Why Such a Strong Reaction? : Mary Jane Ward's Review of Fritz Peters' The World Next Door

TOP ROW: The World Next Door, New York : Farrar, Straus, 1949
with author, Fritz Peters. BOTTOM ROW: Author, Mary Jane Ward
and her novel, The Snake Pit, New York : Random House, 1946.

The World Next Door, Fritz Peters' freshman novel, was released on September 15, 1949 and was well received by the majority of reviewers. While some, particularly those from more conservative outlets, took issue with the gay aspect of the story, the consensus was that Fritz Peters had begun what could prove to be an extraordinary literary career.  In fact, the book's dustjacket highlighted advance praise from Jean Stafford, Eudora Welty and others.¹ When some of the country's top editors and columnists were asked in late 1949 about the best writers to have emerged in the post-war period, Fritz Peters was mentioned alongside other notables such as Norman Mailer, Carson McCullers, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and John Horne Burns, to name a few.²

Reviews of The World Next Door often referenced and compared it to Mary Jane Ward's landmark The Snake Pit from 1946 due to its focus on the patient experience within a psychiatric hospital. While some reviewers suggested that it held its own against the standard-bearer of psychiatric novels, others thought that it was in fact superior. When The New York Times Book Review published its review of The World Next Door penned by Ms. Ward it became the talk of the literary world.^{3, 4} It was much discussed because it was so out of step with the consensus view of the work. In order to understand the source of this scathing review, one must first try to understand Mary Jane Ward's experience publishing her own novel based on her stay in a psychiatric hospital.

Excerpt from Nightmare Revisited, Mary Jane Ward's
review of Fritz Peters' The World Next Door.⁴

The Snake Pit, based on the author's own experience in psychiatric care, was quite successful after it was published, becoming a Book of the Month Club selection, and by 1948 being made into a successful film starring Olivia de Havilland. But it didn't find its way to being published easily. Ms. Ward struggled to publish for some time before the Snake Pit was picked up. Once published, her work was praised by Karl Menninger of The Menninger Clinic and she embarked on speaking tours—engaging psychiatric professionals with the aim of improving equity of conditions and treatment for patients of all races and classes. Ward had a platform and was affecting significant change. 

For all of the issues that Ward hoped to change in psychiatric care, she saw those doctors and staff providing treatment as generally good people trying to do good work. Peters' novel provides insight into the male experience, and the experience at a military hospital in the post World War II years in particular—a very different situation than the one Ward described.

Unlike, Ms. Ward, Fritz Peters appeared to become an overnight success—blurbed by major authors and also drawing attention to the shortcomings of psychiatric care at that time. The World Next Door, based on Peters' own experience, sees its protagonist, David Mitchell admit during the course of his treatment that he had a previous homosexual experience. Because patient records were available to staff of all levels on the ward, it became common knowledge. This knowledge was used against him by ward staff, culminating in a sexual assault. But because the word of a psychiatric patient can't be trusted, his accusation wasn't believed by the doctors.

Did Mary Jane Ward simply not find plausible the idea of staff behaving in this way? Or did Ward find Peters' characterization of hospital staff as not only unfeeling but as potentially sexually predatory a threat to all of the work that she had done in recent years to improve the patient experience? Was this simply a case of sour grapes for Peters' writing in a genre that she had dominated? Or was it more about the relative ease with which the literary establishment welcomed Peters' work after Ward had struggled for years to get published?  Was his relative ease of being published down to sexism? One thing is for sure, Peters certainly struck a nerve.

Note

This post is meant to highlight an anomalous review of Fritz Peters' The World Next Door, while giving the reader a sense of how the book was generally received and what Peters' literary future was perceived to hold. Mary Jane Ward's The Snake Pit is an extraordinary work and remains a favorite of early Cold War era psychiatric novels. Both authors and their novels, which offer different perspectives on a common theme, are well worth a read.

¹  Bixbi, G. (1980, Win.). Blurbs: Welty on Fritz Peters. Eudora Welty Newsletter, 4(1), p.2-6

²  Babcock, F. (1950, Jan. 1). Among the Authors. Chicago Daily Tribune, p.F6.

³  Kilgallen, D. (1949, Nov. 3). Voice of Broadway. Olean Times-Herald (Olean, NY), p.18.

⁴  Ward, M. J. (1949, Sept. 18). Nightmare Revisited. New York Times Book Review, p.6.

