Lambda interview with Don Weise

Lambda recently interviewed critic Daniel Mendelsohn and he stated, “ [a] book that is only meaningful to the gay reader cannot be a great book. It is precisely the gay book’s ability to be interesting to a straight reader that makes it a great book. [….] What makes literature literature is precisely its ability to go beyond borders, beyond identities.” Any thoughts on Mendelshon’s views concerning literature? 

I think debates over what makes a book great are largely among writers and people who teach literature. The rest of us I don’t think really care. I’d say we’re more interested in whether we connect with a book, meaning whether it excites us, compels us, shows us the world in a new way, makes us laugh, arouses us, makes us want to read more by the same author. I happen to love the writing of the African American gay poet Essex Hemphill—so much so that I reissued one of his books, Ceremonies. But do straight people read him? Do gay people even read him? Does the answer to either question reflect on the merits of his writing? Does it matter ultimately? More important to me is the fact that his poem to his mother, “In the Life,” still makes me cry after 15 years. That closing line about her never noticing “the absence of rice and bridesmaids” will forever choke me up, and how much greater can literature get than that?