cultural lacuna
Excerpts from the introduction of The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered
“I took my first steps out of the closet in bookstores and libraries. Tentatively, I touched chipped and creased paperbacks and discovered books that let me know I was not alone. Before I knew who the gay authors were, or at least the usually prescribed volumes, I intuited from coded titles, from the allure of certain book covers, the stories that I soon made mine. These literary wanderings were as splendid as they were haphazard. The more I read the more I craved. And I wanted a conversation, a dialogue, a list of gay books that gay writers adored and championed. Novels and stories and characters that changed readers’ lives, woke them to their rights and futures and destinies and lovers. Books that cried to be passed down from one man to the next, hand to hand, with whispers of sincerity, “you have to read this.” Books that were used, re-read, bookmarked, dog-eared, highlighted, footnoted, forgotten, spines broken, out-of-print, history. Gay literary history. These books whisper back, “Remember what you felt the first time you found me?”
….After I started sketching out novels and sheepishly submitting short stories and attending book readings I met other gay writers. Inevitably, we would recommend texts to one another. Time and time again, I was struck by how often the novels and short story collections that I was breathlessly urged to read were then just as speedily lamented as out-of-print and hard to find. Worse, I surprised myself when recommending relatively recent titles only to find that the book I deemed so important, so solidly valuable, was already remaindered. Often I ended up buying multiple copies of these favorites whenever I stumbled across them, storing them like talismans to push hopefully on fresh converts. Of course I read some brilliant gay books that continue to stay in print, have won awards, and have been adopted into a gay canon, but I was increasingly curious as to whether they represented the whole of gay literature; were these titles the genuine pinnacle? So many of the books that came up in conversation embodied a diversity and history that was either pre-Stonewall or went far beyond the available urban story. The current canon does not make room for campy pulp paperbacks from the fifties and sixties, so unrepresentative of our current lives yet so important as historical documents and, in their day, as proof of our very existence.
Serious pioneer texts from these periods and even earlier have been obscured by more forward, modern works. Transformative novels were lost as the dark and dangerous eighties were consumed by the heady nineties. Yet contemporary novels can have a fleeting existence within the current multiplication of medias and the technological rapidity with which art is delivered and consumed. A cultural lacuna has opened, one that needs arresting. So I dug deeper. I sifted for more fiction in non-fiction books like Michael Bronski’s Pulp Friction and Gregory Woods’ A History of Gay Literature (both writers accepted invitations to contribute to this collection). I researched small presses come and gone. I made lists of obscure or forgotten titles and rushed to the Strand bookstore to comb the stacks on my lunch break. What I also required, though, was for the conversation to continue. I wanted to hear what books mattered, from writers I liked and knew or wanted to know. I wanted a gay version of Anthony Burgess’ 99 Great Novels but from a multitude of voices, different generations and ethnicities and backgrounds -meaning this wasn’t a book I wanted to write, but one I wanted to read.
This project was and is completely organic. When I decided to embark upon this anthology, I simply looked at my bookshelf and e-mailed the authors I had recently read and the writers I knew personally. Of those who were immediately struck by a title and author they wanted to write about (and I do mean immediate; I rarely had to wait more than a day before I received an enthusiastic response) I then asked “Can you think of anyone else who might be interested?” And they did. So straight away I let the contributors drive this project. They even suggested the title.
While waiting to collect their essays, I gathered the books they were writing about and in doing so decided that this anthology should be organized alphabetically by author covered, to best honor and illuminate these writers whose work deserves our attention, reconsideration, and possibly a place, once again, in the realm of the printed and read. I envisioned this collection as more of a round table; writers discussing, defending, remembering and explaining favorite out-of-print gay books or forgotten titles. As I read these books I was constantly surprised. I certainly did not expect to discover a book concerning a gay teen published in 1969, much less a second gay young adult novel from that period. The searing epistolary Vietnam War-era novel that was too hot to read in public; books about a gay black detective and a Roman Emperor’s marriage to his favorite gladiator. These stories spanned centuries and took me from Rome to Boston, Capri to New Orleans, South Africa to Canada, Lebanon to Franco Spain, from the Golden Gate to Times Square. These are the books that challenged young minds, shaped careers, and saved lives.
…Books about books are a rare species, special tomes for writers and book lovers. More than an affirmation of taste, a book about books is often a spirited celebration and sincere investigation. Quickly coveted, it remains on that particular shelf, guarded and revered, and eventually slips out of print. What good company we will keep then, among a library lost, only momentarily invisible, waiting patiently to be found again.”