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The Young and the Evil
Note that the correct title of this book is The Young and Evil, not The Young and the Evil as seen in this modern reprint. The same cheap edition hyphenated Ford's last name, something the author never did.
A milestone in the history of gay literature and of homosexuality itself, and praised unflinchingly by Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein, this stunning and experimental work, first published in 1933 by the Obelisk Press, Paris, is a non-judgemental depiction of gay life and men, told using characters modeled on the authors lives themselves. With the added interracial connotations, also unmentionable at the time, it remained largely unread for decades due to censorship suppression in England and the U.S. It survives as the first modern unapologetic thoroughly gay novel.
Plotless and heavily influenced by Gertrude Stein's writing, this novel presents a queer group of friends in New York City who spend much time becoming uproariously drunk at parties, swapping beds and apartments, avoiding the hostile attentions of both the police and sailors; they cruise in the park, eat on the cheap at all-night "coffeepots," wear make-up and gaudy gowns, and occasionally create art.
In August 1933 a limited edition of 2500 copies of The Young and Evil appeared. Five hundred of these were destroyed by British customs, and American customs officials returned to France all shipments of the book that arrived in the United States. The book received only a single review in its authors' native country (in The New Republic, which praised it), and was generally not read by American audiences until its republication in the United States in editions issued in 1960, 1974, and 1988.
A milestone in the history of gay literature and of homosexuality itself, and praised unflinchingly by Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein, this stunning and experimental work, first published in 1933 by the Obelisk Press, Paris, is a non-judgemental depiction of gay life and men, told using characters modeled on the authors lives themselves. With the added interracial connotations, also unmentionable at the time, it remained largely unread for decades due to censorship suppression in England and the U.S. It survives as the first modern unapologetic thoroughly gay novel.
Plotless and heavily influenced by Gertrude Stein's writing, this novel presents a queer group of friends in New York City who spend much time becoming uproariously drunk at parties, swapping beds and apartments, avoiding the hostile attentions of both the police and sailors; they cruise in the park, eat on the cheap at all-night "coffeepots," wear make-up and gaudy gowns, and occasionally create art.
In August 1933 a limited edition of 2500 copies of The Young and Evil appeared. Five hundred of these were destroyed by British customs, and American customs officials returned to France all shipments of the book that arrived in the United States. The book received only a single review in its authors' native country (in The New Republic, which praised it), and was generally not read by American audiences until its republication in the United States in editions issued in 1960, 1974, and 1988.
136 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1933
26 people are currently reading
910 people want to read
About the author
Charles Henri Ford
33 books20 followersCharles Henri Ford was an American poet, novelist, filmmaker, photographer, and collage artist best known for his editorship of the Surrealist magazine View (1940-1947) in New York City, and as the partner of the artist Pavel Tchelitchew. His very informative obituary of record is here.
"The simplest summation of Mr. Ford's life and work may be that he did exactly what he wanted, and seemingly knew everyone."
"The simplest summation of Mr. Ford's life and work may be that he did exactly what he wanted, and seemingly knew everyone."
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 1, 2015
one of the first queer books ever published, and still one of the most edgy in its writing style and its protagonists' disinterest in being a part of mainstream society's rituals. the prose is super challenging and also super fun. the narrative is haphazard - a great reflection of the characters' lives.
hooray, young and evil, you go! that scene on the bus as the young & evil observe and offend the staid & outraged is brilliant. haha, stupid mainstream.
I was reminded of my own la-di-da 20s, being broke and surrounded by friends and sleeping with whoever and all the late night conversations at late night restaurants. and this was written 60 years prior to that! I guess some things never change.
and hey I just wanted to add that the other reviews for this novel (all 2 of them!) are clearly written by morons who are either just now learning to read or who prefer the comforting prose style of People magazine. yes I am the sort of reviewer who trashes other reviewers. *snap*
hooray, young and evil, you go! that scene on the bus as the young & evil observe and offend the staid & outraged is brilliant. haha, stupid mainstream.