The Magician by Colm Toibin

New York : Scribner, 2021

Like The Master before it, Toibin has centered his novel on an important literary figure. The Master gave us Henry James; The Magician presents Thomas Mann.

Opening in 1891 in Lübeck, Germany with a 16 year old Thomas, spanning sixty years, and ending in 1950 Los Angeles, Toibin presents Thomas' life in detail. Thomas publishes Buddenbrooks and Death in Venice to much acclaim, before World War I. The interwar years are complicated for Thomas with both his brother Heinrich and his children Klaus and Erika becoming quite vocal politically. With the rise of Hitler and the Mann's exile to Switzerland, Thomas doesn't feel that he can speak out against the Nazis—in part because he wants his books to remain in print in Germany, which he still considers home. His decision to remain mostly silent allowed him to continue to sell his works and support his family in an increasingly polarized world.

A particularly strong moment in the novel happens around Thomas' request that his son who is still in Germany retrieve his journals from the safe in their home and send them to Thomas in Switzerland. For a period, the journals are lost and Thomas' concern manifests itself in a flashback based on an entry in the journals that makes clear Thomas' homosexuality. This section provides the strongest sense of what Thomas Mann may have been feeling, while the rest of the novel seems to be solely focused on what happened next.

While many reviewers contend that the novel is about Thomas Mann's secret sexuality, it actually plays a minor role. The focus of the novel is the day-to-day life of Thomas and his family, how they survive the social and political upheaval of the time, and how Thomas' decisions about what to say publicly (or not say publicly) allowed the family to survive World War II. 

Stylistically, The Magician is a novel, but structurally it reads like biography. In this way, I think the adherence to a linear chronological structure with chapters titled by location and year, doesn't allow the reader to learn much about Thomas Mann, the man. While reading, I wondered if a novel structured more specifically around the fear of the Nazis obtaining his journals and flashing back to various experiences through his life documented in the journals might have allowed the reader to have a sense of what Thomas felt about his own life and sexuality, or what or how he felt about his children's sexuality, three of whom would be considered part of the LGBTQ community today.

The End of My Life by Vance Bourjaily

New York : Scribner's, 1947

Published the same year as John Horne Burns' The Gallery, The End of My Life is also a novel about World War II and its effects on the men who served. Bourjaily's narrative is structured around four young men who aren't in the military but instead join up with an ambulance crew for the British military in Syria and Lebanon before the U.S. had joined the war. Each has his own reasons for serving, running toward something, running away from something, or simply trying to understand how to live in a world that is seemingly falling apart.

Freak is the most 'normal guy' of the bunch and has joined the ambulance crew to do his part after failing to pass the medical exam for entry into the military. Benny, a Jewish communist understands the importance of the war and what it means for the future of the world, but particularly the future of the Jewish people and himself. Rod is a night club musician who doesn't stay in one place for long and doesn't seem to make lasting connections.  Finally, Skinner Galt is the main character through whose eyes we see the action of the novel and feel the struggle of the characters.

Homosexuality is frankly acknowledged by all of the characters and it is understood that there are plenty of gay men in the military. Although it happens away from the action of the novel, Rod's relationship with one of the gay men in the ambulance outfit is offered in all its complexity. Rod isn't comfortable with what it means for him, particularly what it means for his mental health but at the same time he describes his feelings as love. So while the characters follow the gayness as illness paradigm of the time, they are also allowing for the relationship to be based on an emotional connection, not simply a physical or sexual one.

At its core, this novel is an exploration of what it means to be human. We like to think that we are all acting as individuals so what we do only affects ourselves. We don't like to acknowledge that our collective actions reflect on humanity as a whole. In Skinner's case, he doesn't get to separate himself from the consequences of war just because he drove an ambulance instead of firing a gun. As Benny points out toward the end of the novel, no human being is an exception to humanity.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (IV); Garde (P, 117***); Mattachine Review (IV); Young (3259*)

Bibliographies & Ratings II: Gunn (American 37b); Levin (69); Slide (7)

The Charioteer by Mary Renault

New York : Pantheon, 1959

First published by Longman (London) in 1953, Mary Renault's US publisher at the time would not release The Charioteer due to its frank depiction of homosexuality and its message that gay men could have a life together. Finally released in 1959, the dustjacket labels it a 'contemporary novel' since her first two novels set in ancient Greece (The Last of the Wine and The King Must Die) had already been released in the US to great success.

