#gay literature

[newvision]

— James Baldwin, from If Beale Street Could Talk

[cafe-dorian]

W. Somerset Maugham, author, 1874-1965. Photo by George Platt Lynes.

[alovelywaytospendanevening]

The Early Gay Best Sellers, 1930s–1940s

Created in 1931 as a short and somewhat irregular ranking, The New York Times Best Seller list has become the leading report on what American readers are currently consuming. If a book makes the list, that basically means it managed to break into the literary mainstream sphere, with all the glory that such a thing can bring.

The list is also a simple way to identify the rise of certain trends and genres. And since there doesn’t seem to be a comprehensive examination of this when it comes to gay literature, I decided to take it upon myself to produce something like that.

This is the first part of a series of posts that attempt to track the slow rise of gay fiction in the American imaginary. My criteria for selecting the works was the presence of a gay/non-straight male protagonist, since that's the niche I specialize in. This means that negative characterizations can also be found here — although I would say that the vast majority of the books featured in these posts at least try to be sympathetic to homosexuals.

Only two pre-World War II novels managed to meet the criteria, which shows how any assertive textual instance of homosexuality could be highly controversial at that time. The publication of the first Kinsey report (Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, in 1948) and the advent of war clearly brought a loosening of norms and some new perspectives on the matter, as shown by the sudden boom of titles — some of which would eventually become classics. War creates many homosocial spaces, after all.

Serenade (1938) by James M. Cain

A formerly gay opera singer falls in love with a female Mexican prostitute, which leads to all sorts of shenanigans: that's the basic premise of the wacky and controversial Serenade. The way Cain develops many of the novel's themes can certainly be considered dated by our modern standards: for example, he bases his characterization of the protagonist on a pseudoscientific theory of the time, which claimed that homosexual singers were artistically deficient (!).

Cain's debut novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), was instantly hailed as an American classic, which probably explains why he was able to get away with such a risqué plot in his follow-up work. Although Serenade sold moderately well, it fell short of the author's and his publisher's expectations. A film adaptation loosely based on the novel was released in 1956, without any trace of the original story's homosexual themes.

The Lost Weekend (1944) by Charles Jackson

Largely inspired by the author's own experiences, The Lost Weekend is a sorrowful tale about five days in the life of an alcoholic writer named Don Birnam. Birnam is described as a "crypto-homosexual": flashbacks show his lifelong struggle with same-sex attraction, one of the main factors that led him to addiction. The novel became a big success, selling over half a million copies in the first five years after its release.

Much like what happened with Serenade, The Lost Weekend’s classic film adaptation — which won the 1946 Academy Award for Best Picture — eliminates any mention of homosexuality.

Brideshead Revisited (1945) by Evelyn Waugh

This overview of the rapidly declining world of the British aristocracy proved so popular with American readers that it even surprised Waugh himself. The description of the relationship between Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte comes very close to being explicitly homosexual, but even then, there’s Anthony Blanche’s open flamboyance to make the whole thing clear.

The newly expanded best seller list made it easier for Brideshead Revisited to make a very solid 25-week run. MGM toyed with the idea of ​​a film adaptation in the late 1940s, but ultimately Waugh decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

The Fall of Valor (1946) by Charles Jackson

After the success of The Lost Weekend, Jackson decided to go even further with his sad homosexual narratives: The Fall of Valor is a story about a closeted middle-class man in a loveless marriage and his infatuation with a handsome Marine.

It is surprising how little is said about this title, considering it's probably the earliest example of an actual "gay novel" to appear on the best seller list. Its success is truly remarkable and probably made it easier for other explicitly gay-themed books to be published.

Knock on Any Door (1947) by Willard Motley

Knock on Any Door follows the life of young Italian hoodlum Nick Romano as he struggles to survive on the streets of Chicago. By 1950, the novel had already sold 350,000 copies.

To make money, Nick allows himself to be picked up by “phonies” (i.e., homosexual men) and even befriends one of them. As usual, its 1949 film adaptation removed these kinds of details.

The Sling and the Arrow (1947) by Stuart Engstrand

Perhaps the clearest example of negative characterization found in this entire research, The Sling and the Arrow serves more as a cautionary tale than a plea for tolerance: It is as if Engstrand tried to instill every fatalistic stereotype — not just gay ones, but also some about transgender people — into the protagonist, another closeted middle-class man. The novel’s sensationalist approach gave it enough visibility to achieve best seller status.

The Gallery (1947) by John Horne Burns

The Gallery is the debut novel by Burns, a World War II army officer. It consists of 17 interconnected stories about life in Allied-occupied North Africa and Naples, featuring multiple characters. Three of these stories — "Momma," "The Leaf," and "Queen Penicillin" — feature gay soldiers.

Although the novel wasn’t a phenomenal success with the general public, it was lauded by critics and ended up being a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, which gave it some longevity. By September 1953, its paperback edition had sold nearly half a million copies.

