Revelation by Andre Birabeau

New York : Viking, 1930

Published in French as La Débauche in what was likely a limited edition in 1923 and followed by a 1924 edition from Flammarion, Revelation is a novel written in the modernist style. The familial and romantic relationships are presented through a Freudian lens, while the bulk of the novel is presented through the internal dialogue of its main character.

Madame Mathilde Casseneuil's husband Jean is a reporter who travels extensively and is rarely home in Paris. Mathilde's primary relationship then is with their son, Dominique. Dominique has recently taken a job with a motorcar company in Avignon and his mother has struggled with the distance now between them.

When Madame Casseneuil receives a telegram notifying her of Dominque's death in a car accident, she rushes to Avignon. She arrives at Dominique's apartment where the landlady and an unnamed gentleman recommend she not look at her son because of the damage from the car accident. The man takes her to a hotel where she can rest. The following day, while going through her son's rooms, she sees for the first time the things he surrounded himself with; a yellow silk kimono, a few pictures including a reproduction of a nude statue of Apollo, a cigarette holder. In his desk, she discovers a packet of love letters that she at first assumes are from a girl. Upon closer inspection, she realizes they are from a man and is horrified.

The remainder of the story largely takes place in Madame Casseneuil's mind as she remembers events in Dominique's life and tries to understand how her memories of him can be reconciled with what she now knows. She still thinks of her son as an innocent; not as a sexual being. Her sometimes lengthy internal dialogues are punctuated with intrusions of the present time emphasizing her sense of loss and her fumbling through the days trying to make sense of it all.

This English translation of La Debauche was performed by Lady Una Troubridge, a British sculptor and translator who is probably best known as the partner of Radclyffe Hall, author of the famous lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness (1928).

While the UK edition of Revelation (London : Victor Gollancz, 1930) was issued with a serviceable binding and the yellow paper dustjacket typical of Gollancz publications, one must draw attention to the luxe presentation by Viking Press. The deco inspired dustjacket art and corresponding binding is paired with thick cotton-heavy pages. While Revelation is a fascinating early story of a mother coming to terms with her son's homosexuality, the book itself is also a beautiful literary object.


Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (IV); Garde (P 38**); Mattachine Review (IV); Young (284*)

Portrait of Felix Mueller by Raoul Hausmann

Portrait of Felix Mueller (1920)
Raoul Hausmann (Austrian, 1886-1971)
Drawing
38.8 x 34.3 cm.
Musée National d'Art Moderne - Centre Georges Pompidou

Nature's Way by Herman Wouk

New York : Doubleday, 1958

Herman Wouk is most known for his military novels set during World War II; 1951's The Caine Mutiny, 1971's The Winds of War and 1978's War and Remembrance. While less remembered, he also published both plays and comic works.

Nature's Way is a comic play in two acts that premiered October 16, 1957 at the Coronet Theatre in New York.  Newlyweds Billy and Maggie Turk are living extravagantly off of the success of Billy's first musical and they are expecting their first child. Everyone seems to want a piece of their success. When their accountant announces a miscalculation in their taxes and that they will owe an additional $50,000, they don't know how they will pay it.

Vivian Voles, Billy's creative partner, suggests he and Billy spend a few months in Venice writing the next big show. With the right investors, Billy can get the money to pay off the tax debt. Maggie isn't a fan of Vivian, nor of his plan. It's clear that Maggie believes that Vivian is trying to break the couple apart. What isn't clear is whether she believes his motive is his own romantic interest in Billy.

Set in the theater world, there is both acknowledgement and a sense that we don't talk about Vivian's sexuality. The mild comments come from Maggie and her mother, Mrs. Fawcett, who aren't from that world. The humor in the play is even handed and doesn't make a clown of Vivian's character. In fact the humor is at everyones expense.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (II); Garde (OTP b*); Mattachine Review (III); Young (4235)

Manikins by Paul Cadmus

Manikins (1951)
Paul Cadmus (American, 1904-1999)
Egg tempera on paper
13 x 16 in.
Private Collection

On Swift Horses by Shannon Pufahl

New York : Riverhead Books, 2019

Set in 1957, On Swift Horses tells the story of two people and the internal struggle between following society's expectations or following their hearts. Muriel, originally from Kansas but now in San Diego with her new husband Lee, struggles to maintain her marriage while also fulfilling her true desires. A new found talent for horse betting provides her more options. Julius who recently served in the navy during the Korean War with his brother Lee, also struggles to find his way. Being a gambler and hustler he must navigate the tough world of gambling establishments and also the complicated and dangerous gay world of the time.

Pufahl's achingly good prose draws the reader into an intensely emotional world where the characters must make difficult decisions in order to survive; often telling lies to those they love as well as to themselves. Taking place in the newly forming suburbs of San Diego, Las Vegas and Tijuana, the characters are running both toward and away from aspects of their lives while in search of their true selves.

References to cinema of the time, especially as it relates to sex and gender presentation (ie. the western, Shane and the Marlene Dietrich film Morocco), provide a movie-like quality where the reader truly feels the story. As well, the space race, particularly the successful launch of Sputnik, and general imagery of the stars is used to speak of the future and the impossibility of keeping secrets when satellites see all that we do. The beginnings of a surveillance state are upon us.