At its core, The Charioteer is a coming of age novel in which gay men must find their way in the world  during World War II, a time when nothing seems sure. In particular it focuses on the transition from the school/university years—which have been interrupted by the war—to adult life with the world falling apart and both everything and nothing seem possible. 

The opening chapter explains Laurie's early life with his mother while the second chapter places our characters in a classic boarding school with its expected overly close relationships and crushes. With this grounding, we come to the present time. Recuperating from his injuries at Dunkirk, Laurie is in hospital having had numerous surgeries to try to correct his leg injury. He knows that he is gay and more completely accepts his gayness inside his own head (or when high on pain mediation). Outwardly he is more guarded and flies under the radar. 

When a group of conscientious objectors are given duties at the hospital, Laurie immediately is drawn to, and befriends Andrew, a Quaker. They spend a lot of time together and develop real feelings for one another. The problem is that Laurie isn't sure Andrew understands the nature of these feelings. He keeps them to himself in order to protect what he perceives as Andrew's innocence and his chance to be 'normal.'

After meeting a fellow member of the military in town and realizing that they know someone in common, Laurie is invited to what amounts to a gay house party. The party is quite full of drama, but he does meet again after many years, Ralph, the boy he had a crush on in school and who was sent down after a sexual scandal. After a rocky reconnection, they begin forging a friendship and his feelings are rekindled. Laurie finds that he loves both Ralph and Andrew and doesn't really know how to reconcile his feelings or come to a conclusion about what is possible for his life as a gay man. 

Renault portrays gay life from an insider's perspective, being more frank and honest about the variety of gay men than would have been common at the time. While at the party, Laurie contemplates his feelings about the life he is witnessing. He struggles with wanting a real life, not a frivolous one as he perceives the ones around him. 

"After some years of muddled thinking on the subject, he suddenly saw quite clearly what it was he had been running away from; why he had refused Sandy's first invitation, and what the trouble had been with Charles. It was also the trouble, he perceived, with nine-tenths of the people here tonight. They were specialists. They had not merely accepted their limitations, as Laurie was ready to accept his, loyal to his humanity if not to his sex, and bringing an extra humility to the hard study of human experience. They had identified themselves with their limitations; they were making a career of them. they had turned from all other reality, and curled up in them snugly, as in a womb." (p.132)

Later when Laurie contemplates how to live in this gay world, he identifies a break we still too often see today between effeminate gay men and those who pass. 

"There was a man at Oxford. ... He kept telling me I was queer, and I'd never heard it called that before and didn't like it. The word, I mean. Shutting you away, somehow; roping you off with a lot of people you don't feel much in common with, half of whom hate the other half anyway, and just keep together so that they can lean up against each other for support." (p.152-3)

 Renault has offered up a compelling coming of age novel which frankly addresses the realities and difficulties of forging a life as a gay man in England in the 1940s. 

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (IV); Garde (P, 117***); Mattachine Review (IV); Young (3259*)

The Vanishing Sky by L. Annette Binder

London : New York : Bloomsbury, 2020

Set in 1945, The Vanishing Sky tells the story of the Huber family and small town life in Germany during the waning years of the war. The story unfolds in alternating chapters from the perspective of the mother, Etta and the youngest son, Georg. 

Etta is determined to get her husband and both of her sons through the war at all costs—it is her sole focus. Her older son, Max, has just returned from the war and she recognizes that something isn't right with him, something that we would now recognize as post-traumatic stress disorder. While Max spends his days unsuccessfully running from the battlefield horrors that have imprinted on his mind, Joseph, his father, seems only encouraged by the dubious news stories of Germany's success. While struggling with signs of dementia, he still has a certain nostalgia for his own years fighting in the first world war and is determined to fight in this war now that the old and the young are being called upon to serve. 

Georg, an overweight bookish boy, is nearly 200 miles away at a Hitler Youth school. He is trying to hold on and avoid the inevitable day when he reaches the age of sixteen and will be sent to fight. He sees what happens to those who flee. While there he discovers he has feelings for one of the other boys, Müller. They become close friends but Georg knows that the reality of their relationship must be kept secret. 

