Tony Peregrin

When asked to describe the secret of writing good fiction, openly gay author Armistead Maupin, best known for his much beloved "Tales of the City" novel series, answers the question the way many writers answer such questions -- by telling a story.

"I think the moral for writers is to tell your darkest secrets, and you'll find out they're shared by a lot of other people," says Maupin in the new book, "Gay Fiction Speaks: Conversations with Gay Novelists." "My sister told me a story about her mother-in-law, who used to wear a bag over her head when she saw her gynecologist. The idea was that if she did not see him, she would not be compromised. I got fixated on this bag. Was it the same bag every time? I used it in "Maybe the Moon" and read it out at public meetings, where it always got a big laugh. When I got to Raleigh, North Carolina, my hometown, I realized at the last minute that my sister and her mother-in-law were in the audience. I took a deep breath and went ahead. Afterwards, I asked my sister how it had gone. She said her mother-in-law had just leaned over and said: 'See, somebody else does that too!' My theory about fiction is that we read it to see if somebody else does it too."

The realization that "somebody else does that too" is exactly the kind of reaction that most contemporary gay authors strive for, and not just from their devoted homosexual readers. The question is, do the growing number of novels displayed under the lavender-tinged banner of "gay fiction" have what it takes to inspire that pang of emotional identification for a heterosexual readership? Or do most heterosexual readers pass by bookstore shelves marked "gay literature," with bags over their heads to avoid being compromised by a genre that many consider to be too sexual or controversial?

In "Gay Fiction Speaks: Conversations with Gay Novelists," Sheffield University professor Richard Canning presents twelve informal interviews -- or "conversations," as Canning prefers to call them -- with prominent gay male writers in an attempt to answer these and other questions lurking in the minds of gay authors, the publishers who market their books and the booksellers who sell them.

The Lavender Shelf
In his interview, Maupin says that he resents when his books are restricted to the gay/lesbian section in bookstores because that may limit their accessibility to heterosexual readers. He claims his books should also be featured on the shelves in general fiction, a feeling shared by many of Maupin's colleagues.

"Armistead has very strong views about not being marginalized, as he sees it, by being shelved separately in bookstores under 'gay and lesbian fiction,' and I very much see his point," observes Canning. "All the writers I interviewed had no problem about the label 'gay' but a lot were much more uncertain about the label 'gay writer' or even 'writer of gay fiction.' This relates to the question of the relevance of gay people, their lives and experiences to the wider culture. [I think] it's essentially homophobic when their books are seen as implicitly of marginal interest because of gay themes."

"Of course authors such as Maupin should insist that their books not be limited to the gay and lesbian shelf," agrees Dr. John D'Emilio, a professor of History and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. D'Emilio, who is on the advisory board of editors for Columbia University Press -- the publisher of "Gay Fiction Speaks" -- says he understands the frustration associated with being labeled a "gay writer," because he is often refered to as a "gay historian."

"I write about U.S. history," explains the openly gay D'Emilio. "No writer, especially a gay writer, wants to be pigeonholed. No writer wants to be confined to small, specific audience. But you know, forty years ago to be called a 'gay writer' was a form of outright dismissal, and fortunately, that is no longer the case."

D'Emilio says gay writers are in a precarious situation: They want to be recognized beyond the boundaries of the label "gay writer," but they also want to foster a sense of identity for the gay community by being called "gay writers" who are shelved in the "gay" section.

"I understand the frustration of authors who are only shelved in the gay section," says Owen Keehnen, who for thirteen years has been a top bookseller at Unabridged Books, one of the city's -- and the country's -- leading gay bookstores. "But it's the readers who have to break down those boundaries of gay and straight novels, not the booksellers. Where a book is shelved is not necessarily going to make a difference if someone refuses to read a book with gay content," says Keehnen, who claims that more than half of his customers are heterosexual.

"Additionally, there may be gay authors who say that straight people would be reading certain material, but frankly, some of that material just doesn't have crossover appeal," opines Keehnen, who points to Maupin's latest offering, "The Night Listener," as a book, that because of its sexual themes, did not attract a strong heterosexual readership.

Getting into Bed with Gay Fiction
However disturbing the sexual themes in "The Night Listener" may be to some readers, they pale in comparison to the more demonstrative depictions of anonymous sex, unsafe sex or multiple-partner sex that can be located in many selections of contemporary gay literature. In his interview with author David Leavitt ("The Lost Language of Cranes," "Family Dancing" and "The Page Turner"), Canning asks "Do you feel there's an inappropriate pressure on gay writers to prioritize the sexual, to insist on the centrality of sex, sexuality and sexual expression to characters?" Leavitt, and several of his colleagues, emphatically acknowledges the existence of this pressure, which could explain the high degree of erotic sexual expression that is so common in contemporary gay literature.

"My main complaint about most gay writers today is that very few are serious," says Leavitt, referring to the fact that many established gay authors have also dabbled in gay erotica or have contributed to anthologies showcasing gay eroticism. The question is, does this kind of writing -- which Leavitt deems less than serious -- work to further alienate heterosexual readers from books labeled as "gay fiction"? Even if the book is not classified under the polite heading of "eroticism," and is a work geared towards mainstream readers -- yet contains man-on-man sex scenes -- will the straight reader be willing to get into bed with the book?

Canning points out that if an author like Edmund White creates a character that has unsafe sex, it doesn't mean that he is advocating that behavior, even though he will inevitably be accused of doing precisely that.

