Self Portrait by John Craxton

Self Portrait (1946-47)
John Craxton (English, 1922-2009)
Oil on paper
32.3 x 23.2 cm (12.75 x 9.125 in)

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)

Untitled (Hand in Pocket) by Andy Warhol

Untitled (Hand in Pocket) (c1956)
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Ballpoint pen on paper
16 3/4 x 13 3/4 in.

McCaffery by Charles Gorham

New York : The Dial Press, 1961

16-year-old Vincent McCaffery has grown up in the Irish-Catholic immigrant enclave of Yorkville on the upper east side of Manhattan. After his mother's death, for which he rightly blames his father, Vincent is lost. He's not old enough to take a 'real job' but is uninterested in the kinds of work that a boy might do. His friend Conny suggests a way for them to get some easy money — something he heard from his older brother who serves in the navy. 'What we oughta do is roll a faggot.'

What starts off as a simple way to get money — pick up a queer in the park and then when things get serious, knock him out with a rock and take his wallet — quickly escalates when Vincent finds that he enjoys beating the filthy queers. One can read Vincent's animus against gay men as coming out of his self-hatred and doubt related to his own sexuality. When they are picked up by the police, Vincent is only encouraged when the queer refuses to press charges. When the police warn McCaffery and Conny to stay out of the park, Conny ends his participation in the scam. Vincent is undaunted.

When he is later picked up by a man in a Cadillac who seems to know all about him, he is given an opportunity to make money under his protection. He is unsure he wants to commit to prostituting himself to both men and women but when he discovers his father forcing his aunt to have sex with him in much the same way he had forced his wife (leading to the pregnancy that killed her), he attacks him with a kitchen knife and leaves his childhood home forever.  He quickly moves into Easy Tiger's place in the Village and begins his new life. Although he is making money and living in comfortable surroundings he soon realizes that he has sacrificed his autonomy and all of his power to make his own choices.

While the gay characters of this novel are not central or well developed, the larger questions around blackmail, what would later be known as gay-bashing, and exploitation of teenage boys for prostitution are central. This is a dark story of money, power and poverty.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Young (1543)

Now & Then by William Corlett

London : Abacus, 1996, ©1995

Revealed in alternating chapters taking place in 1990s London and Kent and in 1960s public school, Corlett tells the story of Christopher Metcalfe. After his father dies, he returns to the family home in Kent and while there, he finds the box of his school things that his father had saved. The picture of Stephen Walker, two years his senior, with whom he shared an intense relationship starts him on a journey to discover what really happened and where Stephen is now.

The chapters taking place at school in the 1960s hearken back to classic boarding school novels of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There is a focus on sport, and an emphasis on the classic structures of prefects using (or abusing) their power over younger boys. And like those classic stories there is an unsanctioned, too-close relationship between a prefect and one of the younger boys. Unlike those classic romances, they share far more than a chaste kiss. In fact, one is reminded of the scene in Peyrefitte's Les amitiés particulières when the relationship is bonded over the sharing of blood — only in the case of Stephen and Christopher, it's a different bodily fluid.

Christopher never got over losing Stephen all those years ago, and in many ways the pain of that event seems to have prevented him from moving on. Neither his family nor his closest friend knows anything about his romantic life or even whether or not he is gay. He has walled that part of himself off. His search for Stephen forces uncomfortable conversations with his family and brings him in contact with others from school who share their knowledge of events all those years ago that Christopher never knew. How much do his memories reflect what really happened? This is Christopher coming to terms with the love of his life — a love, that at the time was impossible, not to mention illegal.

Portrait of Mefody Lukjanov by Konstantin Somov

Portrait of Mefody Lukjanov (1918)
Konstantin Somov (Russian, 1869-1939)
Oil on canvas
Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Mefody Lukjanov was the artists lover from 1910-1932.

The Stringed Lute : An Evocation in Dialogue of Oscar Wilde by John Furnell

London : Rider and Company, 1955

Beginning in 1891 when Oscar Wilde first meets Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas, the author recounts their relationship in the form of a play. Even before their relationship began, there were those within society who took issue with Oscar's writing, specifically The Picture of Dorian Gray. The relationship was a particular problem for Bosie's father, the Marquess of Queensbury whom Wilde sued for libel for calling him a homosexual.

The Stringed Lute is a play within a play as it begins and ends with the author in his apartment in the former home of Oscar Wilde. Furnell makes use of Wilde's own writings to create an authenticity to the dialogue. The first part focusing on the relationship with Lord Alfred draws most heavily from The Picture of Dorian Gray. The final part, taking place after his release from prison, draws most heavily from De Profundis.

The action of the play truly humanizes Wilde and presents him as a martyr of sorts; a Christ-like figure willing to be sacrificed for the cause. Furnell only alludes to the trials and the time in prison is skipped in its entirety. The effects of the imprisonment, however are seen in the subsequent years in France and briefly in Naples with Lord Alfred. Wilde died in poverty in Paris in 1900 surrounded by friends who had supported him through everything.

The Stringed Lute as well as The Trials of Oscar Wilde by H. Montgomery Hyde formed the basis of the 1960 movie.  While Hyde's text fills in the details of the trials, unfortunately much of what makes The Stringed Lute so appealing doesn't appear in the film.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (IV); Garde (P, 138 **); Mattachine Review (IV); Young (1345 *)