The Faber Book of Gay Short Fiction

by Edmund White (Editor)

Edmund White introduces this collection with a thoughtful and forthright description of his personal experience of gay literature and provides a fascinating historical and psychological context for the stories. Contributors include Henry James, Christopher Isherwood, Gore Vidal, David Leavitt, Paul Bowles, and others.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Short Stories, Gay, Gay Fiction, Queer, Anthologies

586 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1991

About the author

Edmund Valentine White III was an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer, and essayist. He was the recipient of Lambda Literary's Visionary Award, the National Book Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award, and the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. France made him Chevalier (and later Officier) de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1993.
White was known as a groundbreaking writer of gay literature and a major influence on gay American literature and has been called "the first major queer novelist to champion a new generation of writers."

Reviews

[George Ilsley · Rating 2 out of 5]

A strangely mis-titled collection of fiction. Why call it a collection "gay short fiction" and then include novel excerpts? Doesn’t short fiction have a particular meaning? Short fiction is actually a challenging form, and novel excerpts often fall short of the mark. Throw in excerpts from widely known novels such as "Swimming Pool Library" and my review lurches down another star.

White has selected an odd assortment of writers here, and the result is somewhat incoherent; everyone from the well-known to only someone White knows with an excerpt from a novel that remains unpublished to this day. It's all too queer. The volume is altogether too hefty to be redeemed by the slight literary jewels hidden among the mass-market offerings.

A grumpy 2 stars from a fan of short fiction.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently picked up this anthology to check on an author or piece I thought was included (it turned out to be a different anthology) but I couldn't help but be drawn into reading one after another of the really fine pieces of fiction this anthology contains. It is still a fine introduction to 'gay' writing within the UK/USA tradition I am dazzled by the number of really wonderful works by well known authors that, even at the time of publication, many readers might not have been familiar with such as Alfred Chester's, 'In Praise of Vespasian'; Christopher Isherwood,'s 'Mr. Lancaster'; Denton Welch's, 'When I was Thirteen'; Henry James's, 'The Pupil' and David Malouf's, 'Southern Skies'. In addition there are as old favourites which it is always a pleasure to meet again such as Gore Vidal's, 'Pages From an Abandoned Journal'; Paul Bowles,'s 'Pages from Cold Point' and Tennessee Williams's, 'Two on a Bender' and I have had to restrain myself from mentioning many others.

As an introduction to the historic highs of gay/queer literature and an introduction to some of the new writers working in the 1980's it can't be bettered and I think many younger readers would profit from reading it. Of course there are numerous writers of the time who are not included (never mind all the great writers and writing that have come along since) but I don't claim that this anthology is comprehensive; all anthologies are flawed but the question remains of their motivation and the quality of the attempt to do the right thing. I would maintain that Edmund White did a fine job for the time and perhaps the greatest service this volume could do is to introduce today's readers not to the giants of the past but to fine writers that were current at the time of publication such as Paul Bailey, Tom Wakefield, Simon Burt, Timothy Ireland, William Heywood Henderson, David Plante and Lev Raphael who are in danger of drifting out of sight.

My original review follows:

I first read this anthology over 25 years ago and I still think it is a fine example of what anthology should be - I respect those who question the 'short fiction' tag when you have excerpts from novels -but I just accepted it as a collection of, and introduction to, some very fine writing and authors I wanted to read more by. There will always be disagreement over what is included, and even more over what isn't, but I was particularly pleased by the number of UK writers included, though it is sad to note that writers like Simon Burt and Timothy Ireland have not published anything recently. I think it is still an excellent collection of fine writing and I am sure will introduce you to authors you didn't know.

[Leo Racicot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gay writers are not just reporting the past but also shaping the future, forging an identity as much as revealing it.

The Faber Book of Short Gay Fiction, Edmund White, editor

Reviewed by Leo Racicot



Like the very best jewels from the family vault, Edmund White, in 1991, gathered together these 32 stories about and by gay men. Spurred on in his idea by a very enthusiastic Robert McCrum, renowned editor of the equally renowned Faber and Faber, White set about to unearth as many gay treasures as he could: those he remembered liking the first time he read them, those he had heard positive words about, along with a few outings from (at the time) new writers, lending the collection a contemporary as well as an historical feel.