Although underplayed by the author, the massive social changes that occurred post World War II in the United States play a crucial part in the characters lived experience. During World War II, women were needed in the workforce for the war effort and a certain amount of freedom came from that. After the war ended, expectations changed. What women were supposed to want and the roles they played were in many ways not up for discussion. Muriel's mother was able to live a life of her own making. Her daughter now finds herself with fewer perceived choices than her mother had.

The McCarthy hearings brought significant attention to gay men as a social problem. One of the characters in the book actually says that without Joseph McCarthy, most Americans wouldn't know about fairies and reds. By the time the Korean War had ended, whatever freedom gay men and lesbians felt in their invisibility, they were now receiving substantial societal pushback; and everyone, not just those in big cities, were now aware of their existence. Julius was living a life both as a gambler and a gay man where he was always in physical danger as well as danger of societal judgement should he be discovered.

Langston Hughes by Winold Reiss

Langston Hughes (1927)
Winold Reiss (American, 1886-1953)
Pastel on illustration board
54.9 x 76.3 cm.
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

The New Negro : The Life of Alain Locke by Jefferey C. Stewart

New York : Oxford University Press, 2018

2018 National Book Award
2019 Pulitzer Prize

Alain Locke was born into a Black Victorian family in Philadelphia in 1885. Stewart masterfully lays out the complexity of Locke's life through which he must balance his desire to be a successful black intellectual with his gayness.

After completing his education at Harvard where he was generally accepted, Locke has his first serious experience with racism while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford when the scholars from the southern United States refuse to board in the same college as him and intentionally leave him out of group activities. Locke does make some friends though and escapes to mainland Europe, to Paris and Berlin, where his race is not an issue and he is free to explore his sexuality in a more open environment. His escape however proves detrimental to his scholarship and he fails to receive his degree from Oxford.

With the idea of completing his studies in Berlin, he asks his mother (with whom he maintained a close relationship) to join him there. When Archduke Ferdinand is shot, the Germans close the border and they are temporarily trapped. Although U.S. officials do work to evacuate them, due to their race, they are not a high priority. Once back in America, he takes a teaching position at Howard, but quickly realizes that without a PhD he won't achieve the standing and influence he desires. While on leave from Howard he completes his doctorate at Harvard. By this time, with the election of Woodrow Wilson—the first southern president elected since Reconstruction—race becomes more of a problem for Locke, particularly with segregated housing districts.

After completing his PhD, Locke decides to vacation in Europe and while visiting Berlin during the Weimar era, takes in some of the Modernist theater of the time. This presentation in the arts of the lives that the artists are living resonates with Locke and was a confirmation of the sort of artistic movement he envisioned for black Americans; what we would later know at the Harlem Renaissance.

Locke had been friends with several writers that are now known as part of the Harlem Renaissance; Claude McKay and Jean Toomer in particular. McKay frequently introduces Locke to new young writers, particularly young men, whom Locke encourages and mentors to a degree. The Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP, served as the primary outlet for these writers' work but simply accepted or denied work for publication instead of bringing new writers along with the sort of encouragement that Locke felt was necessary to create a movement. This was personal for Locke since he had experienced this himself with articles he submitted to the publication that didn't get him the attention from the editor that he felt he deserved.

By the time Locke returns from a trip to Europe and Egypt in 1924, Robert Kerlin has released Negro Poets and Their Poems in connection with The Opportunity, the publication of the National Urban League. This was the kind of thing that Locke had envisioned, a vehicle to promote the new writing in this movement of black writers. Charles Johnson, the editor at The Opportunity, like Locke, saw the connection between European modernism and African American poetry and theater and hoped to promote the arts within the pages of the magazine.

'The Harlem Number'
Survey Graphic : March 1925

When Johnson invited Locke to join a small literary group that met regularly at the offices of The Opportunity it changed everything. He would later be asked to be master of ceremonies at a dinner meeting that would bring together young black writers, race leaders and white custodians of American Culture in hopes of creating a common language to talk about young writers telling the stories of the black experience in America. Johnson dubbed Locke the dean of this new arts movement, no doubt a reference to his position at Howard and his strong desire to promote African American arts and literature.

While Locke emphasized his vision for this new movement at the dinner, he emphasizes the importance of leaving old forms behind, thus alienating some the attendees. Jessie Redmon Fauset was the literary editor at The Crisis and had herself just published a novel in the style that Locke had so easily dismissed. Locke underestimated the power of Fauset and The Crisis in general however. The following day, newspaper articles describing the event omitted Johnson and Locke entirely, focusing primarily on Fauset and her new novel.

Although the dinner didn't get Locke and Johnson the sort of publicity they hoped, Paul U. Kellogg, the editor of Survey Graphic was in attendance and this led to the next opportunity for them to promote their envisioned movement. Each issue of the magazine focused deeply on a topic and Locke suggested to Kellogg the idea of an African American issue focused on the arts and featuring commentary from leading voices. Locke acted as silent editor of what would be later known as the Harlem Number. While it was a success at promoting the movement, Locke's involvement continued to be out of view.

Before the Harlem Number was published however, there were already thoughts of expanding the concept into a larger work. Albert Boni had recently started a publishing house with his brother and inquired about republishing the content of the magazine with new material in book form, also edited by Locke. This would become The New Negro: An Interpretation, published in 1925 and solidified Locke's critical role in promoting the authors and writings of what we now know as the Harlem Renaissance.