It's a Tragedy....

In the next week I will be interviewing writer Brandon Shire, author of acclaimed novel The Value of Rain. Mr. Shire may be a highly unusual phenomenon in the world of gay-themed fiction:  he writes tragedy, and does it well.  And I mean this in the classical sense.

True tragedy has been with us as a literary form since the ancient Greek civilization raised it to an art form in theatre. It was a common literary form and was greatly appreciated right up until well into the twentieth century.  Nowadays, one need only peruse the pages of GoodReads to get the feeling that when it comes to popular novels, and perhaps in particular when it comes to "romances", the American public has little patience with tragedy - and perhaps this extends to the audience outside America as well, but to a lesser extent.

It amazes me to see readers state outright without shame that they will not read anything without a "HEA" - a Happily Ever After - ending. Or, some dare to venture, "at least a HFN" - a Happily for Now.  When my novel Gentlemen's Game first came out,  a fairly well-known internet-based critic of gay romance reviewed it and gave it a mediocre rating because it was not a feel-good book. He admitted this to me openly, proclaiming that he read a book to escape from the world and its troubles - he didn't want anything dark in a book.  I was astounded. Although Gentlemen's Game has its tragic theme, it does have a rather happy ending. It occurred to me that what he was really saying is that he didn't want to be bothered to feel too deeply or think too much.  Is that wrong?  I don't think so - we all go through periods in our lives when even a sad film is too much to take. I get that.  But a self-porclaimed reviewer of books should not be wallowing in such self-indulgence: some of the world's best books are tragedies.

Historically some of the best literature of the western world involves a tragic story that proves unforgettable to many generations. "Tragedy" as a literary form is traditionally described as a story in which an admirable hero or heroine suffers a downfall due to his or her own character flaws. It is at its core a morality tale: it is meant to suggest a lesson about life. In the end, when it is successful, it inspires.

A tragedy inspires in the most profound of ways. Frequently it involves not only the central story of the protagonist's misfortune, but also makes some statement about society.  It is meant to convey deep messages, move the reader to consider his or her own life, decisions, relationships.  In high school, many of us were asked to read Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet as an example of classic tragedy.  In the play, the central characters fall victim not only to the inherent cruelty of an old inter-familial feud and the emotional and physical violence it inevitably imposes, but to their own youth, naivete and raging teenaged hormones. The theme demands that the reader considers questions around the themes of loyalty to family, loyalty to one's own ideals, romantic passion, destructive irreversible decisions, the fragility of life, the senselessness of suicide. These are questions that matter in any age, in any life.

It's a shame that today's younger readers are not being taught - at least I see no evidence of this - to understand the value of tragedy in literature.  To insist upon only being exposed to HEA's is to do oneself a great disservice. Because, an HEA stretches one's mind only so far.  It can teach only so much.  Perhaps a reader who insists upon a happy ending is a reader who never learns much of anything new.

Has this failure to be open-minded to an age-old and well-tested literary form occurred because life has somehow become so difficult that people need an escape?  I don't buy that for a minute: in the nineteenth century tragedy was common and popular in literature (Dickens, Hardy, Bronte) and surely no one will argue that life in that century was easier that in this one.  I can only wonder if the nineteenth century mind was a product of a life less sheltered from hardship, a product of a world where physical comfort was hard-won, early and unforseen death happened frequently and unexpectedly, where the luxuries that make our work life easier did not exist. Perhaps such a mind was more open to profound thinking, ideas about life and death, about the nature of suffering, about the consequences of a character flaw.

I will continue to admire courageous writers like Brandon Shire - and there are a few besides him who dare to walk down the path of the tragic story  within their own novels, and without apology - and I will continue to hope that the tragedy as a form of literature will not only survive but see a revival in generations to come.

The Read of a Decade - for this writer!

(This review appears at the GLBT Bookshelf: http://www.glbtbookshelf.com)
 

A Review of Purgatory by Jeff Mann
Genre: Literary Fiction
Edition: Kindle, Published by Bear Bones Books, Inc. 2012 
Widely available in EBook and Print editions.