The City and the Pillar (1948) by Gore Vidal

The City and the Pillar wasn't only a literary breakthrough but also the explosive entrance of one of the most prominent and controversial mid-century intellectuals of the United States. While the mere presence of a sexually active homosexual protagonist was shocking in itself, what is truly remarkable here is the introduction of a comprehensive depiction of the gay subculture to a broad audience — perhaps for the first time ever. The novel sold nearly 30,000 copies in a three-year period.

Vidal took some flak over the title — while The City and the Pillar made its best seller list, The New York Times refused to advertise the novel — but, as had become his wont, he simply brushed it off and moved on. His high-profile presence meant that the American media simply could no longer ignore the existence of homosexuality.

Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) by Truman Capote

Just a week after The City and the Pillar debuted, another breakthrough hit the best seller list: a coming-of-age story about a lonely, effeminate Southern boy inspired by Capote’s own life, Other Voices, Other Rooms had a very similar run to Pillar. And like Vidal, Capote also became a public figure and is now considered one of the founders of the New Journalism style.

The first edition of Other Voices, Other Rooms reportedly sold 26,000 copies. 20th Century Fox bought the rights to the novel before it even hit the shelves, but a film adaptation was never made.

[pedrohgsiqueira]

Boa noite

[books-as-mood-boards]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐬 // madeline miller

“𝐈 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞, 𝐛𝐲 𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐥; 𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝, 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡. 𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐢𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡, 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝.”

[x-the-picture-of-dorian-gay-x]

(yes I'm aware the sad dark-haired boys applies to lestat too)

lol venn diagram time

[gatheringbones]

jay quinn, from the mentor: a memoir of friendship and gay identity, 2000

[mrmousetolliver]

The Quirk (1978) written by Gordon Merrick. Cover art by Victor Gardino

[bb-8]

The Charioteer unabridged 1988 audiobook, narrated by Davina Porter

I've finished recording the cassettes, cleaning up the audio, and stitching the whole thing together! I've had to split it into two parts (each around 7.5 hours).

The tape was corrupted in 2 places near the end of chapter 6 that I have cleaned up as best as possible, but if there are any other issues with the content or playing/downloading it, please let me know!

To download the audiobook directly, here is a link to a Google Drive folder containing both audio files.

And I've also uploaded it to the Internet Archive, just in case something happens to the Drive. You can find a link to it here.

[catihere]

Moby Dick is one of the most brilliant pieces of literature out there and not for the reasons you think. Sure, it’s a great analysis on the state of the human ego in relationship with nature, but it’s also an absolutely hilarious piece from top to bottom. I mean:

•The kickstarter of the story is that, one day, Ishmael, a relatively ordinary man, gets frustrated with his life and the best solution he finds is to give up on everything and go whale hunting on a ship in the middle of nowhere. 100/100, what a fucking mood

•Ishmael is not even his name. If I remember correctly (I haven’t opened this book in three years), he picked his name himself and it means outcast, reject. Really now, why are no transmascs out there naming themselves Ishmael??

•He’s not even the main character but he’s the only one I care about

•This book probably INVENTED the “there was only one bed” trope. It introduced Queequeg by literally making him lie in the same hotel bed as Ishmael. Peak strangers to lovers if you ask me

•That’s not even it. Ishmael, uncomfortable at first, wakes up surprised by how well he slept. And in a later chapter, they are described to lie together as compared to a husband and wife.

•Also, Queequeg is an enormous Polinesian man with Māori tattoos on his face, who BY THE WAY collects human heads. Yeah, that gave Ishmael a very fun first impression of him

•The author breaks the narrative every few chapters to info dump us about whales (sometimes inaccurately, there was no Google in 1850 so I don’t blame him). Oh, yeah, because Herman Melville accidentally embarked on a whale hunting expedition for few years, so Moby Dick is inspired from his experience. But that’s a story for another time.

•My favorite info dump/conspiracy theory that he has is presented right at the start of the book. It’s about how different heroes of mythology and history, including Hercules and Saint George, might have been actually whale hunters. Ishmael is such a dork I can’t-

And these are only the things that I can say off the top of head, with a faint memory of the book from three years ago, when I binge read it in two days, so please feel free to add on. I fucking love Moby Dick go read it right now

[newvision]

E.M. Forster, from Maurice

Euripides

Herakles - Euripides (Tr. Anne Carson)

[jjjackalope]

"INKED" by J.J. Jackalope out now!!

Have you guys considered what the world might've be like if sometime a century ago, people started being born with ink embedded into their skin, and powers at their fingertips? No? Well you should start, because I have the new-age queer book for you.

Think X-Men meets coming-of-age meets a bit of Percy Jackson action.

My goal is to give a sense of belong to anyone whose eyes grace my work. I know how important rep is to every minority and I want to do everything I can to give that representation.

