Jam Wood on novels by Garth Greenwell and Darryl Pckney about gay Amerins lookg for love Europe.
Contents:
- GAY LERATURE IS OUT OF THE CLOSET. SO WHY IS DECEPTN A BIG THEME?
- GARTH GREENWELL'S CLEANNS INTERROGAT THE DEPTHS OF A GAY MAN'S HEART
- A LTLE LIFE: THE GREAT GAY NOVEL MIGHT BE HERE
GAY LERATURE IS OUT OF THE CLOSET. SO WHY IS DECEPTN A BIG THEME?
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. * gay fiction greenwell *
“In much the way that other male Amerin wrers, such as Hemgway, Baldw and Edmund Whe, have chosen Paris as the place which their lone protagonist n be tted and changed, Greenwell Sofia, the pal of Bulgaria, as his ldron … Greenwell displays an extraordary skill at handlg time … The wrg about sex achiev an unual pth of accuracy both about physil activy and emotnal unrcurrent … An exquise piece of wrg that a simple plative system to create a plex emotnal effect … One of the problems that any gay wrer fac is how to pict happs … Greenwell fully explor what fear and secrecy and solu look like for gay men … However, the send sectn of his book, lled ‘Lovg R., ’ he dramatiz happs … ‘The Frog Kg, ’ rivals John Updike’s ‘The Happit I Have Been, ’ set the same Christmas season, as a great Amerin story about happs. Some of the most affectg and betiful scen his books have nothg to do wh sexual inty or gay sire but volve exquise observatns about others whose vulnerabily has touched the narrator’s heart... ’” – Katy Waldman, “My Favore Fictn of 2020, ” The New Yorker“Greenwell, whose 2016 What Belongs to You tablished a new bar for lerary fictn wh s suoly elegant prose, returns wh a set of stunng vigt about a young gay man’s experienc Sofia, Bulgaria.
GARTH GREENWELL'S CLEANNS INTERROGAT THE DEPTHS OF A GAY MAN'S HEART
What Belongs to You is a view of gay life far om the marriage-equaly foced ‘PR visn’ – but even public rtrooms, he says, there’s warmth to be found * gay fiction greenwell *
" – Kirk Reviews (Starred) “Absolutely spellbdg … Even when his ndor on rnal matters—specifilly, homosexual matters—plung ep to sadomasochistic terrory, his terpretatn of what’s gog on between his characters is so savvy and precise that you n’t help admirg s elegance … Exquise. ” – Ka Ahsan, AV Club“Garth Greenwell has joed the non of great gay wrers... 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.
A LTLE LIFE: THE GREAT GAY NOVEL MIGHT BE HERE
* gay fiction greenwell *
“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. 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.