A five-star review should be hard-earned, in order for it to carry weight. A really brilliant piece of literature displays the writer’s ability to perform a few acrobatic feats – this requires a real understanding of the technical aspects of writing. If a writer can do this, and do it in a unique fashion, the book will be inspiring, not merely a good read. With “Purgatory”, Jeff Mann has offered up a gourmet feast of a book for the discerning reader, the hopeful historian, the language-loving fellow writer, and certainly for this picky reviewer.

“Purgatory” is a story of and within the worst campaigns of the Civil War. It is a literary novel in the true sense, not a romance – the romance in the book, while central to the story and consistently engaging, is only a tool by which the author discusses deeper meaning about the human experience. The bloodiest battles of the Civil War took place in and around the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia: in 1862, during the early years of the war, southern general Stonewall Jackson waged a successful campaign to turn away Union invaders to the traditionally southern enclave, observing “If this Valley is lost, Virginia is lost.” But shortly after, the tide began to turn as first the north-western section of Virginia split off in 1863 (later to be called “West Virginia”) in order to disassociate itself from the Confederacy, and the North realized that the Shenandoah Valley was a major source of food supplies to General Lee’s troops. The campaign the North waged in late 1864 that burned, ravaged and destroyed the Valley, turned the tide of the war for good and sealed the fate of the Confederacy. Jeff Mann’s insightful, moving story tells the story of the hearts of the men who watched their farms and fields burn and their heritage disappear into ashes. These are poor soldiers, trudging almost blindly from one corner of the Valley to another, both fearing and anticipating encountering the enemy, subsisting on meager supplies and often little to no food (while Northern troops are federally supplied and eat well).

Young Ian, a farmer from the mountains of northern West Virginia, has watched the North invade and pillage his home and that of his relatives, for three years and for political reasons he hardly grasps. As the war nears its closing weeks – a fact of which he is of course unaware, as all they are – he finds himself still a soldier and weary of destruction and killing, beyond homesick. His commanding officer – his uncle Sarge – is equally weary and bitter to boot: as is the case with many of the straggling remaining soldiers of a once large company, his farm was burned, livestock shot, wife murdered. He nurses his anger by periodically capturing a Yankee soldier and torturing him slowly to death. Ian is routinely given the exalted position of nursing the victim, just enough to keep him alive for more torture - until either Sarge gets bored and kills him with his bare hands, or the man dies of starvation, his injuries, or exposure. Sarge means to “toughen up” his gentle, book-loving nephew by forcing his compliance in the torture and murder, but the challenge is even greater for Ian than Sarge knows: Ian is sexually attracted to men, and has found himself more than once attracted to a prisoner that was later killed. As the book begins, the nightmare is repeating itself once again: the newest prisoner, a young Yankee from Pennsylvania, quickly inspires the deepest of desires and emotions in Ian, and this time Ian is not willing to lose the battle of wills he will inevitably wage with Sarge and his cohorts.

As the days crawl by and the torture increases in its cruelty, as it becomes more and more difficult for Ian to heal Drew’s wounds and save his life, Ian realizes that the principles that once fueled his devotion to the Confederate cause are dimming: he will risk his own life and turn his back on his friends and culture, in order to save his lover and build a life for them – a chance at a life where two men can touch one another as they do in the stories of The Iliad and in Walt Whitman’s poems. These works of literature are the thing that Ian, and through him Drew, clings to as evidence that he is not some freak in the world – where terms like “gay” are not available. The author invites the reader into a world before mass media, where one’s circle of acquaintances was small, where religious tolerance was limited, where it was easy to think you were the “only one”, a freak of nature, God’s joke. The painful isolation these men feel screams from the pages time and again, and is heartbreaking.

Jeff Mann is a writer’s writer: he was first a poet, and it shows. The book is relayed in a first person, present tense narrative mode – something little attempted in modern literature, and terribly effective when so expertly done. It lends a sense of immediacy and intimacy that, combined with the author’s extensive use of historical detail, pulls the reader into the filthy, tired, poverty-stricken last days of a too-long war. Mann’s command of language is complete: it is luxurious but never overly-sentimental. A description of the climax of their first sexual contact:



"His thighs stiffen, his hands grip the back of my head, he heaves against my face, and my mouth floods with the milk of him, surge after surge I gulp down. He tastes like sarvis berries, marigold petals, prayer. If prayers were solids, not sounds, this is what God would taste, what God would learn to crave.”