An excellent writer can create psychological atmosphere—a way of projecting an emotion or feeling onto the reader related to the events of the novel and the internal dialogue and emotional state of the characters themselves. Binder's strength in this regard is her ability to convey the overwhelming sense of dread and the sense of inevitability among the characters in a small village in Germany near the end of World War II. That dread doesn't simply come from the reader's knowledge of how a novel set in this time and place is going to end. It comes from reading the lived experience and the inner dialogue of the characters that the author has created. It is compelling and creates a natural empathy for their plight.

Binder's Hitler Youth School and the Schools of Classic Boarding School Novels : Some Parallels

One would not normally think a novel such as this would have any relationship to classic English boarding school novels of the early twentieth century, but the parallels couldn't be more clear. The culture and activities at the Hitler Youth school are not so different than those of the schools in classic English boarding school novels of the time. There is a general veneration of those students who came before and went off to war, a focus on physical prowess—in this case in war games instead of cricket, and the classic close friendship.

The focus of the Hitler Youth school was not one of academics. One might not call it a school at all given that it served primarily as a military training camp for teens. The school in a traditional English boarding school novel would teach students Latin, Greek, math, etc.—subjects that Georg shows an unusual interest in. In an English boarding school, those who went to war were venerated because of the selfless act of choosing to go to war. The teens at the Hitler Youth school had little choice about attending the school and upon reaching the age of sixteen would be required to join the military ranks.

The traditional English boarding school activities such cricket competitions have been transformed in the Hitler Youth school to weapons competitions, physical training, digging trenches and building defensive walls—basic skills needed to function in a world of war.

Maybe the most important aspect of the classic boarding school novel is the overly close relationship between two of the boys. It is suggested that Georg's closeness with Müller is not invisible to the other boys, but they know that it needs to remain hidden from the adults. The love between these two characters is presented in a similar way as the great loves of boarding school novels, really quite chaste in character, but certainly real in their own hearts.

Binder has done an amazing job of merging genres by mixing elements of the classic boarding school novel with an historical fiction that turns what we think of as a World War II story on its head. 

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Boston : Little, Brown and Company, 1945

Opening during World War II, Captain Charles Ryder's British military unit relocating in the middle of the night. Upon waking he learns that they are now stationed at Brideshead, a large family estate that has been repurposed for the war effort. What follows is Ryder's memories of Brideshead and the Flyte family who lived there and whom he came to know during the interwar years. This is a fascinating time when large estates are in dire financial situations and many can no longer be supported. Extreme social changes are also underway after the end of the first world war. 

Charles meets Sebastian Flyte while at university and begins to spend more time with him and his small group of friends including Anthony Blanche, a flamboyant and open gay man who may be either Spanish or Italian, as this is not completely clear in the text. As many of the circle of friends move away, Charles and Sebastian become even more inseparable. It's clear that Charles has strong feelings for him and is honest with himself about them.

Sebastian invites Charles to spend time with him at Brideshead but seems intent on keeping his family distant, planning visits when he knows family will be away. Sebastian seems to be most himself away from his family who have opinions about what he should do and how he should live. When Charles does finally meet Sebastian's family, the magic in their relationship begins to disappear and the relationship with Sebastian becomes contentious. Sebastian's fears are realized when Charles works with Sebastian's mother to control his behavior. 

Brian Christian de Claiborne Howard
John Banting (British, 1902-1971)

Brideshead Revisited is a classic of gay literature and this is most likely tied to the character of Anthony Blanche. Evelyn Waugh attended university with Brian Howard and it is said that Anthony Blanche is largely based on him. Howard was said to be brilliant and funny but in the end didn't accomplish much in his short literary career. Like Blanche, Howard was openly gay and made no secret about his life. There is a nice write up of Brian Howard's life including his appearance as Anthony Blanche in Brideshead at The Esoteric Curiosa.

What may be overshadowed by the more obvious gayness of Blanche is the less obvious love between Charles and Sebastian. It's a quieter relationship that doesn't announce itself as much as it just exists. Later in the novel, when Charles is speaking with Julia, Sebastian's sister, he acknowledges that his first love was Sebastian and really that his subsequent marriage did not compare to that first  love. Even as Charles attempts to form a relationship with Julia, one wonders if it's simply a more socially acceptable relationship that would allow him to feel closer to Sebastian in some way.