The Faber Book of Gay Short Fiction is a valuable and valued anthology. More than twenty years after its publication, its stories crackle with vitality and talent. Here is a gala gathering under the roof of one book of every legend of gay culture and the gay literary world, men now gilt in myth, gay history and the magic of words. So many versatile writers cover these pages, it is difficult to know where to begin--

Henry James’ The Pupil, quite the most amusing of the lot, delights with its tale of a near-unresolvable bond between a teacher and his young student. Gore Vidal’s bitter vetch piece, Pages from an Abandoned Journal, appears here and the old contrarian’s voice rings out eager and strong. Here also to be found is the tenderness of Denton Welch’s alarming encounter at a Swiss ski chalet, as well as the always salty, backwater perversities of James Purdy. Readers must rejoice in Alfred Chester for his surprising paean to toilet sex, Vespasian, a piece so brave and needed, and the revered Tennessee Williams’ naughty camp horror fest, Two on a Party, and revel in the universality of Christopher Isherwood’s Mr. Lancaster, a salute to gays as a group, a global community rather than as a particular person. Here, too, for a reader’s excitement are E.M. Forster, William S. Burroughs, Adam Mars-Jones and Paul Bowles, Andrew Holleran, Alan Hollinghurst, James Baldwin and Bernard Cooper. White’s own Skinned Alive is included, hands-down the shining star in this heavenly sky of writers. The story of a middle-aged expatriate author in Paris, it climbs ivy-like upon White’s precise, lyrical prose, a fine, keen-eyed meditation on the never-before-explored emotional and romantic repercussions of POZ men in the ‘80s.

#

White’s radar in choosing these works was right on target. If there is a common theme, it is “Displacement”. The gay man knows a permanent sense of alienation from the tribe, but also the unwillingness of parents and relatives to forgive or understand, the often unwanted company of women (viewed as intrusive or unnecessary), hearty boyhood affairs, randy, never-to-be-forgotten liaisons, courtships and lovely bodies and Style, lusts, longings and sorrows—a gay Panorama egg of a subculture’s customs, costumes and secret languages, multiple forms of gay expression and male beauty. The ardor and variety of these stories is a brilliant mix, truly. Not only was the Faber a milestone in its time because it was unequalled in both scope and the level of talent represented but also because surprisingly very few anthologies of its caliber have been published since. It made history and it also has kept its cache, a high watershed place in gay literature that has not, I think, been toppled.

Criticisms against the book when it first appeared were mild. A Eurocentric bias permeates selections but this served to draw readers to discover (or re-discover) lesser-known and/or foreign writers. The stories, of course, also summon you to read more works by the authors and also led admirers to further explore White’s work. One man in 1993 wrote, “If Edmund White selected these stories as his personal favorites, it made me want to read and know more about him.”

As to the criticism that the collection omits black authors (other than the always divine James Baldwin), White said, “I read dozens of stories by dozens of black writers and I didn’t find anything too suitable. And I thought it was wrong to include them just because they were black.”

Robert McCrum reports, “My memory is that the book was well-received. There were some quibbles about the title – and why we had not made it Gay and Lesbian Short Fiction – but nothing serious. Having Ed White do it more or less guaranteed a smooth ride. No specific reviews stick in my mind but it was a success and I’m proud of it.”

I want to be bold and say I believe The Faber Book of Short Gay Fiction initiated a queer renaissance. The collection resurrected the reputations of forgotten authors or made readers aware that certain beloved authors like E.M. Forster, James Baldwin and Langston Hughes were homosexuals. White has rescued from obscurity men like Glenway Westcott, Denton Welch and, more recently, the too-long-neglected John Horne Burns and Jean Giono. He gave the work of Adam Mars-Jones a needed, important chance to be seen. The Faber acquainted readers with The Violet Quill, a group of seven gay creators (White, Felice Picano, Andrew Holleran, Robert Ferro, George Whitmore, Michael Grumley, Christopher Cox) formed to read and critique one another’s writing. Picano recalls the group was established because straight editors and literary agents were not being helpful with gay-themed work. As of this writing, only three members of The Violet Quill: Holleran, Picano and White remain.

