Leading Men by Christopher Castellani

New York : Viking, 2019

Tennessee Williams notes in his diary that he was invited to a party in Portifino by Truman Capote in late July 1953. The following week lacks entries and there is no subsequent mention of whether he attended the party.

Christopher Castellani has created a fiction that supposes that he did attend that party and what might have happened. The result, primarily told from the point of view of Williams’ secretary and lover, Frank Merlo, includes a who’s who of American gay authors living abroad. John Horne Burns, the now largely forgotten author of The Gallery, is a significant character, while Capote and Paul Bowles appear in more limited roles. In addition the completely fictionalized actress, Anja Blomgren, is added to the mix.

Being told from the point of view of Frank Merlo, highlights the ways in which Williams and Burns struggle with the pressure of fame and its fleeting nature while also drawing attention to the extent to which these authors rely on their secretaries/lovers to manage their lives. Their dependence is clear to the reader, but it is unclear if the authors recognize it.

Williams used many of his life experiences, particularly with family in his plays and short stories. Knowing this, Castelllani cleverly creates a life story for the character of Anja that explains events in Williams’ work that doesn't obviously connect to what we know of his life. In a gutsy move, a previously unknown final play by Tennessee Williams is created by Castellani and connected to events in the later years of Williams’ life. His use of fictionalized characters and events woven into the work in much the same way Williams might have done results in an impressive novel which mostly doesn’t feel like a novel at all.