A gay-themed novel dating from the late 1970s, not so well-known today.

The title is a line from William Butler Yeats' poem, Among School Children.

A couple of reviews: 1, 2.

Reserved for the LGBTQ VBB organized by elstaplador.

On its way to elstaplador for the LGBTQ VBB.
Enjoy!

Received as part of the LGBTQ virtual bookbox - thanks okyrhoe!

A novel of gay life in New York, published 1978. The action spans the previous couple of decades, I suppose, and is book-ended by a series of letters between two onlookers - the nameless narrator in New York, and a friend in the South. These put me off a bit, being both lurid and confusing, but once I'd fought my way through them and got to the novel proper, I was hooked. This is a rather beautiful book, explicit but not coarse, sad but not depressing, serious but not preachy. I'm not sure, though, that I really enjoyed it.

I did feel that things ran out of steam about three quarters of the way through, at which point I really stopped caring about any of the characters. I had stopped liking most of them some while previously. And I got very, very tired of hearing about beautiful Puerto Rican men.

Here, have an extract:


But at that moment Sutherland turned to the fertilizer heir and said: "Darling, come, we're going uptown! A small Crucifixion at Park and Seventy-fifth, nothing heavy." The boy, pale and stricken, got up and followed the Egyptian women, the French model, and a couple of Halston assistants out of the dim room with Sutherland in his black Norell and turban, leading the pack. With them went Malone, and with him went the magic of the room, which consisted, I realized then, not of the music, the lights, the dancers, the faces, but of those eyes, still, and grave and candid, looking at you with the promise of love

Sending to GoryDetails, who won the LGBT History Month challenge. Hope you enjoy this!

Sending to GoryDetails, who won the LGBT History Month challenge. Hope you enjoy this!

The GLBT prize package arrived today; many thanks, elstaplador! This book's one of the classics of gay-lit that I've read about often but have not actually read. And I love the goodies that came with it: the rainbow note cards and book mark, the bookplate labels, and the cute little rainbow journal. Thanks again!

Later: I rather like the tale-within-a-tale format, with the story proper wrapped in letters between two friends. And the pre-AIDS-era party-lifestyle scenes were familiar to me from other novels, though the tone of this one is more bittersweet and muted. [One bit from the letters: "Your novel might serve a historical purpose - if only because the young queens nowadays are utterly indistinguishable from straight boys."] The mystery of Malone, beautiful and charismatic and (in the words of the narrator) doomed - is never resolved, which leaves it open for us to guess, a nice touch...

Other nice touches: Sutherland attending to an injured Malone in the uniform of a nurse in the Crimean War, "bearing a poppy and a volume of The Jungle Book." The Fire Island scenes, which reminded me of the time I visited Cherry Grove with friends and got to see the setting for myself. Another line from Sutherland (who got most of the best ones), while apologizing for his Vuitton luggage: "I know it's pretentious... but it wasn't when my grandmother bought it, in 1926."

I'm putting this book in my LGBT-themed shrinking bookbox, which will soon be on its way to its first stop with quietorchid in Minnesota. Hope everyone enjoys the bookbox!

Taking out of the bookbox! Thanks for sending it.

I read more than half, and agree with the bittersweet feelings mentioned. Passing this on.

Left in the park during Pride 2016 to find a new reader!

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