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)

Rough Trade by Arthur Lett-Haines

Rough Trade (1935)
Arthur Lett-Haines (English, 1894-1978)
Watercolor and crayon on paper
26.7 x 21.6 cm.

 

Sojourn Among Shadows by Murrell Edmunds

Caldwell, ID : Caxton, 1936

Sojourn Among Shadows opens with a young man in a park listening to live music. He is soon joined by a stranger, an older man, who eventually gets his attention and has a story to tell. He claims the story is not about himself, but he uses the first person just for the ease of the telling. They meet in the park over the course of several days as he relays his story. 

The story's young protagonist grows up the son of a preacher who is less than godly in his behavior. His mother dies and he is rescued from his abusive father by his uncle, Tom. Uncle Tom feels it important to get him away from his father but doesn't see himself as a person fit for him to be with. The boy's father often argued with his wife regarding Uncle Tom's 'degeneracy' and she would point out that it was his god that had created Uncle Tom. Hoping to protect the young man from his 'vagabond life', Uncle Tom places him with a family only to later learn that he has seen the truth of the world even in isolation.

The novel is complicated by the author's decision not to provide names for most of the characters. Some characters are eventually named, but names are offered as an aside after the bulk of the action involving them has passed. The only character that from the start is given a name is Uncle Tom, and this is maybe not completely surprising. Edmunds tackled controversial issues in his life and in his writings, having been a strong voice against Jim Crow laws. Written in the form of a fable, this novel, while not a true defense of homosexuality, does argue all humans are born as their creator intended. Using the name Uncle Tom for one of his characters and also making that character gay may be a way of showing a connection between the challenges faced by both blacks and gays.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Young (1135)

Atlas by Karl Sterrer

Atlas (1910)
Karl Sterrer (Austrian, 1885-1972)

Bibliographies of Gay Literature II

In 2014, I posted about a handful of early 20th century bibliographies of gay literature, covering novels, short stories, plays and in some cases biography and biographical fiction. Those publications not only tried to provide a list of titles but also described them through various ratings systems to declare the extent of the gay content and/or the nature of the content. A number of other bibliographies that are more descriptive in nature, and focus exclusively on the novel have also been published and are presented here. A single work focused entirely on plays has also been included as it can be thought of as the third part in a mammoth undertaking covering British Commonwealth and American novels and plays by Drewey Wayne Gunn.  This batch of bibliographies focus more on thumbnail sketches, and in some cases more lengthy analysis, of the storyline as opposed to boiling things down to a single rating. Using resources from both groups of bibliographies together can provide a more complete picture of an individual novel or play.

Indianapolis : Bobbs-Merrill, 1977

Playing the Game : The Homosexual Novel in America
Austen, Roger
Indianapolis : Bobbs-Merrill, 1977

Austen provides information about the publications he covers in a prose style as opposed to a list. Structured into chapters covering chronological segments of history, novel storylines are discussed and played off of one another. 

•  The Dim Past (1870-1929)

•  The Thirties

•  The Forties

•  The Fifties

•  Since 1960

The Selected Bibliography (1870-1965) offered at the end of the text provides a quick list of the titles covered in the preceding chapters. 

New York : Garland, 1991

The Gay Novel in America
Levin, James
New York: Garland Publishing, 1991

Structurally, Levin's The Gay Novel in America owes much to Austen's 1977 work. Also structured into prose chapters covering segments of literary history, but more fully fleshing out the earliest literature, Levin also pushes forward to the 1980s.

•  Locked in Victoria's Closet

•  Butterflies, Pansies, Twilight Men, and Strange Brothers

    —The Novel Between the Wars

•  Postwar Permissiveness: 1946-1950

•  Homosexuality in the Freudian Fifties

•  The Sixties: Time of Transition

•  Politics, Power, and Pride

•  The Enigmatic Eighties

The Notes section at the end of each chapter also serves as a quick list of titles discussed within the chapter.

New York : Harrington Park Press, 2003

Lost Gay Novels : A Reference Guide to Fifty Works from the First Half of the Twentieth Century

Slide, Anthony

New York : Harrington Park Press, 2003

Slide offers a narrower list of titles, limiting the bibliography to fifty, but provides a lengthy entry of 3-5 pages for each title. Major storylines and themes are discussed as well as providing biographical information on the authors. Titles are listed in alphabetical order by author but an appendix also provides the titles and authors in chronological order. Some of the commentary on the relative literary quality is a bit harsh towards the works discussed, but the value of the remaining content is not diminished. One can certainly argue how truly lost some of these titles are but highlighting those that may be known to some of us is of benefit to all who are interested in gay novels from the early 20th century.

Jefferson, NC : McFarland, 2014

Gay Novels of Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth, 1881-1981 : A Reader's Guide

Gunn, Drewey Wayne

Jefferson, NC : McFarland, 2014

Gunn's British Commonwealth bibliography, covering one hundred years, consists of numbered entries arranged in chronological order from 1881 to 1981, marking the end of the pre-AIDS era.  Many entries cover multiple titles and are grouped in one of two ways ; multiple titles published within a short time-frame with a common element or theme or multiple titles by the same author covering a longer time frame. Short biographical entries are provided for many authors. A postscript provides a general sketch of politics and publishing after 1981.

Jefferson, NC : McFarland, 2016

Gay American Novels, 1870-1970 : A Reader's Guide

Gunn, Drewey Wayne

Jefferson, NC : McFarland, 2016

Gunn's American bibliography, covering one hundred years, consists of numbered entries arranged in chronological order from 1870 to 1970, marking the end of the pre-Stonewall era.  Many entries cover multiple titles and are grouped in one of two ways ; multiple titles published within a short time-frame with a common element or theme or multiple titles by the same author covering a longer time frame. Short biographical entries are provided for many authors. A postscript provides a sketch of major works from 1971-1981, ending where his British Commonwealth bibliography does, at the end of the pre-AIDS era.

Jefferson, NC : McFarland, 2017

For the Gay Stage : A Guide to 456 Plays, Aristophanes to Peter Gill

Gunn, Drewey Wayne

Jefferson, NC : McFarland, 2017

Gunn's bibliography of plays covers a the huge time period from the 5th century BCE through 2014. Consistent with his earlier bibliographies for British Commonwealth and American novels, numbered entries are arranged in chronological order and provide the play's storyline and information about production history.  Play entries have been grouped into the following chapters opening with a brief list of major gay historical or cultural events from the period. 

•  Pre-Modern, 5th c. BCE-18th c. CE

•  Early Modern, 1881-1943

•  Post-World War II, 1945-1969

•  Post-Stonewall, 1970-1981

•  AIDS, 1982-1989

•  Early Nineties, 1990-1994

•  Pre-Millennium, 1995-2000

•  Early Contemporary, 2001-2007

•  Recent Contemporary, 2008-2014

The East Window by Edward Brian Seago

The East Window (1944)
Edward Brian Seago (English, 1910-1974)
Oil on hardboard
48.8 x 37 cm
Norfolk Museums Service

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*)