2003's Best Gay Fiction

[Guest alanm]

Just read Paul Russell's War Against the Animals and William Mann's

Where the Boys Are. Good gay fiction has been rare the last few years.

War Against the Animals is about the conflict in an upstate NY town between the new gay population and the townies. The central character is an HIV-positive man who has suffered through several broken relationships and his encounter who two local brother in late teens/early 20s who are doing repairs on his house. The book is well written and absolutely spellbinding as more and more information is revealed. I also liked Mann's book, which is a continuation of the story from his previous book The Men from the Boys.

 

I hesitate to ask, but anyone know why Michael Nava, Edmond White,

David Leavitt, Alan Hollinghurst or Stephen McCauley have not published in a while. I hope the reason is not illness.

[Will]

I agree with you that Paul Russell is a wonderful writer. His first novel, which is called "Lake of..." (the name of a place on the moon), is about a young gay man and his astronaut father. It really is worth the read.

 

By far the best novel I have read in ten years is Jamie O'Neill's AT SWIM TWO BOYS. In my opinion it's a great work of fiction. I'm serious about that. One of the most remarkable things about it is the fact that the story, which is rich and complex, just couldn't happen without the central character's being gay. For me, one of its many if minor virtues is the fact that it makes being gay absolutely "normal," in the sense of "common," but absolutely different from the heterosexual norm. It's set in Ireland at the end of the First World War, just before the outbreak of the civil war that led to the establishment of the Irish Republic. It's a "must read." Really.

 

A few giant rungs down the ladder from that, but a terrific read nonetheless, is AS MEAT LOVES SALT. It's an expertly researched historical novel set in seventeenth-century England, and has some scenes that qualify as pretty hot for serious fiction.

 

But why is it that the most sympathetic as well as sexy literature about gay men is written by women? Mary Renault. Patricia Nell Warren. Annie Proulx (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN just may be the best thing ever written about gay men). And the author of AS MEAT LOVES SALT, whose name eludes me just now.

 

Edmund White has been in declining health for a long while. I don't know about the others you mention.

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

Michael Nava (among others)

 

Has been wanting to get out of writing the Henry Rios series for some times. He always took his time, unlike other authors who "cranked" out a new book with regularity.

 

Will, you might find the English translations of Herve Guibert's books interesting, in particularly To The Friend Who Did Not Save My Life. Mary Renault's book were very good and when I was a teenager, The Front Runner was certainly both well done and something that strongly affected me but I do not think any of the Nell Warren books hold up like the Renault books. I think Felice Picano's The Lure[/] and most of the Ethan Mordann books are heads and shoulders above The Beauty Queen or The Fancy Dancer.

 

I think Jim Grimsley's books are all particularly good, and was pleased to see his most recent book acknowledged in the Lambda Literary awards. I also particularly enjoyed Nightswimmer and thus am curious about In Clara's Hands.

[Rick Munroe]

Anyone read any good gay creative nonfiction lately (aside from the Message Center)? Someone just told me to get Running With Scissors so I'm picking it up tomorrow.

[Guest alanm]

AT SWIM, TWO BOYS

 

I have foolishly not read At Swim, Two Boys because of the Irish

setting. I am missing a lot, but the country has never interested me (nor Scotland where all four of my grandparents came from). After your recommendation, I will give it a try.

 

Felice Picano was also mentioned. I would not put him in quite the same class as some of the other writers, but try The Book of Lies.

I think it's his best book.

[Ethan_NYC]

>I agree with you that Paul Russell is a wonderful writer.

 

The first P.Russell novel I read was The Coming Storm. It had me in tears.

I thought it was beautifully written, seductive and heartbreaking. The subject is touchy, (young, handsome prep school teacher engages in reckless but substantial affair with troubled student) but it was moving and unapologetic. It helped me realize that people fall in love for a variety of reasons and sometimes we just can't help it. A must read for an young gay male.

 

I'll be sure to check out War Against the Animals as well.

 

>Edmund White has been in declining health for a long while.

 

Perhaps due to his declining health, Edmund White's nephew (Keith Fleming) has completed a biography about his uncle. "Original Youth: The Real Story of Ed. White's Childhood" by is expected in bookstores in November. Haven't read the galleys yet, but I'll keep the MC posted.

[Guest gentle guy]

Although it was a difficult read, I enjoyed At Swim, Two Boys, and was incredibly moved by it. I may cry easily, but I unexpectedly found myself sobbing at the end.

 

I also liked The World of Normal Boys and have recommended it to a few friends, who also enjoyed it. We are all familiar with the geographical setting and the time period of the novel, which made it more "real."

 

Although it's a few years old, I would also recommend Fool's Errand by Louis Bayard as an enjoyably sentimental gay novel.

