Gay 80s Books

Contents:

• HOW THE EARLY ’80S CHANGED GAY WRG FOREVER
• GAY PULP FICTN - VTAGE
• GAY 80S BOOKS
• 1980S. ‘THE OF THE GAY NOVEL’

HOW THE EARLY ’80S CHANGED GAY WRG FOREVER

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT‘Dancer From the Dance, ’ ‘Angels Ameri’ — and the that brought queer lerature to the GoldANDREW HOLLERAN’S 1978 novel, “Dancer From the Dance, ” was not the first gay novel I read.

GAY PULP FICTN - VTAGE

It was, however, the first gay novel everybody any rate, was the first gay novel every gay man I knew seemed to have read. It was the first Big Gay Lerary Sensatn. Although “Dancer From the Dance” centers on two gay men named Malone and Sutherland, ’s as much a story about New York Cy’s gay life the 1970s as is the story of Malone’s and Sutherland’s own liv.

Spoiler alert:Both Malone and Sutherland e to bad (if ambiguo) ends, the general tradn of the time, whereby gay characters were allowed onto the b of narrative as long as they were thrown off aga before the b reached s said, Malone and Sutherland float away as much as they expire — their partur are more like that of Ophelia “Hamlet” than they are like that of Tennsee Williams’s Sebastian Venable, hacked to ath and eaten by village children.

No one, however, argued about the book’s fily to the reckls, rto life lived certa (whe, well-favored) circl on Pla Gay.

GAY 80S BOOKS

Three years later, 1981, the first report of Gay-Related Immune Deficiency AIDS epimic didn’t mean the end of dancg, or sex, or dgs. Gay people and traveno dg ers — those most at risk at the time — had been emed dilemma of the self-hatg homo lookg for love all the wrong plac paled — paled for some of — the face of a plague about which no one power seemed to give a damn. It paled as nights spent hospals replaced nights spent on the dis mordant (if all too te) tale of gay men enjoyg themselv to ath ma way for the (all too te) AIDS-era tale of gay men fgered randomly by ATTEMPT TO name the noteworthy narrativ about gay life sce 1981 would volve too many omissns.

Let’s nfe ourselv to a play that wasn’t the first gay AIDS play I saw, but was the first gay AIDS play almost everybody saw: Tony Khner’s 1991 “Angels Ameri. Courty of Milton Glaser“Angels Ameri, ” however, is no gimlet-eyed crique of homo high jks.

Fire Island might as well be on another pla protagonists “Angels Ameri” are nonted not only by homophobia and self-stctn but also by their own natur, by love’s power and love’s failure, by censor religns and llo policians, by racism and classism. Ironilly enough, “Dancer” ends wh the mise of s primary characters, whereas “Angels” ends wh liv ntug we open this segment of the ongog gay story, then, 1978, wh an amb tale of gay self-stctn, we wriggle through the wormhole of 1981 and emerge 1991, wh an epic about gay men who refe to be stroyed.

1980S. ‘THE OF THE GAY NOVEL’

A versn of this article appears prt on, Page 58 of T Magaze wh the headle: Gay Lerature.