"All too often critics and readers... assume that novelists share the views or support the behavior of their protagonists. I can see why White or any writer would tire of having their work viewed in this way," says Canning.

"Fiction writers invariably only create when they follow their hunches, abandon notions of what must be, in-or-out or what line is politically acceptable."

"Sex is just another form of experience," offers Keehnen. "Again, I think it's completely up to the individual reader to decide if the sex works with the book. I don't know if the straight world is ready to digest gay sex scenes en masse. But, I know for gay men, they like to read things that reaffirm their life."

"Pornography and erotica can mean many different things," explains D'Emilio. "I do know that they have been very vital to the creation of the gay consciousness, especially the soft-core pulp novels of the sixties. No, they were not great literature. We're not talking Shakespeare here, we're not even talking Oscar Wilde here. But if the work matters to people, if it affects them, reaffirms their impulses and unites them as a community, then it serves a purpose."

Ground Zero
"Ground Zero" is what author Andrew Holleran ("Dancer from the Dance," Nights in Aruba," "Ground Zero") famously called the core, or epicenter, of the AIDS epidemic. Some writers argue that AIDS was ground zero for contemporary gay male fiction, that it reshaped its themes and characters to such an extent that gay literature would forever be rooted in the emotional turbulence associated with this illness. As Canning sees it, "There aren't many contemporary experiences of gay life which aren't affected by AIDS." He compares the affect of AIDS on gay writers to the impact of the civil rights movement on African-American authors in the sixties and beyond.

But unlike those African-American authors of the sixties, some critics point out that AIDS has generated an overabundance of AIDS-related fiction, much of which is generally considered sub-standard.

"I know this will sound harsh, but in the context of AIDS literature, everyone in the world thinks their story's interesting," says Leavitt during his interview. "AIDS has made writers out of many people who wouldn't have been writers otherwise, or its given mediocre writers a sense of being better than they actually are."

"It's so hard to write a book -- any book -- that I'd rather not carp, generally, especially if a book has brought pleasure to other readers," responds Canning. "Having said that, like Leavitt, I'm keen not to abandon aesthetic standards too, and have done my share of critical reviewing in the British papers. But... with AIDS the matter is complicated by the rather confessional culture that we live in, and in this respect, David has a point. Nevertheless, one should always remember the hostility that publishers have towards AIDS-themed books of all kinds, which notoriously don't sell... it's a pretty committed publisher who goes with an AIDS-related title in the first place."

"Sure, I agree with Leavitt's comment," says Keehnen. "But you have to remember, in the beginning there was a great need to read a lot about the pandemic. So, some things did get published that probably wouldn't have under normal circumstances. Many times the intent was just to get the voices out there, to spread knowledge and to gather sympathy.

"But today readers have shifted their attention to other areas," continues Keehnen. "Now everyone wants to find a boyfriend, so they are reading books like 'How to Find the Boyfriend Within' or other titles like it. Self-help books are very popular, as are books on maintaining gay relationships."

As for the future of gay fiction, Keehnen predicts that its popularity will continue to rise. "As a bookseller it is already becoming more difficult to tell where to shelve a book... the divisions between gay and straight fiction are constantly being blurred. That wasn't always the case, of course, but now its pretty hard to find a book that doesn't have at least one gay character," he says, only half-joking.

Books where the division between gay and straight fiction have blurred include Jane Hamilton's "Short History of a Prince," Michael Chabon's "Mysteries of Pittsburgh," and most recently, Michael Cunningham's "The Hours," which won the Pulitzer Prize last year. All of these titles, with their fusion of gay and straight characters and themes, have managed to attract a wide spectrum of readers of all sexual persuasions. How'd they do it? Of course Hamilton, Chabon and Cunningham are excellent writers, but, more than that, their success is due to their ability to recognize what all readers want: to finish a story, close the book with a satisfying thud and think, "See, somebody else does that, too!"

Gay Fiction Speaks: Conversations with Gay Novelists
Richard Canning
Columbia University Press, 352 PAGES, $49.50 (2001-03-01)

Also by Tony Peregrin

GREAT SEXPECTATIONS
I rushed up to the TV screen to get a closer look, ignoring my friends who were yelling at me to get my perverted ass out of the way. And there, bathed in the blue glow of the screen, I became reacquainted with every nook and cranny of my ex-boyfriend.
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COLD COMFORT
The Blues and the Pinks cast snide, sidelong glances at me, one of the few yellow cardholders who dared to be punctual. None of the yellow-bellies make it into the studio. We stand there looking like dateless adolescents at a high school dance, until the audience coordinator offers to let us view the taping through a monitor.
(2001-01-18)

BROTHER'S KEEPER
Trotting out a dysfunctional childhood and crazy siblings for contemporary readers to ooh and aah over, like an adult version of show-and-tell, is anything but new. However, Bottoms' narrative manages to explore new terrain by offering an adolescent male point of view, one complicated by the thorny, competitive relationship that exist between brothers.
(2000-12-14)

GOLDEN NUGGET
No matter where the stories in Thisbe Nissen's "Out of the Girls' Room and Into the Night" take the reader -- from Grateful Dead shows to sick rooms to bright Manhattan vestibules -- the air is always moist with hidden, steamy desire, as if desire itself were an unnamed character lurking in each of the collection's scenes.
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BLOODLETTING
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GAY CHICAGO
(2000-09-21)

MANIFEST "DENSITY"
(2000-09-21)

TRUTH ACHE
(2000-08-24)

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