The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered by Christopher Bram, Tom Cardamone, Michael Graves, Jameson Currier, Larry Duplechan, Sean Meriwether, Wayne Courtois, Andy Quan, Michael Bronski, Philip Gambone Page B
Authors: Christopher Bram, Tom Cardamone, Michael Graves, Jameson Currier, Larry Duplechan, Sean Meriwether, Wayne Courtois, Andy Quan, Michael Bronski, Philip Gambone
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Ozick — who really is a literary critic, as well as a fiction writer — refers to the novel, a perennially dying art form, as “the last trustworthy vessel of the inner life.” As I mulled over this apt description it occurred to me that the conflicted protagonist of a gay novel may have more than one inner life. There’s the one that we all recognize, the inner life that runs on autopilot, dictating the character’s thoughts, observations, and emotions throughout the day; then there’s the inner inner life, which is telling him that he is living a lie — that the world is upside down and will stay that way till he corrects it. The author of a coming-of-age gay novel faces the difficult task of giving two inner lives their due, as they battle it out with each other.
3. Homo = Werewolf
If you are Stevie Riley, then it’s like it is 1954, you live in South Boston, you’re nineteen years old, and you know you’re homosexual. But there are no homosexuals. They don’t exist, except in dirty jokes. The word homosexual is never heard on TV, or used in newspapers or magazines except in the most furtive, negative contexts. The few films and relatively few books that have dealt honestly with the subject are so out of reach that they may as well be on Mars. Here is the only kind of information that Stevie Riley can get his hands on, as he explains to a female friend:
During a full moon we go crazy. We have ‘periods’ the way women do, except it’s in our minds. We get incredibly horny. We can’t control our impulses. We become sex crazed. The jails fill up. They round us up and throw us in jail. It’s the only way the police can control us. I read it in Washington Confidential while I was killing time in a drugstore on Saturday.
Stevie has just returned home to live with his family, after spending a year and a half in seminary like a good Irish Catholic boy. He was dismissed from there for not having a vocation — a verdict he agrees with, though there’s more to it than that. Stevie is a product of his place and time: he knows he’s queer but he can’t accept it. Who can blame him? Maybe, if he manages to get laid with a woman, the queerness will go away. That seems to be the conventional wisdom, and he has no friend or mentor who can tell him otherwise.
4. Next He’ll Be Pissing in the Holy Water
Recently I saw an old Brazilian horror flick called At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul. The monster / protagonist is a snarky mortician who has qualities of both a vampire and a ghoul. His first horrific act in the film is to eat meat on Good Friday. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there he is, gnawing on a leg of lamb in his window while a holy procession passes on the street below. I was reminded that Brazil is the largest Catholic country in the world; no doubt many viewers of this film were sincerely horrified by the maniac’s sacrilegious act.
I was reminded, too, of Stevie’s mom — how she verbally abuses and slaps her sons around at the merest hint that they might be committing sacrilege. She says that Stevie’s older brother Brian is endangering his “immortal soul” by reading Studs Lonigan , for Christ’s sake. And while she doesn’t seem to be disappointed that Stevie left the seminary, she seems haunted by the question of why he had to leave. In one terrifying scene she explodes at him, calling him an “introvert.” It’s probably the worst word she knows, and its echo of pervert isn’t lost on Stevie, who’s cut to the quick. He actually sinks to his knees, right there in the living room, breaking a religious statue in the process. More yelling. The neighbors are pounding on the walls.
It’s a typical night in the Riley household. Even the neighbors pounding on the walls are doing so “out of habit.” They know it won’t do any good.
5. At Least He’s Not Reading 120 Days of Sodom
Like his older brother, Stevie also reads Studs Lonigan. When he mentions it during
3. Homo = Werewolf
If you are Stevie Riley, then it’s like it is 1954, you live in South Boston, you’re nineteen years old, and you know you’re homosexual. But there are no homosexuals. They don’t exist, except in dirty jokes. The word homosexual is never heard on TV, or used in newspapers or magazines except in the most furtive, negative contexts. The few films and relatively few books that have dealt honestly with the subject are so out of reach that they may as well be on Mars. Here is the only kind of information that Stevie Riley can get his hands on, as he explains to a female friend:
During a full moon we go crazy. We have ‘periods’ the way women do, except it’s in our minds. We get incredibly horny. We can’t control our impulses. We become sex crazed. The jails fill up. They round us up and throw us in jail. It’s the only way the police can control us. I read it in Washington Confidential while I was killing time in a drugstore on Saturday.
Stevie has just returned home to live with his family, after spending a year and a half in seminary like a good Irish Catholic boy. He was dismissed from there for not having a vocation — a verdict he agrees with, though there’s more to it than that. Stevie is a product of his place and time: he knows he’s queer but he can’t accept it. Who can blame him? Maybe, if he manages to get laid with a woman, the queerness will go away. That seems to be the conventional wisdom, and he has no friend or mentor who can tell him otherwise.
4. Next He’ll Be Pissing in the Holy Water
Recently I saw an old Brazilian horror flick called At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul. The monster / protagonist is a snarky mortician who has qualities of both a vampire and a ghoul. His first horrific act in the film is to eat meat on Good Friday. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there he is, gnawing on a leg of lamb in his window while a holy procession passes on the street below. I was reminded that Brazil is the largest Catholic country in the world; no doubt many viewers of this film were sincerely horrified by the maniac’s sacrilegious act.
I was reminded, too, of Stevie’s mom — how she verbally abuses and slaps her sons around at the merest hint that they might be committing sacrilege. She says that Stevie’s older brother Brian is endangering his “immortal soul” by reading Studs Lonigan , for Christ’s sake. And while she doesn’t seem to be disappointed that Stevie left the seminary, she seems haunted by the question of why he had to leave. In one terrifying scene she explodes at him, calling him an “introvert.” It’s probably the worst word she knows, and its echo of pervert isn’t lost on Stevie, who’s cut to the quick. He actually sinks to his knees, right there in the living room, breaking a religious statue in the process. More yelling. The neighbors are pounding on the walls.
It’s a typical night in the Riley household. Even the neighbors pounding on the walls are doing so “out of habit.” They know it won’t do any good.
5. At Least He’s Not Reading 120 Days of Sodom
Like his older brother, Stevie also reads Studs Lonigan. When he mentions it during
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