by Richard Labonte
"Wingshooters," by Nina Revoyr. Akashic Books, 250 pages, $15.95 paper.
Xenophobia is rampant in rural Vietnam War-era Wisconsin, and for most of Revoyr's fourth novel, it's focused squarely on almost-10-year-old Michelle LeBeau, small-town Deerhorn's only non-white resident. Her father – son of Charlie LeBeau, one of the racist town's more upstanding citizens, despite his own inherent bigotry – has dumped the young girl with her grandparents while he travels the country trying to reconnect with his Japanese wife, who has fled the family. Bullied relentlessly at school for being "different" and isolated from her peers, the young girl finds solace in the company of both her devoted dog and her doting grandfather, who – though he loathed his son's interracial marriage – connects with tomboyish Michelle (he calls her Mikey) through her love of fishing, hunting and baseball, manly pursuits his own son avoided. When a young black couple arrives, Deerhorn's deep-rooted intolerance explodes from sullen to savage, their presence leading to race-based hatred that tears the town apart. Revoyr writes about deep heartache, flawed characters and squandered anger with infinite grace.
"A Pornography of Grief," by Philip Huang. Signal 8 Press, 193 pages, $12.95 paper.
It would be a mistake to read the 18 stories in this slim debut collection in one sitting. The tales are short – many under 10 pages – but they all pack an impressionistic punch that demands, and deserves, an interlude of reflection. Or, often, a re-reading; Huang's prose is at once stirring, shocking, subversive and, all the while, subtle. Most of the pieces are infused with grief: "The Widow Season" is about the troubled relationship between a gay man and his dead lover's mother; in "Okra," a woman mourns the death of her baby, but the reader is told, matter-of-factly, that "babies die every day"; in "Saturday," a dazed man's dog dies; "Childhood," one of the lustier stories, is about a man coping with AIDS and death. But the world of Huang isn't entirely dire and dour: One of the more straightforward stories, "House Party," features two stoned roommates whose apartment is taken over, comically, by refugees from a party across the hall; "Colin Farrell's Penis" is a hilarious vignette about beautiful bodies and political assassination.
"A Saving Remnant: The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds," by Martin Duberman. The New Press, 312 pages, $27.95 hardcover.
Gay historian and biographer Duberman had planned to write about "some half-dozen" lesbian and gay activists of the 1900s – none of them particularly committed to just the narrow focus of gay liberation – when he began research for this inspiring book. But the stories of Barbara Deming (born in 1917 to an upper-middle-class New York family) and David McReynolds (born in 1929, raised a Baptist, soon a socialist) captured his attention. Both were out before being so was politically in – the left was pretty homophobic in the '50s and '60s – though Deming was far more sexually precocious than McReynolds; both threw themselves into such vital leftish concerns as civil rights, peaceful protest and anti-war activism. Their political passions often overlapped, though they led quite separate lives, and for a while feuded over women's rights. Duberman has crafted a riveting account of the public lives and noble ideals of two fierce queers, through which he threads a well-mannered glimpse of their sexual lives – Deming was involved in a series of lesbian relationships, while McReynolds in his younger days cruised for sex.
"Burnings," by Ocean Vuong. Sibling Rivalry Press, 40 pages, $12 paper; "Road Work Ahead," by Raymond Luczak. Sibling Rivalry Press, 80 pages, $14.95 paper.
There's an old voice in many of young Ocean Vuong's poems – he was born in 1988 – particularly in those in the first section of this bold debut collection, where he recalls a culture left behind when his family emigrated from Vietnam and re-imagines the atrocities of a war he did not live through, all the while rendering the emotion of loss with vulnerable intensity. The focus of the second section shifts to more personal work: an ode to masturbation, self-fellatio as prayer, the memory of boys touching in the dark – poems pulsing with the lust of youth, but just as vulnerable and intense. And as one poet comes into his queerness, another reflects on life after the end of a long relationship. Raymond Luczak's fourth collection dwells on loss – one poem, in memory of a beloved basset hound, opens with "One morning I will depart and leave her/ with the man I once loved" – but the writing is more nostalgic than it is melancholy, the expression of an aching heart beating with hope for love to be realized.
Featured Excerpt
Exiled, I found citizenship/ in the republic of my body-/ that ravaged landscape I navigate/ by heart. And it's easy, becoming/ what's yours. Can't say I know/ why Adam surrendered his rib-/ my Lord lies/ between my legs, and each morning/ I curl to meet my maker's lips/ I pray faithfully in the cathedral/ of raised legs, my hair haloed by sunlight/ as I bow deeper, eager to receive/ His blessing.
– "Self-Fellatio as Prayer," from "Burnings," by Ocean Vuong
Footnotes
CHARIS BOOKS & MORE, one of America's few remaining women's bookstores, hopes to relocate within a year to a larger location, transforming itself into the Charis Feminist Center with a cafe, more room for programming, and with space to share with nonprofit organizations. The 37-year-old bookstore's current building is for sale, and a campaign to raise $1 million – co-chaired by the same now-active philanthropist who provided seed money for the bookstore in 1974 – has started. "We've been dreaming about this for 10 or 15 years and finally we have the right people on board to make it happen," co-owner Angela Gabriel told the "Georgia Voice.".. CELEBRITY BLOGGER and gossip monger Perez Hilton, whose voice has sometimes been quite venomous, has signed with Celebra and the Penguin Young Reader's Group for a children's book, "The Boy with Pink Hair" – a kid with a "shock of fabulous hair" who yearns to fit in with his peers. According to Hilton, the picture book is intended to appeal "to every kid that's ever had a dream, felt excluded, wanted to belong, and hoped that one day they could do what they loved and make a difference"… POET AND MEMOIRIST Mark Doty has been named a recipient of a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honor that comes with $7,500.
