The Mail Boat by Alexander Randolph

London : Heinemann, 1954

Told through a series of twenty-four letters, The Mail Boat is the story of Martha Baker and Oscar Tower's meeting in Rome at a bar catering to artistic people (read gay) on the Via Babuino, their relationship, and their subsequent time together on a tiny Tyrrhenian island where Oscar plans to work on his next novel. The mail boat that stops twice a week at the island anchors the activities of daily life.

Oscar corresponds with his friend Andrew (André) MaCloy, initially in Paris and later in Venice. Martha writes to her mother, Olga Baker and Janet Picard, a friend in New York, as well as Thomas Purdon, a former love interest and a professor at Yale. The recipient of the letter seems to determine the level of candor about the happenings on the island and Martha and Oscar's relationship.

Martha is deeply in love with Oscar and certainly has plans for their future. Oscar is much cooler and more casual about the relationship. He enjoys spending time with Martha but tends to ignore Martha when she suggests a more committed situation. Oscar is also distracted by a 13-year-old boy named Mario, the most beautiful of the local boys, with whom he would much rather spend his time. Martha is incensed at being ignored in favor of this street kid but also knows Oscar isn't really that way because he isn't effeminate at all. While Oscar won't admit it, even to himself, Martha is very clear in her understanding of Oscar's relationship with Mario, even going as far as telling Thomas in her letter that if Oscar would "just do something with the boy...it would be over in no time at all." (p.87)

Oscar's nature, although seemingly invisible to himself, is made clear by the author when friends visit from America, a literary agent and his 'esthetic' boy friend who plays tennis. In Martha's letter describing the visit and the dinner, she says, "They argued about a French poet who sounds like rainbow," (p.76) clearly a reference to Rimbaud. Later in passing, she also mentions that Oscar was wearing a black turtleneck sweater, which belonged to Martha.

Randolph is a bit coy in describing the island as Tyrrhenian. About half way through the book, when Martha is describing the day she and Oscar went to see the lighthouse, the description, while not a perfect match, comes very close to describing the Punta Carena Lighthouse on Capri. Given the long history of gay artists and authors on Capri and their relationships with the teenage locals, it seems fitting that Randolph would suggest this location. 

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (IV); Garde (OTP, c**); Mattachine Review (IV); Young (3197)

Ercole e Lica by Antonio Canova

Ercole e Lica (1795-1815)
Antonio Canova (Italian, 1757-1822)
Marble

BACKGROUND:
Spoglia d’oro su spine d’acacia2002)
Giuseppe Penone (Italian, 1947-    )
Acacia thorns and gold leaf on silk canvas

Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome
Photo: E. Neagle, 23 October 2016

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.

The Gemlike Flame by Louis Auchincloss

Venice: Under the Rialto Bridge (1909)
John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925)
Watercolor
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The Gemlike Flame originally appeared in New World Writing, 3rd Mentor Selection (1953) and was subsequently issued in the short story collection, The Romantic Egoists (Houghton Mifflin, 1954). This story highlights the struggle between a 1950s understanding of a male-male relationship and an earlier, more chaste understanding such as appears in Edward Prime-Stevenson's Imre: A Memorandum (originally published under the pseudonym, Xavier Mayne in Naples, Italy, 1906) or The Strange Confession of Monsieur Montcairn (published anonymously, 1928).

The story opens in Venice as Peter Wescott is visiting his slightly older expat cousin, Clarence McClintock. Clarence summers in Venice each year and is described as 'impossibly choosy in his acquaintance'. More interested in the art and culture of Italy, he has no interest in making friends among the Italians or the visiting Americans. He has a particular distaste for "the artists and writers whom he regarded with chaste suspicion as people of unorthodox sexual appetite who had come to the funny land of love in search of tolerance that was not to be found in the justly censorious places of their origin." (Romantic Egoists, p.183)

When Peter introduces Clarence to his friend, Neddy Bane, they immediately hit it off. Neddy, an irresponsible, boyish-looking artist plans to return to New York after running out of money, but when Clarence offers to move him into his apartment, he stays. Clarence offers order and discipline to Neddy, sending him off each morning to sketch and then providing a place to paint each afternoon. Peter immediately understands what's in it for Neddy but when he asks what's in it for Clarence, Clarence replies, "Well if you don't see that, Peter, what do you see? It's what I have always waited for." (Romantic Egoists, p194)

When Clarence's mother, Maud Dash, arrives from New York for the Lorisan Ball, she asks Peter about Clarence's 'boyfriend'. It soon becomes apparent that there is no clear consensus on the nature of Clarence and Neddy's relationship.


Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (I); Garde (OTP, c); Mattachine Review (I); Young (132)

The Medici Boy by John L'Heureux

New York : Astor + Blue, 2013

Florence during the Renaissance had a significant homosexual culture built around age-structured relationships. To discourage this behavior, in 1432 the city formed Gli Ufficio della Notte (Officers of the Night), to prosecute cases against those involved. By 1502, when it was dissolved, an estimated 12,500 men had been charged in this court with an estimated 2500 convictions for sodomy. Although serious penalties were available by law (forced castration, being burning at the stake), most convictions from this court resulted in a fine.

Against this historical backdrop, John L'Heureux weaves together Donatello's creation of his famous bronze David and the political intrigue surrounding the battle between the Medici and Albizzi families. Told from the point of view of Luca Mattei, an assistant in his workshop, it is the story of Donatello's passion for his model (and part time prostitute), Agnolo, who frequently finds himself on the wrong side of the Officers of the Night. Donatello's friend and patron Cosimo de'Medici can use his power to assist, but when Rinaldo degli Albizzi gains the upper hand in their battle, who will help Agnolo?

The Gallery by John Horne Burns

New York : Harper & Brothers, 1947

The emotional center of Burns' first novel is the Galleria Umberto,  August 1944. At the heart of Naples, with it's bombed out skylights, it is the gathering place for Allied soldiers and Neapolitans trying to survive.

Named The Saturday Review of Literature's best war book of the year, The Gallery is organized into a series of portraits showing the experience of the average person in occupied Naples. 

The Gallery reads as a collection of short stories built around a place in time. Momma (the fifth portrait) is often included on lists of pre-Stonewall literature due to it's overt gay content. The owner of the bar where gays, and to a lesser degree, lesbians gather is owned by an Italian woman, they affectionately call Momma. What's unique about the story is that it incorporates all types and the fact that everyone is gay doesn't mean that there isn't overt racism and xenophobia among the soldiers for which Naples is not home. 

It would be a mistake, however, to read Momma as a standalone piece, since it's power resides in it's inclusion within the larger work. The Gallery paints a picture, not of The Greatest Generation, but of soldiers who bring their own prejudices to a situation they never wanted to be in.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (IV [Momma]); Garde (Primary, *** [Momma]); Mattachine Review (IV [Momma]); Young (522)