I was reminded of my own la-di-da 20s, being broke and surrounded by friends and sleeping with whoever and all the late night conversations at late night restaurants. and this was written 60 years prior to that! I guess some things never change.
and hey I just wanted to add that the other reviews for this novel (all 2 of them!) are clearly written by morons who are either just now learning to read or who prefer the comforting prose style of People magazine. yes I am the sort of reviewer who trashes other reviewers. *snap*
August 26, 2015
As far as I am concerned, to fail to be queer is to fail to be fully human. Queerness is essential in our heteronormative world – to engage with, subvert, fuck with gender norms regardless of one’s sexual preferences is the righteous duty of all loving and properly sentient citizens.
Queer texts (and oh my darlings, this lovely book is so very very queer) get to do things straight texts can’t. Finnegans Wake is a wonderfully queer book, perhaps the queerest every printed, and there is a certain kind of “experimentation” that can unstraighten the straightest of pages. There is some excellently fucked writing in this novel - fractured and flowing sentences, fragments of party conversation, poetry and pretentious lectures...
The Young and Evil was written by someone who typed up Nightwood for Djuna while hanging around in Morocco at the prompting of Paul Bowles, someone who was Steinian in the best possible sense, and who was photographed for Vogue in 1937 wearing a costume designed by Dali. Charles co-wrote it (the exact nature of who-wrote-what has never been completely established) with Parker Tyler (who would later go on to write some of the best books on underground and gay cinema) when both were young and full of poetry, lust and drink and drugs, 30 years before the Beats would try and claim they were doing something new...
I found the bravery and honesty of its queerness very beautiful indeed. It is sad too, and angry a little I suspect. There is a brutality to the actions and attitudes of some of the characters which can only come from a place of pain.
Whether or not you will like this book is impossible for me to tell – I can certainly see many hating the writing – but I would suggest giving it 20 odd pages to see if you can go along with it. If nothing else it has great importance as a historical document, and as a reminder that kids have been getting up to wonderfully self-absorbed and crazy shit since time immemorial.
I am writing this on my phone as I just finished reading on the train and have bronchitis and feel like crap so probably would forget to write a review if I did not do it now and, frankly. this deserves more than the reviews it has on here at present.
So apologies for the rambling and any and all spelling or grammar mistakes which I may or may not come back and fix later.
Queer texts (and oh my darlings, this lovely book is so very very queer) get to do things straight texts can’t. Finnegans Wake is a wonderfully queer book, perhaps the queerest every printed, and there is a certain kind of “experimentation” that can unstraighten the straightest of pages. There is some excellently fucked writing in this novel - fractured and flowing sentences, fragments of party conversation, poetry and pretentious lectures...
The Young and Evil was written by someone who typed up Nightwood for Djuna while hanging around in Morocco at the prompting of Paul Bowles, someone who was Steinian in the best possible sense, and who was photographed for Vogue in 1937 wearing a costume designed by Dali. Charles co-wrote it (the exact nature of who-wrote-what has never been completely established) with Parker Tyler (who would later go on to write some of the best books on underground and gay cinema) when both were young and full of poetry, lust and drink and drugs, 30 years before the Beats would try and claim they were doing something new...
I found the bravery and honesty of its queerness very beautiful indeed. It is sad too, and angry a little I suspect. There is a brutality to the actions and attitudes of some of the characters which can only come from a place of pain.
Whether or not you will like this book is impossible for me to tell – I can certainly see many hating the writing – but I would suggest giving it 20 odd pages to see if you can go along with it. If nothing else it has great importance as a historical document, and as a reminder that kids have been getting up to wonderfully self-absorbed and crazy shit since time immemorial.
I am writing this on my phone as I just finished reading on the train and have bronchitis and feel like crap so probably would forget to write a review if I did not do it now and, frankly. this deserves more than the reviews it has on here at present.
So apologies for the rambling and any and all spelling or grammar mistakes which I may or may not come back and fix later.
September 23, 2022
Historically of interest, and the background/genesis of the book, explicated in the well-nigh essential introduction, is actually of far more interest than the novel itself. SOME of the book is interesting and readable, but far too often veers into unreadable Stein-ian gobbledygook or meaningless minute details of everyday life. The few glimpses of gay life in the early 30's (esp. cruising the sailors and getting arrested, and the Harlem drag ball scenes) are well worth the rest of it though.
