Diversity Roll Call - It's About Pride

[bookgazing]

I mean to join in with the CORA Diversity roll call every time I see Ali’s posts,but things get away from me and blah, blah, blah. No more! This week’s task is one that’s really easy for me to put a post together on and it’s about a subject I love to read about so a post has been born.

This week the Diversity roll call joins up with the USA’s Gay Pride month. One of the activities suggested in the post at Ali's blog is to make a list of books by GLBT authors or a list of books featuring GLBT issues that you would recommend. Easy; gay and lesbian issues are probably some of my favorite plot strands to read about and I have a decent list of books to recommend (as well as a massive list of books I want to read).

Most recently I read ‘What They Always Tell Us’ by Martin Wilson, which is a quiet story of a teenager finding happiness in his first gay relationship. I’m sure you’re all sick of me recommending this one so why aren’t you making me stop by buying and reviewing it yourselves ;)

‘What They Always Tell Us’ has a lot in common with ‘Saints of Augustine’ by P E Ryan, which I read last month as part of the YA challenge. Both books are excellent, though in quite different ways, despite their surface similarities.

Last year I read Jeanette Winterson’s ‘Oranges are Not the Only Fruit’, widely considered a classic of lesbian literature and literature in general. I didn’t quite find the book’s narrative structure as revolutionary as I’d heard it was, but I think that’s probably because I’m so familiar with other books featuring the linear, yet circular narratives that it spawned. Winterson describes it as an autobiographical, but also not autobiographical, story of growing up with a strict Baptist mother and the conflicts that emerge when you love the Lord but you also love girls.

I love, love, love Pat Barker’s WWI books, the 'Regeneration' trilogy. The books follow some famous gay and bisexual WWI poets through ‘the war to end all wars’, as well as portraying fictional gay soldiers, providing a frank look at hidden sexuality during the war. I read the first book ‘Regeneration’ in college as part of a WWI literature module and fell under the spell of Seigfried Sasson, the celebrated pacifist poet who wrote the well known war poem ‘Dreamers’.

‘As Meat Loves Salt’ is set in the English Civil War and it’s sort of a gay, historical romance, with a massive amount of historical substance. It certainly means you’ll never call the history of the Quakers or the printing press dull again. It shows the violent and obsessive side of relationships.

I never actually finished ‘Maurice’ by E M Forster, because I read it during my teenage, non-finishing period of reading but I want to recommend it because the writing is quick, quiet and sharp just like Forster’s other novels and this novel seems to get less attention than say ‘A Room with a View’. Two college men form a ‘strong friendship’ which develops and is then cut short, when one of them decides he wants to be with women instead. This is the only novel Forster wrote about characters who were obviously gay and he asked that it not be published until after his death.

Another classic novel with gay storylines is ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde. Dorian Gray, a beautiful boy, makes a wish that a painting of him will absorb all his sins. The painting does so and Gray goes on a rampage of unchecked sin. I felt like the homosexuality fo the main characters was very apparent and deliberately thinly veiled in this book, however I read the afterword about the changes Wilde’s editor made to the original and it seems like the book we have now is actually a toned down version, designed to read much more ambiguously. This was done (as far as I remember) to try to preserve the book and to save Wilde from a stronger prison sentence. Like the story of Forster keeping ‘Maurice’ hidden until he died the way that Wilde was treated after the publication of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ makes me sad and angry. Wilde’s time spent in prison for crimes of supposed immorality irreparably damaged his health and he died a few years later. If you haven’t seen it, get to a video store and rent Stephen Fry’s ‘Wilde’.

Everyone knows about Annie Proulx’s short story ‘Brokeback Mountain’ now and isn’t that great! I read it and the other stories in the ‘Close Range’ collection, which is a mashup of the old west lifestyle clashing with modern times, where elements of gothic gruesomeness and the supernatural creep into some of the stories. ‘Brokeback Mountain’ follows the relationship of two casual workers who can only be together in secret. If you watch one DVD this year it really must be ‘Brokeback Mountain’ (although for the purposes of full disclosure pretty much everyone else I spoke to after it came out called it boring), but make sure you read the story first.

Finally try ‘The Last Exit to Normal’ by Michael Harmon for a story about a teenager struggling with a dad who is gay.

I’m looking forward to:

‘Empresses of the World’ – Sarah Ryan: On my shelf waiting to be part of my holiday reading
‘Tipping the Velvet’ – Sarah Waters: Can’t believe I still haven’t read anything by Sarah Waters, why?
‘My Most Excellent Year’ – Steve Kluger: After reading the NHYA review I think this sounds like my kind of book
Debbie Harry sings in French – Meagan Brothers: For me Debbie Harry will always be linked with the roller derby and Clarissa Explains it all as much as with music. I feel a nostalgia trip coming on, sign me up!

What are your favorite GLBT books and what are you still looking forward to reading? I couldn’t think of any book I’ve read that feature bisexual or transgender characters, can you recommend any?