#

The Faber’s wise inclusion of foreign authors generated a starburst of exploration into gay writing outside the United States. Readers discovered Machado de Assis whose anti-Realist hybrid prose lent credence to the hypothesis that he was gay. During these years, the great Cuban scribe, Reinaldo Arenas, came to prominence (in 2000 his autobiography, Before Night Falls, was turned into a film of the same name). The journals and diaries of Antonin Artaud were re-discovered. And certainly, Armistead Maupin’s story in the Faber helped bring widespread success to his Tales of the City series.

White’s elimination from the collection of one of the most celebrated gay authors of his time, Truman Capote, was due to the amazing fact that Capote never published a gay short fiction. (Interesting aside: rumor had it that a casting couch element similar to the one that existed in Hollywood for actors existed in the publishing world and that Capote’s earliest gay-themed submissions were snubbed by publisher, Bennett Cerf, after Capote refused to give Cerf a blow job. To Cerf’s request, as the rumor goes, Capote, incensed, fired back, “YOU can blow ME!” and stormed out the door.)

#

Before I tell you about the first time I met up with Edmund White’s work and with Ed, I think it is good to tell you about Miss Stanley, my kindergarten teacher who taught the class a little dance, nothing too elaborate, because we were kindergarteners. At the end of our baby ballet, she instructed, “The boys will bow (here, she demonstrated how to bow) and the girls will curtsy.” (She showed us how to curtsy). We did our tiny turns to the music and at the end, you can guess, of course, what sissy little me did. I curtsied. I was rather self-pleased until a wall of laughter and derision knocked me over like a bowling ball. If I could have crawled under the floorboards or jumped out a window, I would have.

It is small wonder I chose, then, to hide what I felt for other boys and men. It was the 1950s and ‘60s. There was no name for what we were other than the names we were being called by haters – Fish, Faggot, Fruit, Nancyboy, Nelly. Plus I was fat, homely and shy, and in the gay world—three strikes and you’re out! I related to and with no one of my kind—I did not know my kind was out there. I wallpapered my room with magazine photos of Julie Andrews and spent long, lonely hours on my bed listening to Verdi and Puccini. I dreamed I would turn into Maria Callas.

A chance encounter (though is there really such an animal as co-incidence?) directed my eye to Forgetting Elena, high upon a library shelf. I was drawn to its exotic cover, to the handsomeness of the author’s book jacket photo but more so, to its rich, lush, almost tropical prose. I devoured it in a day, a Holy Grail found when I wasn’t looking for one. This was not a book I held in front of me but a mirror. Not a gay book, strictly speaking, Forgetting Elena nevertheless offered an open invitation to a gay sensibility. Ed’s sentences lay across me luxuriantly, like reclining magnolia. Ed’s writing is always deeply moving without being manipulative. In natural, unsentimental, unaffected ways, Ed manages to strike just the right pulse of a story. I find myself, again and again in his books, touched in unexpected ways. Less gifted scribes will utilize cornball, maudlin grooves to woo and unspool you. Not Ed; he knows that the root of nostalgia lies in words, not feelings. “If you get the word order right, feelings emerge—naturally.” To write good fiction, a writer needs empathy and Ed possesses it in spades. He defies the writer’s dictum to “show, not tell” and in welcome and satisfying prose he chooses to tell, and tell he surely does, lest a reader miss out on every scrumptious drop of exposition and wit. I make a beeline to the bookshop or library whenever a new title by Ed appears!

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I was thrilled when Ed sanctioned me as his official bibliographer. Bibliography is a discipline of discovery, a detective hunt. Librarians are, by nature, archaeologists. My excavations on behalf of Ed’s work have led me on many a delightful journey—to Yale’s wedding cake-shaped, windowless Beinecke Library where dozens upon dozens of boxes holding his work await the Edmund White enthusiast. Also, to colleagues and friends of Ed: J.D. McClatchy and Timothy Young at Yale, Nancy Roche at Vanderbilt, Christopher Bram, Wilfrid Spiegelman, Steven Dansky, Tiziano Sossi in Italy, Ed’s brilliant, devoted Michael Carroll; their help was invaluable.

Google is, of course, an indispensable research tool. Yet pre-Internet materials are not always easy to find. Truth be told, one wild goose after another led to featherless dead ends, empty nests. A major assist from Patrick Merla, editor of three now-legendary gay publications: Christopher Street, New York Native and James White Review, helped me track down a fascinating packrat in Florida who’d hung on to every, single issue of Patrick Pacheco’s divine milestone of 60s, 70s, 80s entertainment, After Dark, many of which contain Ed’s early essays and interviews.

There is no exaggerating the value of Ed’s own assistance; he has opened his home, his vast personal collection, his memory palace to me, a grateful visitor. Whenever I find myself neck-deep in the quicksand of what became over 3000 citations, his is the rescue rope that keeps me from sinking.

A fervor for the bibliography led directly to the idea for a needed, new biography. And my own personal and private passion for the history of The Gay Liberation Movement in North America sees me embarking on a new project: A Pictorial and Oral History of Gay Lib.

Diligence. Discovery. Delight. This, for me, is some of the most important work I will ever do—to catalogue a great man’s work in literature, in history.

As a friend, I find Ed divine. Whether you like to walk or not (and I do), Ed will pedestrianize you—Ed loves to walk and look and talk and to have you “see”. Not even four consecutive strokes and heart bypass surgery can stop this locomotive of a man. And what a delight it is walking the wide and winding avenues of his marvelous mind. He is, quite simply, brilliant. I admire Ed profoundly, the man and the myth, the wordsmith and the punster, the raconteur and the fashionista, his endless generosity of spirit…

#

His work stands the test of time and will last and have permanent value. Ed wrote not to have the world’s prejudices against homosexuals eradicated, rather, to show others what it is like to walk in our shoes. He never peddles a false creed. He says -- This is us. Take us or leave us but if you don’t like us, let us live our lives as we choose. He does not and will not accommodate convention. His honesty washes over the reader like refreshing fountain water. This truth-telling energy and output landed him in the catbird seat, paralyzed his contemporaries and gave a voice to generations of gay men. With clarity and vision of purpose, he gathered us safely under the umbrella of his bravery, revealed to us an auspicious sexual and cultural Eden that knows no bounds.

Edmund White—a true social, sexual and cultural pioneer—led us out of the dark when The Closet was very dark indeed. He marched us out into the light of Liberation to a place of not only self-acceptance but of real and a lasting pride in who and what we are.

[Klaus Mattes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Einer der frühesten Versuche, einen klassischen Kanon von Prosa des 20. Jahrhunderts von schwulen Autoren aus englischsprachigen Ländern zu etablieren. George Stambolians Reihe „Men on Men“ startete 1994. David Leavitt präsentierte sein „Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories“ ebenfalls erstmals 1994. Galloway und Sabisch hatten es in Deutschland und für Rowohlt immerhin schon 1981 geschafft: „Calamus - Männliche Homosexualität in der Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts“ (später in Reedition bei Bruno Gmünder noch mal aufgelegt). Mit Edmund White (1940-2025) hatte man sich natürlich eine international auch damals schon recht bekannte und allseits respektierte Autorität als Herausgeber gesichert. Seine zweifellos besten und auch bleibenden, autobiografisch inspirierten Bücher, „A Boy's Own Story“ und „The Beautiful Room Is Empty“, hatte der Amerikaner 1980 und 1988 veröffentlicht.

Somit liegt hier eine repräsentative und wertbeständige Anthologie vor, bei der das Gespür für literarische Qualität die „Juroren“ kaum einmal verlässt. Wenn man die Namen liest und welche (zumeist) Geschichten und (gelegentlich) Romanauszüge es von ihnen sind, kann das nach mehr als 30 Jahre noch Gültigkeit und Kompetenz beanspruchen, ist nicht schlecht gealtert, überrascht, ja verstört bisweilen sogar heute noch: Allan Gurganus und Alan Hollinghurst, Andrew Holleran und Denton Welch, Christopher Isherwood und James Baldwin, Gore Vidal und Tennessee Williams, Neil Bartlett und E.M. Forster, William S. Burroughs und Dennis Cooper, Paul Bailey und Patrick Gale. Sollte es irgendwann noch mal jemanden geben, der es bisher noch nie tat, jetzt aber nachsehen möchte, was Schwule so erleben, erträumen und wie sie darüber schreiben: Mit diesem Buch als Einstieg kommt man weit. Hinterher steht man auf solider Basis.

Nun gilt - aufs gesamte Leben und Werk hin betrachtet - für den (vielleicht doch) etwas überschätzten Edmund White, dass er an einer gewissen Selbstgefälligkeit, einem Faible fürs Prunken mit feurigen Wort-Edelsteinen litt, dabei aber auch hin und wieder eine Art Fokusierungs-Schwäche erkennen ließ. Das führte zu ein paar eigentlich sogar langweiligen, jedenfalls viel zu lang und ausgefeilt aufgemachten Stücken, gegen die man aber kaum was sagen darf, weil ihre Schöpfer so anerkannt sind.

Damit meine ich schon mal Whites eigenen Beitrag, das 30-seitige „Skinned Alive“, mit dem er eine vergiftete Hommage an zwei schöne Männer abliefert, die er in seinem Pariser Jahren als Lover genießen konnte. Für mich kommt kaum mehr rüber als die Mitteilung, dass Edmund White wohl auf einen Typ Mann abfuhr, der mir blasiert, kalt, snobistisch vorgekommen wäre, dazu dann ja auch noch reich, klug, schön, aber was würde mir das noch geben? (Eine Stelle hatte ich seit meiner Erstlektüre von vor 30 Jahren noch im Gedächtnis behalten. Sie lernen sich kennen, trinken was im Reich der Vernissagen und Cocktailbars, dann sagt der schöne, irgendwie traurige Mann: „Ich mag Schmerz.“ Und der Ich-Erzähler: „Ich auch.“ Was danach kam, hatte ich vergessen. Was kein Wunder ist, danach kam nämlich nichts mehr zu diesem Punkt. Wenn auch der Aufhänger für den Titel gefunden war: Häutung des Marsyas durch den Gott Apoll. Erwarten Sie jetzt keine Häutung im Buch!)

Dass der, bei aller stilistischen Erlesenheit, als Einschlafhilfe gut einsetzbare Text „The Pupil“ von Henry James, aus Gründen der Chronologie wohl, an den Eingang des Buchs platziert, mit 47 Seiten vielleicht, etwas, ein kleines Bisschen zu lang war, wusste ich noch und las ihn darum als Letzten. Da wird von einem Engländer erzählt, den ein Clan von umherziehenden Weltenbummlern als Hauslehrer ihres kränklichen Sohnes durch halb Europa zerrt, ihm, außer Wohnung und Essen nie was zahlt, ja, ihn zuletzt auch noch anpumpt, damit er weiter die Gesellschaft des Knaben genießen kann. Sie sind längst verarmt, leben ihr ewiges Fest völlig rücksichtslos gegenüber allen, die sie noch mal ausplündern können. Bei dieser Story könnte man sich streiten, ob sie eine „schwule“ ist. Der elegante und sehr diskrete Henry James schreibt, als ob es rein weiße Agape gegenüber einem geplagten Kind sein könnte, für das irgendwer Verantwortung übernehmen sollte. Falls es diese nicht ist, kann man sich mittlerweile darüber streiten, ob nicht Pädophilie verklärt wird. Mit solchen Fragen musste Edmund White sich 1990 noch nicht plagen. Pädophilie gab es unter Gentleman vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg nicht, bzw. da war sie noch keine, sondern eine Form der Liebe.

Den Ausschnitt, den White aus der „Schwimmbad-Bibliothek“ entnimmt, finde ich jetzt, da ich endlich den Roman gelesen habe, nicht optimal. Er mutet dem Leser zu viele Personen und Anspielungen auf deren Abenteuer außerhalb dieses Ausschnitts zu und unterschlägt den eminent wichtigen Panorama-Charakter des Romans, wonach es eben nicht die eine Geschichte aus dem London der 1980-er ist, vielmehr eine Art kulturgeschichtlicher Bilderbogen über die Verdienste schwuler Männer in der englischen Kultur des Jahrhunderts.

David Leavitt, wie White und Henry James ein Amerikaner in Europa, finde ich zu sehr „Middle Class“ (was für deutsche Verhältnisse durchaus nicht normalsterblich ist, sondern eindeutig oberhalb dessen), zu gediegen, getragen. Aber so sehe ich diesen Autor eigentlich immer. Wie ich Patrick Gale nie mochte - und seine halbwegs humoristisch exekutierten Kleinkriege irgendwie unterdrückter queerer Mannspersonen mit ihren stärkeren Müttern oder Ehefrauen, die irgendwie enden, indem man sich als Frau verkleidet auf den Wackel begibt oder einen Dackel zubereitet fürs Abendessen. (Aber England soll ja so sein.)

Dass wir von Armistead Maupin oder Andrew Holleran nichts wirklich Intimes oder Verstörendes zu erwarten haben, war klar. Dass sie uns hingegen gut unterhalten, einen Hauch Überlegenheit mitbringen, uns vielleicht uns selbst von außen sehen lassen, das gelingt ihnen hier auch wieder.

So richtig knackig, fettig, dreckig fand ich, wie ich mich erinnerte, damals vor 30 Jahren schon, diese „riskanteren“ Sachen vom Ende der Anthologie: Gurganus' „Forced Use“, James Esteps „BM“. Mit viel Schwanz und Promiskuität. Estep wird uns von White als Journalist aus West Virginia vorgestellt, der in Frankreich und Deutschland für Schwulenmagazine gearbeitet hat. Was mag aus ihm geworden sein? Er scheint nicht mit dem Theologen, dem Ökonomen, dem Kriegsberichterstatter Estep identisch zu sein. Dennis Cooper, der für seine Anstößigkeit viel bekannter ist, ließ mich wieder ziemlich kalt. Man kennt's dann und es wiederholt sich.

Schön finde ich zarte Erlebnisse von Halbwüchsigen und so war hier „When I Was Thirteen“ von Denton Welch sehr schön. Welch gehörte zu jenen britischen Autoren (wie der frühe Isherwood, hier im Buch kommt ein älterer dran), die schwule Sachen immer so erzählen, als würde kein Mensch merken, dass es schwule Sachen sind. (Gut, mag sein, bei Henry James mochte ich es nicht, bei Denton Welch mochte ich es. Wer kennt sich selbst?)

David Plante, von dem ich kaum etwas kenne, halte ich für überschätzt. Aber er kommt Edmund Whites Faible für vom Puritanismus zu Hause eingeschnürte amerikanische Jünglinge entgegen, die in Metropolen Europas die Liebe finden (hier Rom, eigentlich ist es nur Vorstellung).

Seltsam rührend fand ich das Verfehlen von möglicherweise schwulem Sex eines jungen Sprachlehrers in Heidelberg und Mannheim. (Also nicht weit von mir selbst entfernt in Jahren, in denen ich lebte.) Das wäre noch mal eine sehr englische Geschichte, „Good Fortune“, wie sie in Deutschland nie erzählt würde. Den Autor Simon Burt, er studierte in Dublin, war dann Lehrer in London, kennt in Deutschland kein Mensch. Sein Protagonist lebt mehrere Monate in Heidelberg als Sprachlehrer, kommt dabei niemandem wirklich nahe, dann in eine Art Dreieck mit einem anderen Jungen und der von diesem begehrten Frau hinein. In dem Moment, als ihm klar wird, dass er keine Frau, sondern diesen Studenten will, ist seine Arbeit in Heidelberg zu Ende. Die Geschichte wird aus der Rückschau, aus einer Mannheimer Nachtbar erzählt. In einer dieser, auf zukünftige Abenteuerreisen mit der Deutschen Bahn vorweg verweisenden Verkettung kleiner, unseliger Zufälle hat der junge Ausländer seinen Nachtzug zur Küste mit dem reservierten Platz verpasst, dann sein Geld und sein Gepäck verloren, wird zuletzt in einem Lokal beim Mannheimer Hauptbahnhof von einer älteren Abenteurerin aufgelesen, die ihm eröffnet, dass alles nur Unglück ist, solange man es als solches betrachtet. Das wird auf 20 Seiten mit einem solchen Interesse für Alltägliches, für ganz uncoole Charaktere erzählt, wie sie deutsche Erzähler sich nie erlauben.

Die auf die 1950-er Jahre zurückgehenden Arbeiten von Tennessee Williams und Gore Vidal scheinen einander in eisiger Kaltschnäuzigkeit gegenseitig zu bespiegeln. Da werden amerikanische Fragen nach dem Wesen des Männlichen verhandelt, die Schwule sich gegenseitig stellen. Du kannst ein noch so guter Kamerad sein, du kannst auch die Zielscheibe gehässiger Niedermache werden, wenn deine Peer Group zum Schluss kommt, dass du sie mit deiner Tuckerei, Tuntentum, Weichlichkeit nur noch runterziehst. Niemand ist so mitleidlos wie Tunten untereinander.