Check out my website to learn more and buy!

Here's the book blurb :)

After being in online school for the last four years, Scottlin Vincino starts his Junior year at a new private boarding school an hour from home. It should have been similar to any other in-person school-- but alas, they had everything Scottlin didn’t. 

A mark. 

He'll have to keep it a secret, but it gets tricky when you have a knack for ending up in the infirmary… Whether it be for the hot boy you just met, or you're swept up in one of the freak accidents at the school that seem to just keep happening. 

Scott will have to juggle his sexuality, his grades, and his new friends all while solving the mystery of what is happening to his new academy.

[alovelywaytospendanevening]

Edmund White, who became a pioneer in gay literature by mining his own varied catalog of sexual experiences in more than 30 books and hundreds of articles and essays, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 85.

For several decades, Mr. White’s therapists, with his encouragement, tried to “cure” him of homosexuality, which at the time was considered a mental illness. A more successful form of therapy was writing, he said. Writing, he told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2006, “has always been my recourse when I’ve tried to make sense of my experience or when it’s been very painful.”

Mr. White’s output was almost equally divided between fiction and nonfiction. Many of his books were critical successes, and several were best-sellers. The Chicago Tribune labeled him “the godfather of queer lit.”

He was a star almost from the beginning. The New York Times called Forgetting Elena (1973), about the rituals of gay life on a fictionalized Fire Island, “an astonishing first novel, obsessively fussy, and yet uncannily beautiful.” His second novel, Nocturnes for the King of Naples (1978), took the form of letters from a young gay man to his deceased ex-lover.

A Boy’s Own Story (1982), a tale of coming out set in the 1950s, was narrated by a teenager who bore more than a passing resemblance to a young Mr. White. His other semi-autobiographical novels, The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988) and The Farewell Symphony (1997), follow the same unnamed protagonist into adulthood during the 1960s, then through the horrors of AIDS as he approaches middle age.

He was one of seven members of The Violet Quill, a gay writers’ group founded in 1979 that included the soon-to-be celebrated authors Andrew Holleran and Felice Picano. The members met regularly to critique one another’s work. In 1982, he helped found the group Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York City.

His nonfiction works included a number of memoirs. My Lives (2005), one of his best-reviewed books, chronicles his first 65 years with chapter titles that include “My Shrinks, “My Hustlers” and “My Blonds.” He zeroed in on his life in 1960s and ’70s New York with City Boy (2009), and on his life away from New York with Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris (2014).

The Joy of Gay Sex (1977), a how-to based on the 1972 best seller The Joy of Sex, was a groundbreaking effort that became somewhat obsolete once fears of H.I.V. made safe sex far more common. Its co-author was Charles Silverstein, a therapist who had been treating Mr. White until a publisher suggested that they collaborate, not knowing they were already well acquainted.

His nonfiction works also include biographies of the French authors Jean Genet, Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud.

While some of his peers tried to separate their sexuality from their work, Mr. White embraced the term “gay writer.” As he explained in City Boy, “If I’d been straight, I would have been an entirely different person. I would never have turned toward writing with a burning desire to confess, to understand, to justify myself in the eyes of others.”

His life provided ample material for the prolific writer he was. “White has accumulated enough sexual partners,” Peter Conrad wrote in The Guardian in 2005, “to fill the telephone directory of a moderate-sized city.”

In 1995, he began a relationship with Michael Carroll, a writer 25 years his junior. The men lived together in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan and married in 2013. But Mr. White had no intention of being monogamous. In 2006, he told The Sydney Morning Herald that their relationship “is probably like an 18th-century marriage in France.”

In addition to his husband, he is survived by his sister, Margaret.

(Full article)

[velvettapeworm]

Some of you are familiar with my work already through itch.io or this blog, but I want to say that my book, So Sang the Riverman—a story which tells of the primordial world's destruction after the spirit of life, Fervor, makes off with the heart in Decay's grave—is now available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon. If you have a soft spot for mythological tales, lyrical prose and/or obsessive lovesick martyrdom, have yourself a look. And if you do decide to buy a copy, thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting my work!

[gaywebcorenostalgia]

afterwords bookstore & espresso bar, 1997

[dzgrizzle]

Edmund White’s death is hitting me hard. I never met him, but his novels and memoirs were a constant presence during my coming-out years and thereafter. I remember buying his books back in the 1990’s at Charis Books & More and at Outwrite, the LGBTQ bookstore that used to be in Atlanta. The main character in my short story “Time After Time” (which will be published in an upcoming anthology on August 1st) is looking at an Edmund White book when he meets his partner in a bookstore. I have an autographed copy of Edmund White’s recent novel The Humble Lover, which reads very much like a gay John Updike novel (and I say that as a fan of the late John Updike). The world of modern-day queer literature has lost one of its founding lights. Rest in Peace, Edmund White.

Edmund White in his New York home in 2019