Unlimited Embrace: A Canon of Gay Fiction, 1945-1995

665 Pages·1998·1.72 MB·English

by  Reed Woodhouse

Unlimited Embrace : A Canon of Gay
title:
Fiction, 1945-1995
author: Woodhouse, Reed.
publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
isbn10 | asin: 1558491325
print isbn13: 9781558491328
ebook isbn13: 9780585084305
language: English
American fiction--20th century--History and
criticism, Homosexuality and literature--
United States--History--20th century,
subject Literature and society--United States--
History--20th century, Gay men's writings,
American--History and criticism, Gay men--
United S
publication date: 1998
PS374.H63W66 1998eb
lcc: PS374.H63W66 1998eb
ddc: 813/.54099206642
American fiction--20th century--History and
criticism, Homosexuality and literature--
United States--History--20th century,
subject: Literature and society--United States--
History--20th century, Gay men's writings,
American--History and criticism, Gay men--
United S
Page iii
Unlimited Embrace
A Canon of Gay Fiction, 19451995
Reed Woodhouse
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS PRESS Amherst
Page iv
Copyright © 1998 by
Reed Woodhouse
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
97-48588
LC
1-55849-132-5
ISBN
Designed by Milenda Nan Ok Lee
Set in Sabon and Optima Bold by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Printed and bound by Braun-Brumfield, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Woodhouse, Reed, 1949-
Unlimited embrace: a canon of gay fiction, 19451995 / Reed
Woodhouse.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1-55849-132-5 (alk. paper)
ISBN
1. American fiction 20th century History and criticism.
2. Homosexuality and literature United States History 20th
century. 3. Literature and society United States History 20th
century. 4. Gay men's writings, American History and criticism.
5. Gay men United States Books and reading. 6. Gay men in
literature. 7. Canon (Literature) I. Title.
374. 63 66 1998
PS H W
813'.54099206642 dc21 97-48588
CIP
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data are available.
Page v
For
Larey Allen
and in memory of
Tom Stehling and Karl Laubenstein
Page vii
Contact of friend led to another friend,
Supple entwinement through the living mass
Which for all that I knew might have no end,
Image of an unlimited embrace.
Thom Gunn, "The Missing"
Page ix
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Five Houses of Gay Fiction, Revisited 1
Part One Shame, Impudence, and Ecstasy
1 From the Closet to the Theater (via the Electric Chair) 17
James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room 17
Tennessee Williams's Gay Short Stories 35
2 Sexual Dandyism and the Legacy of Oscar Wilde 51
Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge 53
Boyd McDonald's Straight to Hell 62
3 Immodesty and Immolation 75
Dennis Cooper's Frisk 81
James Purdy's Narrow Rooms 87
Part Two Ghetto Freedoms, Ghetto Follies
4 The Life of Desire in 1978 101
Larry Kramer's Faggots 103
Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance 120
Part Three Four Degrees of Assimilation
5 Virtually Normal, and Vice-Versa 139
David Leavitt's The Lost Language of Cranes 145
Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man 155
Page x
6 Homeward Bound 171
Michael Cunningham's A Home at the End of the 174
World
Ethan Mordden's Short Stories 184
Part Four Imagining Death
7 A Wedding and Three Funerals: Four AIDS Novels 201
John Weir's The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket 206
Samuel R. Delany's The Mad Man 212
Christopher Davis's Valley of the Shadow 221
Dale Peck's Martin and John 228
Part Five Looking Back
8 Boy's Life: Neil Bartlett's Ready to Catch Him Should 241
He Fall
9 White Lies: Edmund White's Gay Fiction 263
Afterword 297
More Gay Fiction: An Appendix 301
Nonce, Genre, and One-Handed Books 304
Notes 307
Index 329