Until recently, gay lerary characters had to hi their inti. But even now the closet — and the li and ncealment impli — remas a surprisgly potent metaphor.
Contents:
- STEPHANIE COWELL'S BLOG: EDWARDIAN GAY NOVEL TO BE PUBLISHED
- GAY LERATURE IS OUT OF THE CLOSET. SO WHY IS DECEPTN A BIG THEME?
STEPHANIE COWELL'S BLOG: EDWARDIAN GAY NOVEL TO BE PUBLISHED
Stephanie Cowell's Blog: Edwardian gay novel to be published.
New Edwardian gay novel om me! Tatjana PrenzelApril 26, 2020Near the begng of Jam Baldw’s 1956 novel “Gvanni’s Room, ” the narrator, David, rells the moment at which he beme nsc of his homosexualy. “Li are the natural food of boyhood, and he had eaten greedily, ” Forster wr of Mrice, who pledg no longer to feign an attractn to women, regnizg honty as his only chance for much of the 19th and 20th centuri, om Dorian Gray to Tom Ripley, the lie of the closet was the hge upon which queer lerature would pivot, reflectg what were then the often judicial or mortal sts of beg openly gay.
GAY LERATURE IS OUT OF THE CLOSET. SO WHY IS DECEPTN A BIG THEME?
Inscery, “merely a method by which we n multiply our personali, ” as Dorian Gray put , was the mo of ngrs gay men had been tght to adopt for the sake of self-prervatn; manifted self as a kd of characterologil tradn, a means by which the psychologil theater of the closet uld be dramatized, om Dorian Gray’s rhetoril fabritns to Tom Ripley’s serialized the most part, the closet now is not the potentially termal fate once was, but rather a layover the long journey to the self, an enclosure om which tth emerg. In much recent queer fictn are morn, mostly openly gay characters for whom self-nial and even outright ceptn have bee a way of is the guidg prciple of Peter Kispert’s new story llectn, “I Know You Know Who I Am, ” which gay men twist the tth by force of hab, often pursu of a mascule ial that feels otherwise out of reach. And when ’s eventually rebuffed, his self-loathg be an enge for the novel’s up grâce, an act of treachery that leraliz the notn of the closet as a place perpetually at risk of “Apartment, ” Jam Gregor’s 2019 novel “Gog Dutch” volv a graduate stunt wh an aversn to honty: Richard is openly gay, but when an unassumg classmate, Anne, helps him wre his dissertatn, eventually takg over the project entirely, he enjoys the plagiaristic nvenience of her pany too much to tell her he’s attracted to men.
Consir Brandon Taylor’s but novel, “Real Life, ” about Wallace, a black, gay graduate stunt adrift among his sensive, all-whe hort of fellow doctoral ndidat.