From the Vlts: Gay Novelist David Leavt's Sex Problem

Contents:

• REVIEW: A BLACK GAY NOVELIST EXPLOS THE MARGS, WH HELP OM E.M. FORSTER, ‘GREENLAND’
• ONE OF AMERI’S FUNNIT, GAYT WRERS IS FALLY BEG FAMO
• 25 MOST INFLUENTIAL GAY AUTHORS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT
• A LTLE LIFE: THE GREAT GAY NOVEL MIGHT BE HERE
• A GAY MYSTERY NOVELIST WHO CHRONICL THE AFTERMATH OF AIDS
• IN SEARCH OF THE LOST TIME OF A GAY JEWISH NOVELIST

REVIEW: A BLACK GAY NOVELIST EXPLOS THE MARGS, WH HELP OM E.M. FORSTER, ‘GREENLAND’

Their varly humane and hilar portras of queerns and same-sex love and lt—and the everyday liv of those who experience them—are illumatg, whether you’re gay, straight, or somewhere between.

Meticuloly rearched and ttly plotted, books such as The Last of the We (1956) and The Persian Boy (1972) naturalistilly pict gay love agast a vivid, betifully renred backdrop of war and polil BaldwJam BaldwUPI/Bettmann ArchiveBaldw’s semal novel Gvanni’s Room (1956), about a tragic love affair between a nfed Amerin man and his Italian boyiend Paris, unflchgly exam the societal prejudic that kept (and ntue to keep) many people om acknowledgg their sexual AokiAoki is an Amerin wrer of Japane scent who is bt known for her llectns, cludg Seasonal Veloci (2012) and Why Dt Shall Never Settle upon This Soul (2015), and her novels, cludg He Mele a Hilo (2014) and Light om Unmon Stars (2021). Michael ChabonChabon has long had a gay followg due to his 1988 novel The Mysteri of Ptsburgh, which featur a protagonist who has both homosexual and heterosexual enunters. Many of his later works feature gay characters, though their sexualy is ambient rather than LorLor’s wrg reflects her experience as a Black lbian and a mother.

ONE OF AMERI’S FUNNIT, GAYT WRERS IS FALLY BEG FAMO

The closens of the iendship between the two young men hts at homosexualy.

Wgh’s own homosexual relatnships lend crence to that terpretatn. Christopher IsherwoodIsherwood, 1966Camera Prs/Pictorial ParaIsherwood’s 1964 novel A Sgle Man follows a gay man grievg for his lover over the urse of a day.

25 MOST INFLUENTIAL GAY AUTHORS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

Armistead MpMp’s effervcent novels about gay life San Francis, startg wh Tal of the Cy (1978), brought to life a i foreign to much of the JordanJordan primarily wrote through the lens of bisexualy and racial jtice. “Here I was wh my Black gay brothers and I was still the pariah.

A LTLE LIFE: THE GREAT GAY NOVEL MIGHT BE HERE

Kip nfs that he’s been “obssed wh the ia of beg regnized by the publishg world” bee “for some surely problematic reason, as a Black, gay man, I need the world to say, I see you. The braid narrative skips between Kip the trated 21st century novelist, Mohammed the 20th-century gay Black Egyptian and “Kip, ” a character his own novel “The Nowherians” — y, the nowhere men.

” But might also be scribed as a belated g-out party: the troductn to broar society of one of Ameri’s funnit, gayt wrers.

A GAY MYSTERY NOVELIST WHO CHRONICL THE AFTERMATH OF AIDS

When Andrew Holleran’s “Dancer om the Dance” was published, 1978, Plunket had a revelatn: “It was a really, really gay novel, and then sudnly was clear to me there uld be such a thg. I figured all out, why I loved so much: the narrator is gay!

”Plunket don’t mean that the story’s unnamed narrator, who is trackg down the rrponnce of a famo ad poet named Jefey Aspern, knows this about himself, or that Jam was tryg to wre a homosexual antihero. Rather, ’s that the narrator’s relatnships wh Juliana Borre and Miss Ta—a former lover of Aspern and her niece, rpectively—reflect those of a gay man, sirels and unnscly ght.

“The problem was: nobody realized Ellt Weer was gay, ” Plunket told me, when I asked about the book’s origal receptn 1983. “No one really got how ’s a gay novel.

IN SEARCH OF THE LOST TIME OF A GAY JEWISH NOVELIST

But ’s a gay novel—that’s really what’s gog on. “Sensivy rears, be warned, ” she wr, “the protagonist of this novel, Ellt Weer, is cel, racist, fat-phobic, homophobic, and eply, eply petty.

But after her first failed attempt she settl for an unpaid job the cy wh an arts anizatn, where she first falls for her gay boss, Tom Potts.

Then she falls for all of his iends, cludg Joel, a gay-porn star who turns out not to be gay.