Gay Art Lite - I recently read this article on "gay literature" by Philip Hensher. He makes an exceptionally relevant point, with regard to the types of novels written for gays, by gays, stating that "the gay novel started, overwhelmingly, to fit two genres. The first was the AIDS novel ... The second... the coming-out novel."

Much like Hensher, I find that "the coming-out novel is not one which reflects my own experience. I have encountered little hostility and, as far as I can tell, no psychological traumas. It is a similar story with AIDS." I could certainly find pieces of such books that mirrored parts of my own experience, but for the most part, books like Andrew Tobias' The Best Little Boy in the World mostly served to depress me. I think that many gays in my generation felt similarly, spawning what I would argue is a third genre that came about during the late 1990's.

As I sought to recommend intelligent, meaningful, well-written gay books to friends, I found this third category equally unsatisfying: the pop-culture-allusion-filled humorous adventures of a newly-out, young, gay man. Now, on a personal level, I find this third genre highly enjoyable, but "literature" it is not. This genre is typified for me by books such as Dennis Hensley's Misadventures in the (213), Christian McLaughlin's Sex Toys of the Gods, and Matthew Rettenmund's Blind Items. Each of these books is unapologetically gay in its characterizations, but the plot and settings tend more toward the wacky hijinks that ensue in the gay ghettos of West Hollywood and Chelsea. This genre marks a departure from the traumatic tales told of coming out and death, also lack the depth that novels that tackle these types of subjects have. However, perhaps the most entertaining book of this genre is Peter Lefcourt's The Dreyfus Affair, a love story about two baseball players that takes place in decidedly unhip San Fernando Valley, not WeHo, and written by a straight man. The protagonist was a father and baseball player first, and a man who fell in love with another man second. He does eventually come out, but that's not the entirety of the plot.

One author who inhabited and then transcended these genres is David Leavitt. His first book, Family Dancing fell squarely in the "coming out" category, and subsequent works included aspects of the "AIDS" genre. However, in his later books, but especially the semi-autbiographical story in Arkansas, his tone changed, and the plots became less about being gay. As Leavitt grew up and times changed, so did his writing, moving beyond coming out and AIDS and even humorous adventures. The recent books started to reflect scenarios that were about life in general, where being gay was not necessarily the central traits of the characters. I think that the age and maturity of the authors, medical advances against AIDS, and a greater societal acceptance of gays all help to make more authors of gay literature to widen their subjects, "writing about homosexuals because of their views on politics, or because they might rob banks or, in fact, do anything but represent the fact of their sexuality." It's only in the recent past that gays have had the luxury to not worry as much about being ostracized or fearing for their lives.

Finally, the author makes reference to the fact that "every big bookshop now has a gay section; gay novels have spread into the mainstream," echoing a theme that appeared in the NY Times earlier this week. While a suburban Borders or Barnes & Noble will almost certainly never cover the breadth that a gay bookstore would, the fact that a gay literature section exists at such stores lends further credence to the argument of greater societal acceptance, which in turn could leader to greater freedom in writing by gay authors. So, I think we are on course to read a point where, as Hensher says, books by a thinking gay writer can be called "gay novels," even if they don't fit into a stereotypical genre.