February 2, 2014
There's a great story in here about bohemian gayboys in early 1930s Manhattan, but it's been rendered nearly unreadable by an annoyingly experimentalist prose style: no punctuation and sentences that range from understandable to ambiguous to utterly mystifying. For all that, it gets two stars rather than one because there are some fascinating scenes (drag ball in Harlem, anyone?) and a few poetic turns of phrase that verge on sheer genius.
November 12, 2020
I found Steven Watson’s introduction (with excellent photographs/illustrations) the most interesting thing about this book. It is also interesting from an historical perspective, focusing on 1. LGBT history and 2. Censorship.
The ‘characters’ in the novel are well ‘out and proud’, even arrogantly so, in New York/Greenwich Village in 1933, when this was published. The Authorities did their best to stem its circulation, including the Brits who burnt 500 copies (I came close to doing the same but for slightly different reasons) !
Large swathes of it I found to be unreadable. The one page Chapter 8, ‘The Letter’, will do as an example. Here’s an extract:
‘Julian,
It is not that. That wasn’t the making of it. It’s the unmaking. It is the unmaking of us. It is not that I am talking about: I am talking about us. About the soundless sleep at 10am. With no nots for there were no yeses – only a dream and a dream is only a beginning and then we might say we were. About breakfast if quite breakfast, about walking out afterward for then we were. It is this and this I am talking about. Oh it isn’t a world for scissors, for mallets; but for needle, thread and for paste: it is such a world for we were only being yes apart, not together, and that is the making of it. The making of us.
…………….Karel’
On the other hand, parts are much more obviously readable and at times funny.
‘Karel, as he had promised, came by three hours before the others bringing his box of beauty that included eyelash curlers, mascara, various shades of powder, lip and eyebrow pencils, blue and brown eyeshadow and tweezers for the eyebrows.
Julian submitted to his artistry, only drawing the line at his eyebrows being plucked.
I’ll make you up to the high gods Karel said..When he was through he regarded the result with a critical and gratified eye. Julian’s rather full mouth now had lips which though less spiritual were not quite lewd. His eyes were simple sins to be examined more closely or to be looked at only from a distance.
Karel never did badly by his own face.’
Not for me. I’ll put this one down to experience.
1.5* a grudging 2*
The ‘characters’ in the novel are well ‘out and proud’, even arrogantly so, in New York/Greenwich Village in 1933, when this was published. The Authorities did their best to stem its circulation, including the Brits who burnt 500 copies (I came close to doing the same but for slightly different reasons) !
Large swathes of it I found to be unreadable. The one page Chapter 8, ‘The Letter’, will do as an example. Here’s an extract:
‘Julian,
It is not that. That wasn’t the making of it. It’s the unmaking. It is the unmaking of us. It is not that I am talking about: I am talking about us. About the soundless sleep at 10am. With no nots for there were no yeses – only a dream and a dream is only a beginning and then we might say we were. About breakfast if quite breakfast, about walking out afterward for then we were. It is this and this I am talking about. Oh it isn’t a world for scissors, for mallets; but for needle, thread and for paste: it is such a world for we were only being yes apart, not together, and that is the making of it. The making of us.
…………….Karel’
On the other hand, parts are much more obviously readable and at times funny.
‘Karel, as he had promised, came by three hours before the others bringing his box of beauty that included eyelash curlers, mascara, various shades of powder, lip and eyebrow pencils, blue and brown eyeshadow and tweezers for the eyebrows.
Julian submitted to his artistry, only drawing the line at his eyebrows being plucked.
I’ll make you up to the high gods Karel said..When he was through he regarded the result with a critical and gratified eye. Julian’s rather full mouth now had lips which though less spiritual were not quite lewd. His eyes were simple sins to be examined more closely or to be looked at only from a distance.
Karel never did badly by his own face.’
Not for me. I’ll put this one down to experience.
1.5* a grudging 2*
October 5, 2016
#TheLiteraryOthers
January 20, 2021
absolute favourite lost gay modernist text. rereading again for thesis.
"murderpiss beautiful boys grow out of dung."