(Oder, es war mal so. Heute kommt in allen Medien, wie toll es sei, zwischen Männlich und Weiblich zu fluiden, dreimal am Tag, und dass alle neidisch drum sind. Ich komme nicht mehr so viel raus. Kann ja sein. Ich weiß das nicht.)

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like other anthologies bought with good intentions, the 1991 “Faber Book of Gay Short Fiction” wound up sitting on my back shelf for years awaiting re-discovery. Ridiculous, yes, and in the case of “Faber,” an undeserved fate as a placeholder. “The Faber Book of Gay Short Fiction” holds up well for someone looking for an introduction, refresher or overview to gay male fiction. Edmund White was a wise choice for editor as he does a fine job of selecting 32 short stories and novel excerpts that reflect the progression of gay writing in the 20th century. Since White himself is in a long line of American gay writers who chose to live most of their lives in Europe, it’s not surprising that many stories show a Euro-centric bias. But some of those choices are strong writers many American readers may not be familiar with, a bonus. With an anthology, not every choice will make every reader happy, and “Faber” has a few that puzzled me—works by Ronald Firbank, James Purdy and William Burroughs---authors not well represented by the choices here. And for an author who has written extensively on gay writing, White’s foreword is disappointingly short; readers will have to turn to his later essay compilations (“Arts and Letters” and “The Burning Library”) to find more incisive analyses of the authors featured here. Still, for a 1991 anthology, “Faber” holds up well, though a search for other works by most of these authors will necessarily lead to libraries---as many of these authors are unaccountably no longer in print in the U.S.. Recommended.

[Andrew Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1991, there are a couple of stories that simply don’t hold up some thirty years after being chosen. But on the whole the collection is a stunning grouping of mostly excellent yet diverse short fiction. Some by lesser known writers who deserve further exploration (e.g. Paul Bailey, Alan Gurganus).

[Dreary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this book years ago and found it on my shelf again today, starting with Pages From an Abandoned Journal by Gore Vidal. And shit, that one hurt.

[Lyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Page 85
Denton Welch: When I was thirteen

We set out in the moonlight; Archer soon took my arm, for he saw that I was drunk, and the path was more slippery than ever. Archer sang Stille Nacht in German, and I began to cry. I could not stop myself It was such a delight to cry in the moonlight with Archer singing my favourite song; and William far away up the mountain.

[Miss KAT · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed a few of the stories in the collection.

[books.books.books · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few of the stories in this anthology should not really have been classed as 'gay fiction'.
The story 'When I Was Thirteen' by Denton Welch was by far a stand-out story in the collection and I would recommend just seeking this one out and skipping this collection altogether.
It had all the creepy tension of a thriller, and had you scared about what was going to happen at the end. It did a great job at keeping the tension high throughout and with a satisfying ending.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gore Vidal's acid-drenched Pages from an Abandoned Journal appears in this excellent anthology. And in this extract, the old contrarian's voice rings out loud and clear...

May 24 1948
"A fight with Hilda, this time about Helen whom she hardly knows. She felt that Helen was pretentious. I said who isn't. She said many people weren't. I said name me one. She said she wasn't pretentious. I then told her all the pretentious things she'd said in the past week starting with that discussion about the importance of an aristocracy and ending with atonalism. She then told me all the pretentious things I'd said, things I either didn't remember saying or she had twisted round. I got so angry I stalked out of her room and didn't go back: just as well. Having sex with her is about the dullest pastime I can think of. I went to my room and read Tacitus in Latin, for practice."

[Katelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a strange selection, it made me want to read some more of White's work to see what it's like if these are the stories he chose to put together in one book. The only one I didn't read from the excerpt from "The Swimming-Pool Library" since it's waiting on my shelf to be read.

[Mojo Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding range of selections. Thanks, Edmund White.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection. Buy it for the Allan Gurganus story "Forced Use" alone, which is probably THE best short story I've ever read. Erotic and literate and brilliant.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Birthday present which I've dipped in and out of over the years. Good stories here by some amazing writers.

[Mills College Library]

823.01089 F1152 1991