[bigguyinpasadena]

I find Mann's "gay

books to be a bit of a bore.His Hollywood books are a little more interesting-but only because he is pretty good at researching old hollywood.

No one has written a truely great gay novel set in old hollywood yet,which is a shame because those were wild times,with wild folks do wicked things.

There was a book discussed on NPR which I would like to get.It is told from the view point of a servant(a gay man) in Gertrude Steins home-can't remember the name-had salt in the title also-Ring any bells ?

[Will]

Now I remember the title of Paul Russell's first novel: SEA OF TRANQUILITY. I've met him among friends, actually, and can say with confidence that if your ideal of a gay fiction writer is of a serious-minded, deeply intelligent and sensitive, kind and thoughtful, attractive professorial man in his (I would guess) early forties, you should know Paul Russell. I've also spent some social time with David Levitt and Andrew Holleran. David Levitt was charming but self-consciously a "star;" Andrew Holleran was simply "on." I thought him a patronizing bore whose talent was beneath the value he expected everybody else to place on it.

[Will]

AT SWIM TWO BOYS is a difficult read in the beginning because its diction is extraordinarily idiosyncratic. Once I got into the music of O'Neill's language, however, it sort of infiltrated the way I thought, in a marvelous way, as Gertrude Stein's style can do. While Stein might seem to many people today, as she did to most people in her lifetime, as a hopelessly self-indulgent and doctrinaire "modernist," her mind could cleave meanings out of words the way a diamond-cutter can find a jewel in a lump of mineral. How many people realize that one of the most famously innovative writers of the twentieth century is the author of everybody's favorite, "There was no there there."? One of the greatest joys, to me, of serious fiction is in the language itself. Most of the best books I've ever read were very difficult, for me, for the first hundred pages or so. Even WAR AND PEACE, which -- I'm embarrassed to say -- I almost couldn't put down. (Thus, it "ruined" my life for a few weeks, but fortunately I was on leave from my job!)

[Guest pshaw]

I am currently reading Brendan Lemon's Last Night and enjoying it immensely. The book is basically a letter (obviously a long one) written by an American on Cuba's death row to his 18-year-old Cuban lover chronicling their initial meeting and subsequent relationship. It sounds a bit iffy as I've described it, but it actually is quite well-written and very entertaining.

 

I agree with the positive comments about At Swim Two Boys. I truly had NO interest in any book set in Ireland, but read it at the recommendation of a friend and loved it.

[Trixie]

While they may not qualify as 2003's best fiction,

I can heartily recommend the two books I've recently read by Tobias Schneebaum, "Keep the River on Your Right", and "Where the Spirits Dwell". Both are memoirs written by a gay man who has travelled the world as a "freelance" anthropologist, and who has had the most amazing life I could imagine. What is most interesting (to me, anyway) is that he has investigated and participated in homosexual acts and bisexual relationships within "primitive cultures", namely Amazonian and New Guinean tribal groups. One might say he has a fetish for guys with bones through their noses, which may well be true. Even so, his accounts are well written (if a little over ponderous at times), engaging and very apt at measuring the balance between the "civilized" and "uncivilized" worlds. Fascinating reading, and even more so because it's real.

Trixie

[Will]

Thanks, Trixie. I knew about Schneebaum and had him on my (slipped-the-mind) list. But I didn't know he is gay. In any case, you've supplied for Rick what I've been trying to think of for two days, the titles of good non-fiction works. There are a couple, but I still haven't tracked down the authors and titles. Now that you've prompted me, though, I'll get to it today. Many thanks again.

[Rod Hagen]

Read the first chapter, in The James White Review, of Man About Town by Mark Merlis, and it's a nice blend, so far, of Gay life and the political scene.

[Guest Bitchboy]

A totally absorbing read is Michael Lowenthal's "Avoidance." This novel manages to work in pedophilia, summer camp, the Amish and innocence into a cohesive story that moves and frightens. He's an extremely talented wordsmith.

[Rod Hagen]

>A totally absorbing read is Michael Lowenthal's "Avoidance."

>This novel manages to work in pedophilia, summer camp, the

>Amish and innocence into a cohesive story that moves and

>frightens. He's an extremely talented wordsmith.

 

Oh, I read the first chapter of that in James White too, and it was GOOD.

 

-Hagen

[Guest Bitchboy]

>>A totally absorbing read is Michael Lowenthal's "Avoidance."

>

>>This novel manages to work in pedophilia, summer camp, the

>>Amish and innocence into a cohesive story that moves and

>>frightens. He's an extremely talented wordsmith.

>

>Oh, I read the first chapter of that in James White too, and

>it was GOOD.

>

>-Hagen

 

 

Read the rest of it, Rod. You won't be sorry.