Throughout the novel there are themes of love, family, religion (Catholicism) and duty. The Flyte family is so encompassing that any individual relationship is controlled by the family itself. This is why Sebastian feared introducing Charles to the family because 'they would win him over to their side.' While some members of the Flyte family are more devout than others, in the end the Catholicism of the family wins out in nearly every decision and interaction. One can't truly escape one's family and religion. Even Charles who holds strong anti-religious feelings and often has arguments with members of the Flyte family, in the end learns something and is changed by the family's religious devotion. 

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (II); Garde (OTP, a**); Mattachine Review (III); Young (4022)

The Prince's Boy by Paul Bailey

New York: Bloomsbury, 2014

Written in form of a memoir in 1967, The Prince's Boy tells the story of Dinu Grigorescu's life of the past forty years in Bucharest, Paris and London.

Razvan Popescu, a Romanian peasant boy of 11 whose father is deceased and whose mother is struggling with many children, is adopted away from his difficult home situation by a Romanian prince around the turn of the 20th century. The prince hires the best tutors who educate Razvan in literature and the arts. When they relocate to Paris, this boy of peasant ancestry begins to operate in society and is known as the prince's boy. After the prince’s death, Razvan inherits an apartment but is forced to provide sexual favors for cash.

In 1927, Dinu Grigorescu is sent to Paris by his wealthy father to become a great author or poet—to experience la vie de Boheme, but mainly to help him move on from his mother’s death 5 years earlier. While there, he is drawn to the Bains du Ballon d'Alsace, a notorious establishment where men of a certain class can procure sexual services that are a bit more out of the ordinary. It is here that Dinu meets Honore (Razvan), who supplies these services. Immediately becoming something much more than sex worker and client, and feeling a strong connection through their mutual Romanian ancestry, they fall in love.

Covering the forty years after their initial meeting, Dinu relays the internal struggle to form a permanent relationship with Razvan against the backdrop of the beginnings of obvious anti-semitism in Romania, Romania's alliance with the Nazis, and all of the social changes that come with the horrors of World War II. As an aesthete, Dinu's life is more influenced by literature and the arts. The work of Marcel Proust plays an important role in his life and how he sees the world. His close relationship with his own mother meant he connected easily to Marcel's relationship with his. As well, the work of Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu is a major influence.

Told in very plain language, this is a melancholy work. Dinu describes himself as "Romanian by birth, French by choice, and English by accident."  He really seems to be a man out of time and place, a man heartbroken by the past and unable to move into the future.

Out of Sickness by John Paignton (John S. Barrington)

London : Neville Woodbury Limited, 1950

As the novel opens in 1939, David, an extremely handsome young Englishman, has just inherited the estate of a Frenchmen who has committed suicide in Cannes. Wanting to study art and having been supported by the Frenchman in his studies, he was now free to travel and do as he wished. Searching for love, he falls in and out of relationships with both men and women finally culminating in marriage. When that sours and he is nearly out of money, he travels by ship to America partly to avoid the encroaching war in Europe but also to avoid his feelings around his failed marriage.

When he returns to Britain the war is in full effect and much has changed. Everyone is doing what is necessary to get by, including members of his family. One of his brothers is being kept by a rich man and his sister falls into prostitution. The underworld of bohemians, queers and black market racketeers in the West End of London that we would normally associate with the period between the wars continues unaffected even once the horrors of the Blitz begin.

Acting as a stretcher bearer for the A.R.P (Air Raid Precautions), David helps to rescue those trapped in bombed buildings. While there is tremendous fear, misery, and death all around, everyone is also in search of someone to love. David goes from one person to another, searching for that special one but it always ends in disaster and disappointment. While he has liaisons with both men and women and at one point in the novel refers to himself as bisexual, his search for love is always directed towards women.

Portrait of John S. Barrington
by Angus McBean

'Like the houses that were collapsing suddenly, completely, irrevocably, human beings were also falling to pieces, their values changing ; some mental canker was destroying happiness.'

The end of the war finds David without funds and his decision to hustle to make ends meet appears to bring his search for love to an end.

The content of the novel is based on actual experience. According to the dustjacket, 'the author spent ten years living this novel, and five years writing it.'  John Paignton was the pseudonym of John S. Barrington. Barrington is better known for his photographs of physique models published during the 1950s and 60s. After the war, he managed to get some of his earlier photos into physique magazines of the time and also started advertising at magazine kiosks in London. That's how he met Neville Woodbury, an artist and collector. Woodbury would later start an imprint that published a handful of books. In exchange for photography lessons and models supplied by Barrington he produced both Out of Sickness (with Barrington's original cover art signed 'J.S.B.') published under the Paignton moniker, and Art and Anatomy published under Barrington's actual name.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Young (2960)

The Evenings : A Winter's Tale by Gerard Reve

London : Pushkin Press, 2017

"It was still dark, in the early morning hours of the twenty-second of December 1946..."