Two metaphors are central to the story: the first is made up of religious imagery. Many times, Drew is described in Christ-like terms, as an innocent (despite his crimes as a Northern soldier against the Valley), as a wounded martyr to the fury of war-weary soldiers. As Drew trudges along shackled and tied to a cart, increasingly weakened by his torture, increasingly humiliated and demoralized, at one point forced to carry a log upon his shoulders like a cross, he is described as marching toward Calvary (the place of crucifixion) and fed hope by Ian that if only he can will himself to survive until they reach Mount Purgatory (Purgatory being the Christian symbol of second chances, of redemption from sin) they will run for freedom. These Christian images are particularly interesting because Ian has long-since ceased to believe in the faith of his childhood, and also because Christianity is used by Sarge and his thugs to justify torture and hatred, and disgust at “sodomites” – which is of course what Ian knows he is.

A second, and even more interesting metaphor has to do with mythology and the image of the Greek or Roman warrior, held in bonds, bleeding, yet physically perfect and still strong at heart. Tangled with this imagery is Ian’s sexual arousal at seeing his love object tortured: Ian is a small, wiry man (although given to fits of ferocity in battle), and wrestles with a part of himself that enjoys the power he feels at seeing a large, handsome, strong warrior of a man broken. His continuous fight with himself throughout the book to reconcile his love of Drew with his desire to see him tortured, parallels the human desire to see a stronger individual lose to oneself and the seldom admitted-to and common sexual link. The book has been described as an exercise in BDSM: but that cheapens its message. The torture in this book is non-consentual, and as it increases, the turn-on Ian feels decreases. At some point he recognizes it as just plain brutality and he wants it to end: he is in fact human not only in his demons, but in his compassion. The message is universal to us all.

At the book’s poignant end, as the two lovers discuss whether anyone will remember them and how they lived and fought, Drew imagines a near-unimagined future of tolerance:


“No, I mean the men who come.” Drew swallows hard, resting the butt of his rifle on the rock beneath us, “Who will come to be born. Men like us. Men who, well, touch one another like you and I touch. Like in the Whitman poems you read me. Like in The Iliad. It’s a comfort thinking that they are there, somewhere. That they might be there, long after we’re gone, they’re thinking of us. Looking back for us. From some more fortunate place.”


Ultimately, “Purgatory”, like the best of books, is about all of us – about the demons within ourselves of which we are ashamed, about loneliness and the terror of isolation, about a world that often presents unimaginable cruelties and how we each must decide how brave we are going to be – and what we will give up for the freedom to love.

- LC 

Read my interview with Jeff Mann for The GLBT Bookshelf! 

Review: On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch

On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch by Shelter Somerset
Amazon Kindle Edition, May 2012
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review appears at OurStory/GLBT Bookshelf: http://bookworld.editme.com/REVIEW-ON...


REVIEW: On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch

By Shelter Somerset

Rreviewed by Lichen Craig

Four out of five stars.

The first thing that must be said about The Trail to Moonlight Gulch is that is a rollicking good read – never less than entertaining. Somerset has a knack for drawing interesting characters, compelling the reader to stay glued to the story. And a good story it is: set in late nineteenth-century Chicago and Dakota Territory, it is full of angst, twists and turns, surprises, sweet romance, danger and suspense. Unfortunately, for the discerning reader, the book contains some glaring flaws, but these are made up for by the excitement inherent in the story itself.

Nineteen-year-old Torsten Pilkvist is a good boy. The son of Swedish immigrants, the owners of a bakery and boarding house in Chicago, his days are filled with diligently and respectfully working at his family’s business. But Torsten dreams of finding a way to leave home and start an adult life, and he is tormented by the shame in the realization that he is sexually attracted to men. When he meets the love of his life, things seem to be looking up, until a tragic accident changes the course of his hopes. Despairing, he answers an ad for a mail-order bride to the Black Hills of the wild Dakota Territory– but he answers it deliberately keeping his gender to himself. Predictably he falls for the letters’ recipient, and vice-versa. And more predictably, a final confrontation with his parents over his sexual preferences leads to Torsten’s fleeing toward the West to find the frontiersman of his fantasies – despite the lie upon which their correspondence has flourished.

