Gay Literature

[BIBLIO]

Hi- I've been searching for some basic gay literature, with credible characters.
I came accross this link which had some info-
{edit}
cheers
Bib

[MANICHAEAN]

Bib
Try James Baldwin.
Regards
M.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

There are some parts in Moby Dick that are gay as hell.

[Alexander III]

By gay lit do you mean, works written by gay writers or works with a gay protagonist but not necessarily gay author, or do you mean works with a gay protagonist written by a gay author?

[OrphanPip]

I blog on LGBT literature, but I'm slow about it, I've only written on Giovanni's Room and The City and the Pillar haha.

I use the definition of literature that deals with themes of LGBT identity.

I intend to write in the future on Foucault's edited diaries of the hermaphrodite Herculine Barbin, the lesbian graphic novel by Bechdel Fun Home, Forster's short fiction and Maurice, White's A Boy's own Story, Holleran's Dancer from the Dance.

I'll get to it eventually.

I'm not into gay revisionism, though I've read Sedgwick's analysis of the Romantics and earlier stuff. I prefer to look at self-conscious expression of themes of sexual identity.

In general, I have read some French short fiction, since there is a vibrant LGBT writing community in France. I'm more familiar with Canadian and American gay literature.

American gay literature can broadly be split into pre-Stonewall, post-Stonewall, and post-HIV. Some argue we're into a post-gay period with the rise of Butler and the "queer" cultural paradigm, now with more of an interest in sort of foreign experiences or in breaking down what gay identity actually is.

Pre-Stonewall:

Baldwin (Giovanni's Room), Vidal (Myra Beckenridge and The City and the Pillar)

Post-Stonewall:

Edmund White (A Boy's Own Story, transgressive explicit), Andrew Holleran (Dancer from the Dance), Felice Picano, Larry Kramer (Faggots).

AIDS era

Late Edmund White (The Beautiful Room is Empty and his most recent novel whose name is escaping me, it's alright), Larry Kramer (The Normal Heart), and a bunch of others.

More contemporary (post-gay):
Michael Cunningham (The Hours), maybe Joey Comeau (Lockpick Pornography, avoids gay identity in favour of broader category of queer) and Shani Mootoo (Cerius Blooms at Night, Valmiki's Daughter) (she is Trinidadian-Canadian and she combines a lot of the themes of post-colonialism and LGBT lit).

I have some anthologies that I've read front to back, but I'm horrible at remembering authors of a lot of stories I actually like. It's worthwhile picking up one of the anthologies that were published in the early 90s during the academic craze of identity politics.

Edit: There are some outliers that are hard to place in the classification like Michel Tremblay's plays and novels (which are tinged with Quebec Nationalist anti-Catholicism) and Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues, which is also primarily a civil rights novel, that takes punches at both heterosexuals and the gay community for the way they treat transgenders.

[Lizard__King__]

burroughs, capote and ginsberg come readily to mind.

[Seasider]

And John Rechy. And here Alan Hollinghurst.

Compton Mackenzie wrote 2 satirical gay themed novels set in Capri where there was a significant gay community 1910- 1937 or so. They are Extraordinary Women and Vestal Fires., Mackenzie was not gay though his wife was, allegedly.

Paris was a favourite place for gay women expatriates, Renee Vivien..Scots/Canadian poet who wrote in French, her lover at one time Natalie Clifford Barney a very wealthy American expatriate who wrote a great deal but is best remembered for her literary salon which lasted for more than 50 years and attracted famous male artists like Rodin, Pierre Louys, Fitzgerald, Maugham,Claudel as well as women artists like Stein, Radclyyfe Hall, Djuna Barnes, Dolly Wilde, Oscar's niece whose early promise was destroyed by alcohol, Janet Flanner, Romaine Brooks, Wanda Landowska, Colette etc.

Because of the ban and the scandal surrounding The Well of Loneliness there was very little mainstream literature by or about gay women until the 70s. Portrait of a Marriage written by Nigel Nicholson about his mother, Victoria Sackville West and her lover Violet Trefusis broke the silence in Britain and then Maureen Duffy, Jeanette Winterson and more recently Sarah Waters have written novels with a gay theme. I am not so conversant with American gay women writers but I know they exist.

[hazelk]

If you read Colm Toibin's selection of short stories "The Empty Family" you will find some very explicit gay sex scenes in "Pearl Fishers", I found the description offensive, especially one, so much that I could not continue reading the rest of the book. I may add that I am no prude.

He has also been chided by one reviewer, who says there is no need for the sex scenes to be so descriptive, I agree.

[Seasider]

The Well of Loneliness which was published in 1928 was found to be an obscene book and banned. It was a very long book and there is one sentence after about 400 pages which is the only one that could be judged as referring to sexual activity,
It says...And that night they were not divided. And if that's obscene I am Marie of Romania as Dorothy Parker once said.

[BIBLIO]

Thanks guys- that was really helpful.
Here's a semi-related link from the same site-

{edit}

cheers
Bib

[Emmy Castrol]

Yukio Mishima was gay, and he has a fantastic short story, Cigarette, about a teenager who tries to impress an older boy who he has a crush on.

[Pecksie]

'Be Near Me' by Andrew O'Hagan is about a priest who finds himself attracted to one of his parishioners, a boy from a deprived background. Sensitive and haunting.

[JamesinLondon]

Try some of these authors - John Rechy, Christopher Isherwood, Jean Genet, James Baldwin, E.M Forster, Thomas Mann, Gore Vidal, Alan Hollinghurst, Yukio Mishima, Truman Capote