The Evenings (De Avonden in the original Dutch) was  published in 1947 when the author was just shy of 24 years old. It describes the final 10 evenings of 1946 in suburban Amsterdam from the perspective of  23-year-old Frits van Egters. The focus, as the title suggests, is on the evenings. The days are largely ignored as Frits is at work, a job that he describes as follows:

"I work in an office. I take cards out of a file. Once I have taken them out, I put them back in again. That is it."

Frits lives with his parents and spends much of his time avoiding the simmering conflict between them. He spends time with friends and seems to want a real connection with others but instinctively sabotages the possibility through his use of caustic humor. Others aren't sure how to interpret the humor, some ignore it, others join in.

While it isn't a perfect analogy, there's something of a Holden Caulfield in Frits, something of a lost soul wondering through town trying to find himself and avoiding his own feelings. While others seem to be getting back to some semblance of normal after World War II, Frits seems lost.

The Evenings isn't a gay novel per se, but Frits' interaction with the petty criminal Maurits offers the slightest suggestion that Maurits is gay and maybe that's part of why Frits puts the most effort into avoiding him throughout the novel. As well, the general feeling of being out of place that is so present in the novel speaks strongly to the gay experience.

Queer Saint : The Cultured Life of Peter Watson by Adrian Clark & Jeremy Dronfield

London : John Blake Publishing Ltd., 2015

I recently found this on my shelf. I purchased it in late 2015 but had put it aside. I should never have waited so long to read it! Clark and Dronfield have crafted an amazing biography that I read as voraciously as an intensely plotted novel. It includes everybody who was anybody of the time.

After Peter Watson finished at Eton, and having significant wealth, he traveled in Europe and the Americas, mostly with Cecil Beaton. Theirs was a solid friendship but Cecil always hoped for more. In the years leading up to World War II, like most gay artists and writers in Europe, Peter spent time in Berlin with the boys in the clubs à la Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories.

He had a home in Paris with an extensive art collection, including a particularly risqué work by Pavel Tchelitchew titled Bathers. The central nude figure seen from behind and below was modeled on Charles Henri Ford, best known for his novel written with Parker Tyler, The Young and the Evil. With the invasion of Paris by the Nazis, Peter was forced to flee and his art eventually fell victim to Nazi plunder.

Having returned to Britain for the duration of the war, Peter started a new literary and arts journal called Horizon. with Cyril Connolly and Stephen Spender. It became well known for promoting works by British artists and writers at a time when the country really needed it. Horizon was also a particularly important vehicle for promoting George Orwell and his essays on politics and the war.

After the war, Peter focused on British artists, particularly young up-and-coming ones, helping to launch the careers of Francis Bacon, John Craxton, and Lucian Freud, among others. He supported many artists with homes, studios and living expenses well into their careers. He was also instrumental and doggedly devoted to the creation of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.

The artists he was supporting weren't the only young men he supported. He had a long-standing romantic relationship with the now infamous Denham Fouts as well as Waldemar Hanson and Norman Fowler who was with Peter at the time of his mysterious death by drowning.

Peter Watson appeared as a character in two dishy novels, Lord Berners' The Girls of Radcliff Hall published in a private edition in 1932 where all of the characters are based on gay men but appear as lesbians in an all girls boarding school, and Michael Nelson's 1958 novel A Room in Chelsea Square originally published anonymously and taking aim at the relationships around Horizon (Peter Watson, Cyril Connolly, and Stephen Spender).

The Barriers Between by Marc Brandel

New York : Dial Press, 1949

The Barriers Between is an intense Freudian novel focused on three Americans living and working in Mexico. Jordan Bushnel is a troubled artist providing art and illustration for magazines in the U.S. His love interest is Sylvia. The final member of the love triangle is fellow artist, Richard Slater, whom Sylvia attempted to bed in the past but is now just a friend (who also happens to be gay).

The novel opens with Jordan on the run and declares his culpability in the murder of Richard two days earlier. Told through flashback, what follows is a description of the events of those two days that reveals much about Jordan's state of mind. Why did he snap?

