A search began when in my twenty-seventh year my friend Ted introduced me to the gay novel. That first book was Patricia Nell Warren’s The Front Runner (NY: William Morrow & Co., 1974), and Ted claimed it had just about everything in it. I took this to mean every gay theme. Reading it I discovered several topics and scenes of interest but was unable to find myself in the story. My own story included a life-long sexual response to men that lived peacefully alongside my commitment to a marriage and a largely conventional heterosexual life. The day I finished Warren’s book, I undertook a literary search for my gay self.
I read Robert Ferro, Edmund White, Paul Monnett, Richard Nava, Ethan Morddan, and many other authors of gay fiction over many years. Eventually I read Felice Picano’s book Ambidextrous and found myself. It wasn’t actually me, but the book described bisexual experiences and feelings similar to some I had as a child and teen and, thus, brought me relief that I wasn’t alone in the world. I was at least barely recognizable among gay males and no longer wondered if I was an outsider in this outsider existence.
I was elated to find commonality with a writer who described the book as autobiographical fiction. I read more of his books including Men Who Loved Me and realized my sameness with Picano was limited. While I enjoyed his sense of spirituality and his vigorous personal searches for love, his stories included drugs—lots of them; mine was drug free. I continued to read Picano and other gay novelists who were being published in ever-increasing numbers looking for other glimmers of my life, hoping for a light to lead me into an unknown future.
My friend Bill told me he found himself in Paul Monnett’s Becoming a Man. He had been deeply moved by the book and felt it affirmed his experience. I read the book with interest for it allowed me a glimpse into the lives of the author and of my friend. I assumed that most details of Bill’s life differed from those in Monnett’s book, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t connect with the book very deeply although the beautiful, effective writing seemed very important as a gay statement. It simply wasn’t my story. I kept reading but mostly felt like I was still an outsider in the gay world that so fascinated me.
Then my life changed radically. I separated from my wife and then left my profession that I had found growing too gay-unfriendly for my taste. I began to live as a gay man and to write on a regular basis. In both, I set out to explore my life experiences in order to understand more about who I had become. I made interesting and helpful connections of diverse themes that seemed to make sense of my experience. As I wrote, I kept reading but didn’t find myself in these books, that is, until thirty years after reading my first gay novel.
I was stunned and pleased when a few weeks ago I read the chapter “East of Ashshur” in Aryeh Lev Stollman’s The Far Euphrates (NY: Riverhead Books, 1997). Stollman’s character Alexandre tells the story as son and only child of a Rabbi and his wife living in Windsor, Ontario. In this chapter, the protagonist stated for the second time that he was not shamed by his homosexuality. I had heard the statement loud and clear at its first occurrence rather early in the book. Then in this chapter the sixteen-year-old Alexandre entered a period of study structured by his religious tradition. He embraced the practice but not its traditional goals such as becoming holy or knowing God. He moved himself into a world related to the Hebrew calendar and sought self-knowledge in the light of the moon. Daily standing before the mirror, he combined physical self-examination with intense reading of anatomy and physiology. In these twin ways, physiological and philosophical, he sought self-understanding. The statement’s repetition occurred toward the end of his year-long intense self-examination that included much more than Alexandre’s sexual feelings and led him to the affirmation of his sexuality that he could see might pose difficulties. Still he felt unashamed.
My experience also has left me unashamed. Early on I knew I liked boys (eventually men) and understood it as a part of my life that I might outgrow. I did not reject it in my teens, and some fifteen years later I didn’t feel shocked when I fell in love with a man. During those intervening and following years I made an intense inquiry into the nature of human sexuality with a focus on homosexuality. I wanted to understand. My attempt was not carried out in a formal retreat like Alexandre’s. In making my inquiry I realized other folk were not interested or at least not at ease over my quest, for instance, my wife fell asleep when I wanted to read her the most interesting things I thought might be helpful enrichments to our sex life and others seemed afraid of my interest. So I did retreat into the relative privacy of my office, late night reading, library research, and internal thought. My reading spanned social science, sexology, biology, social ethics, philosophy, theology, literary criticism, poetry, fiction, and journalism. Like the teenager Alexandre, I observed myself and read about things I thought, felt, and experienced. Like him, my thirst for knowledge was insatiable, and like him, I was unashamed.
My inquiry had begun way back in childhood when I started reading about American Indian culture, life, and history not aware I was studying myself. Then I added theology, then sexuality (my overt self-examination), then music history, and always exhaustive reading of novels—international works in translation, gay novels, Native American novels, murder mysteries, and more.
I continue my reading quest, but most important, now I write to know myself, somehow to be true to my own self. Through my personal accounts and fiction I am seeking to express what I have learned and know. I write my childhood sex and friendships. I write my teenage fascinations with girls and boys. I write my marriage, one in which I dearly loved my wife while I became more acutely attentive to my homosexual needs. I develop characters who speak of my sexual values, reflect on my thoughts and feelings, and by their own adaptations, lead me into new perspectives about myself. I develop characters who do things I have only dreamed or never dared to dream, and in the writing become more aware of my needs and desires. I write how my life affects my work. I write how my self-knowledge creates tensions in my family and vocation. Still though, I see myself riding bikes with my best childhood friend as in Ambidextrous. Still, I stand before the mirror of self-reflection unashamed as in The Far Euphrates. The searching and finding continue as they surely will for the rest of my life.
Denver, 2011
About the Author
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com
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