Somerset is a master at painting a picture of the daily details of the past. One can see the streets of Chicago, smell the air, feel the surge of immigration. The pages are furnished with historical factual details that make reading fascinating for the fan of a good historical novel. Likewise, the latter part of the book paints a picture of the American frontier in which one smells the pine, hears the trickle of waterfalls, senses the tension of the gold-rush years, and appreciates the stark contrast between the easier life east of the Mississippi and the hard physical labor required to carve out a life in the West. The homestead on which Franklin Ausmus lives is so vivid that one deeply feels its terrific impending loss when it is threatened.

The problems with the book come mainly in the last quarter. The first three-quarters of the book read quickly, enticingly – although this reader heaved a sigh at the suggestion that a nineteen-year-old finds a forty-year-old sexually attractive, particularly in an era where people who lived hard lives aged quickly; the May-December cliché is much overdone in gay romance. But barring that failed suspension of disbelief – there are some problems that should never appear in an otherwise well-written book. Perhaps most frustrating is the abundance of clichés. These come to a head when during a final shootout at the homestead, we have someone falling shot from a tower, then crawling on his belly to painfully raise a rifle and fire the shot that saves the hero; we have a villain having been dispatched with several gunshots, then rising from the dead to stand and aim a rifle at the hero one more time. These kinds of things leave the reader rolling eyes. There are also lapses in logic – for example when a character steals a horse and drops his duffle bag, only to magically be in possession of the contents of the bag later; men have anal sex repeatedly without anyone using any type of lube or adequate preparation (elementary research for a writer hoping to write gay sex scenes!). Most annoying are the glaring grammatical errors in the final quarter of the book. These matter because they break the flow of reading – forcing the reader’s mind to stop abruptly.

Unfortunately, such a foray into cliché, illogic, and technical error hurts the believability of the story overall and lessens the quality of the book. Still, the story as an idea is so terribly good, the description so well-done, and the characters so strong, that this reviewer must somewhat reluctantly assign a four of five stars. If the reader can look past the occasional silliness, the book is well worth the time.

View all my reviews

Sex Scenes: How Much is Too Much?

Actually, the better question may be "How Much is Too Little?" I have noticed two interesting trends in gay fiction and I imagine it holds true across mainstream fiction as well:

First, there is the trend toward separating well-written fiction with explicit sex scenes into its own category: "erotic". I imagine this began as a way to flag the reader that he/she was stumbling into some frisky ground. I understand that. At some times in my own life I have not wanted to have to stand in someone's bedroom in the middle of a scene: it felt invasive. I was embarrassed. For me and for them. A warning is understandable. But my concern is that in our zeal to pass on a polite warning we have relegated some high quality fiction to a seamy back room.

The second trend I notice is that in a well-written book or story where the reader would benefit from more detail in a sex scene, the writer shies away. At times, one can almost feel an author holding sex at arm's length - his or her own squeamishness getting in the way of the integrity of the story. If you think about it, sex is part of human experience. It is such a deep part - and a necessary one - that how can one hope to paint a true picture of human experience without exploring a character's sexual viewpoint?

I just recently read a really amazing novel, full of truly beautiful language, imagery, characterization - everything a great book needs and a great writer boasts. But where a sex scene should have been was a paragraph of euphemisms and a hasty retreat to the following morning. The thing is, this scene was pivotal, and what happened in that bed mattered. Details mattered. It mattered to the state of mind of the main character, because that event changed his life. If the author had been courageous enough to add more detail, the scene could have been spun into a haunting one that would have informed the story on a deeper level and enriched the entire novel. It was good enough as it stood, but could have been so much better because it could have made the novel better quality story-telling.