Both Richard and Sylvia think that Jordan might be gay. Jordan can't explain his attraction to Richard but doesn't interpret it as homosexual interest (although others do). Richard frequently launches subtle barbs suggesting something about Jordan's sexuality.

A significant amount of the dialogue is given over to Jordan's inner conversations in which we learn about his feelings of inadequacy as regards his role in the war. Unable to serve due to a medical condition, he sees his work as an artist-correspondent lacking in masculine credibility. Richard's service as a pilot during the war and his comfort with being gay is a challenge to Jordan's view of himself in the world. Jordan traces his feelings back to the events of his childhood including the stereotypical overbearing mother and emasculated father.

Marc Brandel (1919-1994)
Author of The Barriers Between

The first half ends when the tension between Richard and Jordan comes to a head.  Can Jordan use his internal dialogue or self-psychoanalysis to break the barriers between and reveal his true self?

"It wasn't safe to think any longer. His mind was too tired for evasion, too weary now to divert into conventional thought or fantasy the true cause of his turbulent feelings. He knew the truth about himself now. He was loathsome, utterly vile, without any qualification. But he didn't want sympathy or pity. They needn't be afraid that he was going to break down and ask for help. He was strong enough to take care of himself. He could live the rest of his life with himself, with the secret knowledge of his own vileness, carefully, deliberately, in silence, without ever showing by word or change of expression the hidden torment inside him . . . " (p.96-7)


Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (III); Garde (OTP, a**); Mattachine Review (III); Young (426 *)

The Single Twin by Robert C. Ray

New York : Comet Press, 1959

The novel opens on a wintry Chicago night in the late 1950s outside an art gallery on Michigan Avenue. The owner is always afraid that he has forgotten to lock the door upon leaving. On this night he has and a stranger slowly takes in the images on the walls and comes to rest on the one titled, The Single Twin. The artist receives a letter from a high school friend and the novel then shifts into a lengthy flashback beginning in the spring of 1940 and continuing through the United States' entry into World War II.

Three students nearing graduation in Summitville, IN are in a love triangle. Artistic, Sam, whose parents died when he was young, lives with his grandmother and is gay. (It's his gallery show that opens the novel.) Velma lives with her mother, with whom she battles on a daily basis. Her father abandoned them when she was young. Velma's boyfriend, Ramon is a gypsy from the wrong side of the tracks and also has a very close relationship with Sam. Ramon wants to marry Velma to please his father and Velma needs to get married because she is pregnant by another man. After the wedding, this secret quickly causes the rapid destruction of the marriage.

Robert C. Ray (b. 1926)
Author of The Single Twin

Written very much in the style of sensational novels of the 1950s, it has a bit of everything: a lounge singer, secret pregnancies, interracial relationships, abandoned babies, a hermaphrodite, prostitution, a gay man, a mental hospital, alcoholism and incest. The storylines resolve a little too neatly, especially given the geographic coverage (small-town Indiana, St. Louis, Louisville, Louisiana and Europe during the war years). Even if it is a little too perfect, it's still a page turner. The Single Twin was either a very small print run or was published by what used to be termed a vanity press. Only four libraries whose holdings are in WorldCat have a copy, and other than the copy I read, there do not appear to be any copies for sale online.

Robert C. Ray was born in Elwood, Indiana in 1926, attended the John Herron  Art Institute after high school and is a professional painter and an interior decorator.

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)

Gay Berlin by Robert Beachy

New York : Knopf, 2014

I don't often read non-fiction, however when I saw this title I was immediately hooked. Not exactly linear, it reads more like a collection of essays on various aspects of gay life in Berlin from the mid-1800s and stopping just short of Hitler taking power, with particular focus on the Wiemar years.

We think of the gay rights movement as it relates to the Stonewall riots but multiple organizations in Berlin were fighting for gay rights (particularly the repeal of Paragraph 175) years before. Then as now, the philosophies of these organizations were not monolithic. As well, they included members who ranged from the most liberal to the most conservative (including members of the far right Nazi Party).

It is a complicated history with strong connections to both the youth group movement and male prostitution. Along the way Beachy makes the connections to many literary works, some of which are well known ... some not so much. Isherwood and Auden spent time in Berlin as has been widely read about in Isherwood's Berlin Stories and more truthfully in Christopher and His Kind. I'll definitely want to track down the diaries, autobiographies and thinly veiled autobiographical novels from others of the time. A short list of literary works available in German at the time (André Gide's Immoralist (1902), Herman Bang's Mikaël (1904), Mikhail Kuzmin's Wings (1906)) will also make for some interesting reading. Maybe less well known are the gay silent films of the era and I'm really looking forward to exploring those.