"murderpiss beautiful boys grow out of dung."
March 14, 2023
surprised by how much I liked the thing itself, since I read it more as a cultural artefact (of unselfconscious modernism, flapper era gayness, pre-Beat bohemia, the 1920s downtown 'scene'). it was really struck through with moments of genius, and had much more of a preoccupation with love than with sex or ideas, for though it cares about those things too, it is more amused than concerned by them. i especially liked the women, bright dashes of mania and heaviness, cared for and even at times understood
January 2, 2020
Apparently I read the "wrong" version of this book. I read a version called THE Young and THE Evil when the true version is seen here: THE YOUNG AND EVIL.
The young people in this book are certainly young. Definitely cruel to eachother, but they all agree that they love a good time. None of them have much money. Not sure if any of them are verifiably "evil," but it's none of my business because I'm not the intended audience.
It's tough for me to read about any characters who are undergoing misfortune. And I don't like reading about characters being cruel to eachother.
But the subject matter is a brave thing to publish. Unapologetic, eyes open, all flaws on display.
The young people in this book are certainly young. Definitely cruel to eachother, but they all agree that they love a good time. None of them have much money. Not sure if any of them are verifiably "evil," but it's none of my business because I'm not the intended audience.
It's tough for me to read about any characters who are undergoing misfortune. And I don't like reading about characters being cruel to eachother.
But the subject matter is a brave thing to publish. Unapologetic, eyes open, all flaws on display.
March 13, 2023
Purchased the $4.99 Kindle version ONLY because Parker Tyler is mentioned in Hugh Ryan's excellent history, "When Brooklyn was Queer". AND, for some reason, Hart Crane collections are pricey and/or unavailable. When I saw that this was "Surrealist" prose and Tyler is associated with Stein and Barnes, both of whom I've read, I was ready to go.
I did read it. Many comment on the lack of conventional punctuation. The writing is also stripped of most visual imagery. This is not "Naked Lunch", for example. Characters are little more than a name with bits of dialogue, lacking quotation marks. There's no real action or plot. Characters interact, like paper cutouts. Other reviewers enjoyed the "humor" or the riotous "parties" described. But there are better, more rewarding descriptions of Depression Era New York to be found elsewhere.
This book left me wondering how definitions of "modern writing" change, how Gertrude Stein could have such a huge influence for an entire generation of writers, and how this will all be seen in another 50 or so years.
I did read it. Many comment on the lack of conventional punctuation. The writing is also stripped of most visual imagery. This is not "Naked Lunch", for example. Characters are little more than a name with bits of dialogue, lacking quotation marks. There's no real action or plot. Characters interact, like paper cutouts. Other reviewers enjoyed the "humor" or the riotous "parties" described. But there are better, more rewarding descriptions of Depression Era New York to be found elsewhere.
This book left me wondering how definitions of "modern writing" change, how Gertrude Stein could have such a huge influence for an entire generation of writers, and how this will all be seen in another 50 or so years.
January 3, 2022
A cautionary tale: don't fall in love with straight boys.
Read
September 6, 2022Shock value for its time. Not a pleasant read.
Read
December 31, 2022For fans of literary modernism only.
December 23, 2025
An amazing chronicle that shows how active gay lives were in NY.
September 7, 2019
Bizarre from beginning to end
I’m thinking there is a lot of symbolism in the content of this book but I could not find it. I have never read a book with no punctuation besides periods and exclamation points. It’s difficult to determine who is in
conversation most of the time. The four main characters offer a look at comradery that seems to be on a merry go-round.
I’m thinking there is a lot of symbolism in the content of this book but I could not find it. I have never read a book with no punctuation besides periods and exclamation points. It’s difficult to determine who is in
conversation most of the time. The four main characters offer a look at comradery that seems to be on a merry go-round.
April 9, 2020
This is an interested gay literary artifact about NYC gay life in 1933. That does not mean that is it easy to read..there are pages and pages of pseudo-poetic gibberish and nonsensical stuff. However, buried amid all this, is a drag ball in Harlem, a cruising gay-bashing, numerous coupling, drugs, alcohol and bi-sexuality. I recommend only for serious readers of gay literary history.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews