and bar to bar in a scarlet ‘47 Buick Road-
master convertible. Billy and Cora have
lots of what are described as “evenings that
gradually wear out the exhilaration you
start with... evenings when lady luck
showed the bitchy streak in her nature.”
Together, though, they often have success
in their pursuit of “the lyric quarry,” and
along the way insecurities and alcohol are
shared and spilled with increasing aban-
don. When their cruising nets only one
man, permission is given for the other to
take possession with the coded statement,
“Excuse me people, ...I just remembered I
promised to make a long—distance call to
Atlanta.” The story is full of great lines you
could picture Elizabeth Taylor (25 years
ago) drawling with a glass of bourbon in
hand.

Repression figures into several stories,
among them Paul Bowles’s haunting “Pag—
es from Cold Point,” in which a father’s
devotion to and desire for his son are de-
scribed with an understated elegance that
underscores the sexual tension. The tension
is increased when the son gets in trouble
for becoming involved with native boys,
and the father struggles to confront the is-
sue and his feelings for his son. Similarly,
in “Native,” by William Haywood Hender-
son, the suppression of sexuality between
two men in a decidedly non—gay bar serves
to inject every word and gesture between
them with a sexual energy that Henderson
skillfully choreographs.

In James Baldwin’s “Just Above My
Head,” a repression is released as the two
main characters, Crunch and Arthur, dis-
cover each other’s bodies for the first time.
The story is both tender and erotic, marred
only by a silly train metaphor that works
against the directness of the rest of the sto-
ry. Another erotic story, “Forced Use,” by
Alan Gurganus (who describes it as a
“naughty story”), has a generic plot with a
“happily” married professor lusting after a
scantily clad young man at a rest area. Af-
ter calling his wife from the pay phone and
assuming as much guilt as possible, the
professor follows the young man into the
woods where sex turns to violence, and the
professor gets basically what he wants.
What is unique about the story is the lan-
guage. Gurganus writes about cruising in a
Way that seems both pornographic and lit-
Cfaly, and he cleverly avoids the clichés

an overwhelming subject small and per-
sonal. “The Changes of Those Terrible
Years,” by Adam Mars-Jones, concerns a
man who decides to sell the house he has
made into a sort of informal hospice. He re-
alizes he has neglected his own needs to
care for the sick, and he is forced to ex-
amine his motives when a man in the final
stages of the disease accuses him of grow-
ing “fat on other people’s misery.” Andrew
I-Iolleran’s “Sunday Morning: Key West” is
about a man who comes to the realization
that he has become a recluse and has sub-
consciously shut off his desire after a dec-
ade of caring for his sick father. It is not un-
til he visits a friend whose estranged lover
is dying of AIDS that he recognizes that
caring for his father was in part a way to
protect himself from dealing with gay life
in the eighties. The steps he takes at the end
of the story to rebuild his identity seem
both small and monumental. In contrast, the
narrator of Edmund White’s “Skinned
Alive” refuses to sacrifice his sexuality be-
cause he is HIV positive. White’s writing
seems almost defiantly sexual, an attempt
to expand narrow views of what literature
and safe sex should be.

There were several other stories in the book
I enjoyed, among them David Malouf’s
“Southern Skies” and David Leavitt’s
“When You Grow to Adultery.” Writers
like Leavitt are criticized by some for their
“erotic conservatism.” White notes in his
introduction that it is part of the “conflict
between gay assimilationists and gay mil-
itants.” It seems to me that it’s also a sty-
listic choice, and in Leavitt’s case it seems
entirely appropriate.

THE
LIVING

FRIDAY, DEC. 11 - THURSDAY, DEC. 17, 6:30 & 8:30

 

December 1992

I felt that a few of the contemporary stories
didn’t measure up to the classics. They
seemed more notable for their boldness
than for literary value. Also, two brief sto-
lies with lesbian characters (written by
men) seemed included more for diversity’s
sake than for excellence. And though I get
a kick out of lines like “Snake boys in fish-
skin jockstraps wade out of the bay,” I en-
joy William Burroughs more as a concept
than as a writer. For someone else, though,
Burroughs may be just the ticket, and that’s
what is enjoyable about this collection.

I wonder whether there will come a day
when gay literature (like literature by other
minorities) becomes mainstream? And if
this were to happen, "would it involve com-
promises that may not be good? On the oth-
er hand, should gay literature strive to dis-
tinguish itself from what is considered
mainstream? After reading this collection, I
don’t have answers to these questions. But
it’s made me want to think about them in
relation to my own identity, and it’s deep-
ened my understanding of how different
and alike we all are. V

Patronize
our
Advertisers

“A gay, post-punk
flrelma and Louise! ”
S ettlten ll Id THE YORK IIIVIE

the plot would suggest.

At DOWNSTAIRS VIDEO: EDWARD II, POISON, URINAL,
WORD IS OUT and other Gay and Lesbian titles.

THE SAVOY THEATER %‘?-9‘

I 26 Main Street -Montpelier-Vermont-_229-0509

t The stories about AIDS are notable for

v

their differences and for the way they make

 

I