This is a fascinating read. Let us hope that we need not wait too long for the next installment from Mr. Beachy covering gay life under Hitler.

The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother and Me by Sofka Zinovieff

New York : Harper, 2015

Lord Berners (Gerald) met Robert Heber-Percy, the Mad Boy, in the early 1930s and they were soon living together at Faringdon House. Long before de-criminalization, this was a brave act indeed. While still living with Gerald during World War II, Robert married Jennifer Fry, the author's grandmother and soon had a baby on the way. 

Filled with such luminaries as Igor Stravinsky, Evelyn Waugh, Cecil Beaton, and Gertrude Stein, Ms. Zinovieff has written a moving biography of Faringdon House through the lives of its residents and visitors. Endlessly fascinating, this is an amazing account of the lives of British society and artists from around the world. 

It also must be said that the physical production of this book is outstanding. Printed on heavy stock with archival photographs throughout, it is a pleasure to hold in the hand and an obvious labor of love for the author. 

The Captain by Russell Thacher

New York : Macmillan, 1951
Dustjacket: John O'Hara Cosgrove II

The Captain (actually a Lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve) is in charge of an LST (Landing Ship, Tank) and tasked with delivering Marines and their equipment to the deadly beach of Kia Orta on the Pacific front during World War II. He's not what you would call regular military. He doesn't do things by the book, but does what's necessary to get things done and protect the men in his charge. This doesn't sit well with top brass leading the invasion force.

In the middle of preparing for this assault on the Japanese,  he must also deal with a number of issues among his crew. From the near mutinous behavior of his engine crew to an African-American steward, Buck, whose skills are better used on deck with artillery, but isn't accepted by the other men due to his race.

Central to the story is an ongoing relationship between Gunnery Officer, Gilchrist, who after receiving a dear john letter develops a close relationship with Espisito, the Bosun's Mate. The relationship is already a challenge due to the difference in rank, but is doubly problematic for the captain since it becomes a topic of gossip among everyone on board. Stories of reciting poetry (Whitman) and spending time together in dark corners of the ship make it impossible for the Captain to ignore.

The Captain was well received when it was published in 1951. It's fascinating that the gay storyline is present throughout the book but is summarily ignored by reviewers of the time.


Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (III); Garde (OTP, a, **); Mattachine Review (III); Young (3768)

All Things Human by Stuart Benton (George Sylvester Viereck)

New York: Sheridan House, 1949

Viereck is probably more well known for his  autobiographical pulp, Men Into Beasts which detailed his imprisonment from 1942 to 1947 for his Nazi sympathies and his work as a correspondent for a Nazi publication.

All Things Human is the story of Stuart Kent, a banker in Midmetropolis, who ends up on the wrong side of a powerful politician. The day after he has sex with his secretary, he is arrested for her murder. His lawyer is more interested in Kent's wife than he is in defending him.

It's a bit sensational and trashy but at the same time shows the fluidity of sexuality, in and out of prison. It's about having everything, losing it all and finding yourself in the process.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (III); Garde (OTP, a, **); Mattachine Review (III); Young (260)

Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 by Francine Prose

New York: Harper, 2014

Primarily the story of Lou Villars, a French athlete, race car driver, butch lesbian, and in the end a collaborator with the Nazis, Prose's novel begins in the mid 1920s and continues through World War II and the liberation of France. At the center of the story is the Chameleon Club, a cabaret in Paris where our diverse characters first meet and the famous photograph that provides the book's title is taken.

Brassai
Lesbian Couple at
The Monocle, 1932

The novel is told by turns through the letters of Gabor Tsenyi (based on Brassai), a Hungarian photographer who documents the underbelly of Paris as it moves toward the German occupation, the memoirs of Lily de Rossignol (a baroness married to a gay man) who surrounds herself with artists and art, the writings of Lionel Maine (Henry Miller), a controversial American writer and a present day biography of Lou Villars herself.

Although much of the novel's action is revealed on the dust jacket, there remain a few surprises. It's an insanely well-written, smart novel that had me vacillating between reading quickly to find out what happens next and reading slowly because I didn't want it to end.