We’re HERE
We’re QUEER and

We're BUYING UP
REAL ESTATE

What would happen if two guys who
spied the perfect undiscovered resort
started putting ads in gay publications
inviting the queers to stay in starchy
old New England bed-and-breakfasts -
without telling the owners?

 

 

BY EUAN BEAR

at would happen if
two guys who spied
the perfect undiscov-

ered resort started putting ads in
gay publications inviting the
queers to stay in starchy old New
England bed-and-breakfasts —
without telling the owners?

That proposition is what
kept percolating in William
Storandt’s mind when he and his
partner sailed. “My partner Brian
and I used to keep our sailboat in
Stonington, Connecticut, next
door to Watch Hill, Rhode
Island,” he admitted in a recent
phone conversation. “We used to
go sailing every weekend and go
by this long sand spit with a per-
fect beach that was always empty.
We just kept thinking, wouldn’t it
be funny if we put ads in gay
publications for the B&B’s and
didn’t tell them.”

And yes, Watch Hill, R1,
is the model for “Long Spit,” the
down-at-heels village about to be
“discovered” and invaded by a
horde of buffed boys looking for
the latest and greatest in circuit
parties by the sea in Storandt’s
novel The Summer They Came.
It’s the story of Provincetown and
Rehoboth and Palm Springs and
Key West, but condensed into a
single summer of frantic activity
that exposes the closeted and con-
fronts the bigoted while making
everyone else consider where
their interests lay. '

A group of six friends
and entrepreneurs decide they
will take over the stodgy village

The Summer They Came: A Novel
by William Storandt (Villard Books)

and begin by placing suggestive
ads in national gay publications.
The first ad is for The Lilac
Bush, run by elderly widow
Helen Boothroyd. “Find him in
the dunes,” it reads, characteriz-
ing Long Spit as a gay resort
town “for the discerning male
traveler who’s had enough of the
same old same old."

Her first gay customers
for the honeymoon suite are
Derek and Tracy — two big guys
dressed in ripped cutoffs and
work boots, wearing “boot-camp
buzz cuts, tiny goatees, and
cheeky grins” - setting up the
inevitable moment of awkward-
ness at the door, when she was
clearly expecting “Tracy” to be
female. They are followed by. a
gay plastic surgeon from
Nebraska and one of the entrepre-
neurs looking to buy a fading sea-
side restaurant and turn it into
“The Crab Hole” bar, complete
with glory holes.

Things only escalate
from there as more gay men hear
the buzz and create a bona fide
scene, posing and waiting for sex
partners or simple adoration in
the dunes, tuning up all summer
for the eventual circuit party with
dynamite climax at Labor Day
weekend. "

There’s a closet queen
antique dealer — Hollis
Wynboume, scion of an old-
money family and retired concert
singer — whose private collection
of slave artifacts keeps him in the
closet. He is tolerated by the rest
of the starchy ,blue bloods some-
how more as one of their own

than as belonging to the flashy
queers taking over the town.
And, of course there is
Anthony Giarmini, the local boy
just out of high school, on his
way to college and_working the
local cafe. He’s diplomatic and
flattered when his slim nubile
body gets those looks from the
new clientele. No surprise there.
Round out the characters
with a religious zea1ot(Anthony’s
mom), a disgruntled batch of
working class guys, a few busi-
ness owners who are having their
best summer ever, a woman
preservationist single-handedly
staving off the aluminum-siding
and jalousie-window philistines
and welcoming preservation-
minded men with money, her ally
the closeted realtor, and a sleazy

the Bass Writing Program at Yale.

“I lived for 13 years in a
geodesic dome in Westford,”
recalled Storandt, “I was married
when I arrived in Vermont,
although I lmew I was gay from
third grade on. I had just thrown
away a career as a freelance stu-
dio musician coming out of
Julliard. I drove 100-dollar cars
that I fixed myself, cut blow-
down trees for firewood. I taught
at Johnson State and at UVM and
conducted the Johnson State Jazz
Ensemble.” Storandt and I played
“who do you know” for a few
minutes, coming up with a couple
of names.

Storand wrote The
Summer They Came while with
his partner on sabbatical to Cape
Town, South Africa, doing AIDS

‘Maybe we should get it going
with the nature-dykes first. They _
could do their bird watching
thing, you know, not piss any-
body off too much.’ And then the
other guy says, ‘No way. They
already bought up P-town while
the boys were worrying about
their tans.”’ .

I-le characterized himself
as “an equal-opportunity skewer-
er” but maintained that although a
significant proportion of his char-
acters embody stereotypes, “there
are angels andjerks on both sides
of the story. Leathery guys,
buffed bodies, you know. l’ve
been to P-town, Key West, San
Francisco, and those guys are
definitely there. If I portray a
couple of characters as stereo-

- types, there’s a reason for it.,l

also tried to show a bit more
depth, to flesh out some charac-
ters, even those on the other
side.”

_ One of his goals for the
book was to examine the attitudes
of locals who might view gays as
“the other,” to look at how each
side saw the other side. “How
might stuffy, uptight, old New
England, starchy villagers view
gay men coming into town and
spending money, buying real  ’
estate, promenading. It’s a differ-
ent culture. Each side is warily
eyeing each other.”

He went for a long time,
he said, trying not to deal with
his sexuality, as do a couple of
characters in the novel. “But now
I’m happy to be gay, having a
great time. My partner and I have
been together for 23 years.”

There’s likely a sequel
coming. “A lot of stories get set
in motion — Florian, this black
man who moves into a house-
hold, the boy Anthony who is just
discovering what it means to be
gay, the lesbian restaurateur. You
sort of want to know what’s
going to happen. I left it with
some intriguing story lines to be
dealt with later,” Storandt said.

It’s the story of Provincetown and Rehoboth and

Palm springs and Key West, but condensed into a

single summer of frantic activity that exposes the closeted
and confronts the bigoted while making everyone else
consider where their interests lay.

gay reporter writing yellow jour-
nalism and stirring up trouble,
and you’ve got the makings for a
confrontation.

William Storandt once
played tambourine for the
Monkees, lived in Vermont for
more than a dozen years, sailed
across the Atlantic (and wrote a
Lambda-nominated memoir about
it), and is currently teaching in

prevention work.

The novel is all-boy, all
the time. There’s one presumptive
lesbian who comes along at the
end to provide teaser material for
a sequel. When I brought that
point to Storandt’s attention, he
said, “The basis of the comedy is
that it has to be gay men. There’s
that conversation in the beginning
where one of the men says,

We agreed that the book
is a light read, an entertaining-
enough way to spend an after-
noon at the beach or on the deck
of a boat V

William Storandt will be reading
from The Summer They Came on
Tuesday June 25 at 7:30 p.m. at
the South Burlington Barnes &
Noble.