needs.