Gay Male Fiction Since Stonewall: Ideology, Conflict, and Aesthetics

241 Pages·2008·2.146 MB·English

by  Brookes, Les

Gay Male Fiction
Since Stonewall
The confl ict between assimilationism and radicalism that has riven gay cul-
ture since Stonewall became highly visible in the 1990s with the emergence
and challenge of queer theory and politics. The confl ict predates Stone-
wall, however—indeed Jonathan Dollimore describes it as “one of the most
fundamental antagonisms within sexual dissidence over the past century.”
How does gay male fi ction since Stonewall engage with this confl ict? Focus-
ing on fi ction by Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, David Leavitt, Michael
Cunningham, Alan Hollinghurst, Dennis Cooper, Adam Mars-Jones and
others, Brookes argues that gay fi ction is torn between assimilative and
radical impulses. He posits the existence of two distinct strands of gay
fi ction, but also aims to show the confl ict as an internal one, a struggle in
which opposing impulses are at work within individual texts.
Les Brookes is an Associate Lecturer at The Open University, tutoring in
twentieth-century literature. Previously Brookes taught at Anglia Ruskin
University, where he also gained his doctorate. Brookes has written for
Overhere: A European Journal of American Culture and given papers at
Warwick University and the Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies.
Routledge Studies in
Twentieth-Century Literature
1. Testimony from the Nazi Camps
French Women’s Voices
Margaret-Anne Hutton
2. Modern Confessional Writing
New Critical Essays
Edited by Jo Gill
3. Cold War Literature
Writing the Global Confl ict
Andrew Hammond
4. Modernism and the Crisis of
Sovereignty
Andrew John Miller
5. Cartographic Strategies of
Postmodernity
The Figure of the Map in
Contemporary Theory and Fiction
Peta Mitchell
6. Food, Poetry, and the Aesthetics
of Consumption
Eating the Avant-Garde
Michel Delville
7. Latin American Writers and the
Rise of Hollywood Cinema
Jason Borge
8. Gay Male Fiction Since Stonewall
Ideology, Confl ict, and Aesthetics
Les Brookes
Gay Male Fiction
Since Stonewall
Ideology, Confl ict, and Aesthetics
Les Brookes
New York London
First published 2009
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the UK
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Brookes, Les, 1943-
Gay male fiction since Stonewall : ideology, conflict, and aesthetics / by Les Brookes.
p. cm.—(Routledge studies in twentieth-century literature; 8)
ISBN-13: 978-0-415-96244-5
ISBN-10: 0-415-96244-7
1. Gay men’s writings, American—History and criticism. 2. American fiction—
20th century—History and criticism. 3. Gay men’s writings, English—History and
criticism. 4. English fiction—20th century—History and criticism. 5. Male homo-
sexuality in literature. 6. Gay men in literature. I. Title.
PS374.H63B76 2009
813.009'353—dc22
2008007148
ISBN10: 0-415-96244-7 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-89220-8 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-96244-5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-89220-6 (ebk)
ISBN 0-203-89220-8(cid:13)(cid:10) Master e-book ISBN
For Phil, with love

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Gay Male Fiction Since Stonewall: The Contextual Framework 12
2 Divergent Lines of Dissent: Wilde to Stonewall 41
3 “The Potency, Magnetism, and Promise of Gay
Self-Disclosure”: Paradise Found? 72
4 Centripetal Tendencies: Gays, Heterosexuality, and the Family 102
5 The Gay Outlaw: Sexual Radicalism and Transgression 127
6 The AIDS Epidemic: Victory to a Virus? 158
Coda: Pressures of the New Millennium 186
Appendix: An Interview with Edmund White 195
Notes 207
Bibliography 217
Index 225

Acknowledgments
I began this book as a doctoral thesis at Anglia Ruskin University, where
the Research Committee of the English Department supported me with
generous bursaries for which I am extremely grateful. Support of a dif-
ferent kind came from friends in the Postgraduate Reading Group of the
department, whose encouragement certainly played a major part in helping
me to complete the project. The staff of the library were unfailingly helpful
too, as were the staff at Cambridge University Library; and I would like to
thank in particular Sue Gilmurray, the English Department’s liaison offi cer
at Anglia Ruskin.
For permission to quote from copyright sources, I am grateful to the
following: Penguin Books Ltd and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for extracts
from Michael Cunningham’s A Home at the End of the World; The Peters
Fraser and Dunlop Group for extracts from The Darker Proof by Adam
Mars-Jones and Edmund White, London: Faber and Faber. “An Interview
with Edmund White” originally appeared in Overhere: A European Jour-
nal of American Culture, 18.1 (1998), and I would like to thank the editor,
Professor Richard J. Ellis, for permission to reprint here as an appendix.
I hardly need to say that I am greatly indebted to Edmund White for
allowing me to interview him, and for supplying me with the idea from
which this book has grown. His openness, generosity, and friendship have
been inspirational.
Sincere thanks also to the following, who helped me in various ways:
Simon Avery, David Brown, Rychard Carrington, Mark Currie, Max
Fincher, Paulina Palmer, Sam Pattenden, Rick Rylance, Val Scullion, Cath-
erine Silverstone, Alan Sinfi eld, Rebecca Stott, Gina Wisker, Tory Young.
Finally, especial thanks go to Phil Bales, who has aided me at every step
of the journey and never once complained.