There is for most of us a difference between "erotica" and "porn". To me there is. It's quite simple: in pornography the explicit scene is about the sex, as is the whole piece. It is offered for the reader to revel in the detailed mechanics; it assumes that the reader isn't overly invested in the characterization or plot. In erotica/erotic fiction, the scene informs the story in the rest of the piece - the rest of the piece being of the same quality as any work of fiction worth its name. Porn examines the technical detail of the sex act; erotica examines the emotion, physicality, the story as a whole, with the details of a sex act being only one more layer of meaning amongst the many offered. Perhaps writers avoid writing sex scenes because they assume others will see them as writing pornography. Perhaps we as writers need to speak up more about the difference, and the merit of a good graphic sex scene.

I believe that we as a society, and therefore the literature that reflects our collective psyche, are evolving. I see a day when a writer won't think twice about including graphic sex in a story within the context of the story - as naturally as human sexuality occurs within the context of a life. Sexuality is so integral to our core, to omit it when it is part of our story, seems to me a real disservice to a good book.

The Simplest Version of History is Usually Wrong

I have been doing a lot of research into homosexuality in the Middle Ages and in the centuries after the advent of Christianity. You may think that has all been settled - gays were always persecuted, given the death penalty for being discovered, etc. You might be as surprised as I was to find out you would be wrong: it is apparently far more complicated.

I am now half a century old, and if I've learned one thing, it is that the Truth usually lies In Between. In other words, when an issue invites extremes of opinion, those extremes are often just that: extreme. I have been a bit frustrated with the challenge of finding reliable history on the question; I finally realized that I needed to read the historians that offered and had perused the greatest variety of historical documents to support their views.

The big problem with the issue of finding reliable research about gays in history is twofold:
- First, much of it is written by extreme voices. God Bless them they make some valid points, and often raise pertinent questions. But they also have a vested emotional and political interest in one point of view. For example, I personally believe that both some members of the gay community and some members of the conservative community want it to be true that gays were always put to death, driven underground, etc. The truth is of course more complicated. I have no doubt that there were terrible persecutions when a scapegoat was needed - the historical documentation to support this is considerable; but what I am finding is that there were not always persecutions, and was more social acceptance than we are often led to believe.
- One cannot understand this issue without first understanding the political climate of a given era. It seems that many times, decisions to execute an individual, or to allow a government-sanctioned gay union (and yes, that did happen and there is ample documentation) were motivated by politics, by concurrent community concerns, and by far more than the simple question of morality or immorality of a homosexual act.

One surprising discovery - amongst so many! - is the fact that pre-Christian Jewish society was the first documented to outlaw homosexual activity. But in general, it wasn't apparently due to any sort of moral repulsion around the sexual inclination itself. Rather, in came out of a time where the practice of pederasty (sex between grown men and pubescent boys) was near-universal outside the Jewish community. Pederasty was widely practiced in the Far East, the Middle East, amongst Northern/Eastern European barbarian peoples (except interestingly the Celts)and pretty much all around the world the Jews knew. In many of these societies, relationships between men and children was far more common than relationships between men. The prohibition was thus affected by the rather enlightened conviction that men should not be mentoring young boys into sexual activity. A second reason for the Jewish prohibition involved the status of women. Apparently, in societies where pederasty and other forms of male homosexual activity were openly practiced, women were too often relegated solely to a domestic/reproductive role. Where men formed their primary and closest relationships with other males, there was little loyalty to a woman and one's children, a desire to provide financial support, or a sense of needing to protect the family. So, in a primitive sense, the Jewish prohibition reflected a concern for the welfare of the women in its society.

As I mentioned, there have been many and varied revelations in the course of this research. If anyone wishes further information, please contact me - I'd be happy to share! I leave you with one more surprising fact: Up until the fourth century, according to contemporary documents, the Christians were seen by non-Christian groups as particularly given to sexually licentious behavior! Male prostitutes were taxed in this society, which would indicate that their activity was accepted and sanctioned by local government and the community.

Sex is Complicated, Even When You Write It

One of the highest compliments I receive is when a man - in particular a gay man - tells me the sex scenes are "hot" and realistic. Often I am asked how they come to be that way.

