by Richard Labonte
"The Stranger's Child," by Alan Hollinghurst. Knopf, 448 pages, $27.95 hardcover.
For gay fans of Hollinghurst's first novel, "The Swimming-Pool Library," his new work – seven years in the writing – may be something of a letdown: it doesn't contain the pyrotechnic combination of explicit sexual intensity and impressively perfect prose of either his debut or of his second novel, "The Folding Star." In the author's fifth novel, readers will find more subtle sexual moments but even more impeccably perfect prose. The multi-generation, two-family saga spans almost a century, all the while tracking the at-first covert and eventually (after homosexuality is legalized in England in 1967) more overt lives of gay men. The novel opens in 1913, its five sections linked by the characters coalescing around and spinning off from Cecil Valance, a roguish lad who, brought to Cambridge friend George's home, seduces both George and his sister Daphne, scribbles a poem in Daphne's autograph book and – in the manner of real-life poet Rupert Brooke – dies soon after on a French battlefield. Tracing the afterlife of that poem, this character-rich novel is both languid and lyrical.
"Trans/Love: Radical Sex, Love & Relationships Beyond the Gender Binary," edited by Morty Diamond. Manic D Press, 160 pages, $14.95 paper.
Editor Diamond introduces this tender, lustful, wrenching, revelatory and celebratory anthology as "a love letter to the trans community and beyond." It is just that. The 29 contributors range from accomplished authors (Julia Serano, Sassafras Lowrey, Max Wolf Valerio, Imani Henry, Diamond himself) to artists in other media (photographer Amos Mac, filmmakers Ashley Altadonna and Silas Howard, performers Glenn Marla, Cooper Lee Bombardier and Kai Kohlsdorf) to assorted scholars, activists and organizers – even a stay-at-home dad, Patch Avery, who rehearses poetry while vacuuming. The diverse roster of writers is united, engagingly, by both the uncommon quality of their prose and the unvarnished honesty of their mini-memoirs, sexual escapades, transformative journeys and intelligent observations. Their contributions take the catch-all term "transgender" and explode it, in a style that is passionate, poignant and intensely personal, into varied components: transsexual, two spirit, genderqueer, intersex. Best of all, Diamond succeeds in his goal of compiling an anthology that transcends transgender readers – this collection's universal appeal, queer and beyond, is delectable.
"Halsted Plays Himself," by William E. Jones. Semiotext(e) Native Agents, 200 pages, $24.95 hardcover.
Once upon a time, gay porn films attracted the likes of Groucho Marx and Salvador Dali, were collected by New York's Museum of Modern Art and were reviewed in the "Village Voice," "Daily Variety" and the "New York Post." That pre-AIDS era is chronicled with a kinky combination of serious research and sexual relish in Jones' narrative of the life and times of legendary porn performer and filmmaker Fred Halsted, whose films, from 1972's "L.A. Plays Itself" to his final film – they were films then, not videos – 1981's "A Night at Halsted's," stand as exemplar's of the intersection of experimental film and hot sex. The art-book-sized study is stuffed with movie stills that, in today's vernacular, are definitely NSFW, along with what few photos of Halsted's boyhood and pre-porn days the author found in the course of interviewing his subject's peers. Jones' slender but authoritative biography is fleshed out with reprints of film reviews, interviews, a smattering of dialogue from the "L.A. Plays Itself" and – another side of the man – samplings of his erotic prose.
"Out of Step," by J. Lee Watton. A&M Books, 236 pages, $17 paper.
It wasn't so long ago – like, three months – that lesbian and gay members of the American armed forces were subject to humiliating witch-hunts despite a desire to serve their country. Watton's account of just that happening to her and a small circle of friends more than 45 years ago arrives, then, at an opportune time. Her story is set in1965 when, as a WAVE – a member of the anachronistic Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services – she left a frustrating family and a cloying boyfriend to enlist, sensing the need to escape from a preordained life of marriage-house-kids and from something less tangible: self-defined heterosexuality. Soon enough, despite stark warnings from superiors about too-overt friendships with other gals and the consequent horror of homosexuality, Watton's inner lesbian came out, nurtured by several similarly emergent female companions. The author's memories of furtive gatherings, fumbled touching and romance blossoming are heartwarming; her account of subsequent interrogations, in which friend was turned against friend by the Office of Naval Intelligence's feverish desire to ferret out alleged perversity, is heart-wrenching.
Featured Excerpt
Halsted lived in disregard of what the world required of him. He made his own way. For a handful of years he made something extraordinary seem possible. Some saw him as a man who introduced sex without censorship into avant-garde films; to others, he was an experimental porn director; but Halsted himself had no interest in maintaining those boundaries. He believed in sexual liberation – indeed, in a kind of utopia – and he was willing to sacrifice any possibility of a conventional career for it. Detached from practical realities and courting controversy, he inspired intense reactions, and at their best, his films did the same.
– from "Halsted Plays Himself," by William E. Jones
Footnotes
THE NEWEST LGBTQ magazine on the scene, "Chelsea Station," debuted in November with a literary-star-studded issue, featuring prose, poetry, interviews and essays by and with Eric Andrews-Katz, Billie Aul, Tom Cardamone, Anthony R. Cardno, editor Jameson Currier, Gavin Geoffrey Dillard, David Eye, Michael Graves, William Henderson, Wayne Hoffman, Lisa Huffaker, Alex Jeffers, Richard Johns, Shaun Levin, Vince Liaguno, Jeff Mann, Thomas March, Kevin McLellan, Melissa Tandiwe Myambo, Stephen S. Mills, Eric Norris, Felice Picano, David Pratt, Robert A. Schanke, Charles Silverstein, Jerry L. Wheeler, Emanuel Xavier and Cal Yeomans. For information: www.chelseastationeditions.com… THREE QUEER-INTEREST novels appear on Amazon's list of the top 20 books for 2011 – better than the oft-referenced statistic, one in 10. The books are Chad Harbach's "The Art of Fielding," about more than baseball and with significant gay characters; Justin Torres' "We the Animals," about three wild boys growing up, one of them gay, with a strong autobiographical feel; and David Levithan's "The Lover's Dictionary," an A to Z of alphabetical entries defining the ups and downs of an emotional and sexual relationship.