Let me first say that I enjoy writing them. Our sexual relationships reflect who we are at our core; what happens in the bedroom reflects our inner lives in and out of the bedroom. For that reason, when I am telling an emotional story about humans evolving I can't tell it without including that very important part of human experience. I can honestly say that, although my sex scenes are sometimes detailed, I have never written one solely to titillate: to me that puts one in the realm of pornography. Rather, I write them because they are integral to the story of a character's experience and evolution in the course of the book.

As to how a sex scene between men comes to be true to life, I have little explanation. I can tell you that I do research. I read - about fellatio from a man's point of view, about anal sex and gay men, about male experience. I have watched gay porn - but most of it is emotionless and stale. I read some gay porn; that sometimes gives me an idea or two. But after giving this some thought I have to say that the most important ingredient is that I envy men their sexual experience. I think that men take ownership over and enjoy their sexual experience far more - in general - than women do.

Part of the reason behind this is cultural: men are taught to be sexual and are considered healthy, normal and virile when they do. A woman who is overtly sexual is referred to negatively. Another reason is the inherent reality of pregnancy: sexual behavior is a two-edged sword for women - it almost never comes without physical and emotional risk.

But whatever the reasons, men behave differently than women, and as a writer I find that this has to come into play. I am a little surprised and disturbed by "gay romance" I have read where the roles of the two lovers are little different than that of heterosexual lovers in a Harlequin romance: the formula is the same, and one of them plays a decidedly submissive (translate: feminine) role. I don't find this realistic - and if the author of such a book has as her/his goal mere fantasy and entertainment that is fine. For me personally though, I always grapple with the feeling that I want to treat the community about which I am writing respectfully, and to that end I try to get inside men's heads as much as I can. The ability of men - heterosexual or homosexual - to grab sex by the horns, to behave as if lust and enjoyment are their birthright, is amazing and enviable to me.

The sheer unapologetic joy with which men seem to approach sex is inspiring to me. I believe that when writing a sex scene, I start from that joy and sense of entitlement, and write the scene around it. So far, it seems to be working.

Weighing Reader Sensibilities: "This Book Made Me So Mad!"

One way books get noticed by readers is at websites such as LibraryThing.com and GoodReads.com. These are non-commercial sites that function as social networking places for those who love books. Users exchange recommendations and reviews, and hold discussion about their favorite reads. The very nature of this type of site invites the formation of cliques.

Recently, I was cautioned that a specific group of people on one of these sites "don't like infidelity, menage, or anything like that". Over several days, I came to understand what that meant: this group likes a sweet little M/M romance, wrapped up in a neat bow, with no real drama, no real-life questions or struggles - at least not the type that are uncomfortable and for which there are no easy answers. And I don't want to knock these types of books. Heaven knows readers need a respite from the seriousness of their daily lives. But the attitude inherent in this clique discourages books that deal with heavier subject matter, and worse, the group dynamic discourages members from exploring such titles.

What is the job of a writer? First, perhaps it is to entertain. If the book isn't entertaining no one is going to be reading it. Beyond that though, it gets more complex. Sometimes the job of the writer is to offer escapism. Sometimes - maybe at the other end of the spectrum of reading experiences - the job of the writer is to challenge the reader to think. I personally think the best books accomplish both. What about a book that makes the reader uncomfortable? What about characters that do things the reader finds reprehensible?

I think that a book full of nasty characters is not entertaining. Not for me. Similarly, a book that offers a main character that is unattractive from an ethical or moral standpoint, is difficult to stick with. But what about the character who is pleasing, and commits a heinous act? Do we do away with the book?

Life is messy. Good people do things they shouldn't to one another. Sometimes they are forgiven. Sometimes not. There is a lot of gray area in real life; the black and white we find in fictional stories is not often realistic. As a writer, one has to decide whether a book is going to

- offer simple mindless escapism. This is not an unworthy goal. Bringing a little escape to a weary reader is always worthwhile.

- challenge attitudes and beliefs. If a writer chooses this path, one has to be prepared for some fallout: an angry reviewer here and there, people who just can't swallow the details of the story enough to bring themselves to a place of contemplation.

- do both. This is tricky. Because in order to do both you have to challenge in a very quiet way; you have to avoid interrupting the peace of escapism while subtly raising some questions in the reader's mind.

Again, I think the best books (and their authors) accomplish both. I am still working on it.