A Day and a Night at the Baths by Michael Rumaker

by Michael Rumaker

Fiction. LGBT Studies. Originally published by Grey Fox Press in 1979, Triton Books, the new imprint of Spuyten Duyvil, restores this classic novel to print with a new introduction by the author. "Rumaker an original prose creator of great shamed heroic sensitivity has taken up his pen again to describe a hidden psychological & physical reality. As an old sex fiend from the baths myself I'm grateful & relieved to see thru his eyes and feel thru his body"--Allen Ginsberg.

Genres: Queer, LGBT, Gay, Fiction

Paperback

First published October 28, 1979

About the author

American author and graduate of Black Mountain College.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is nearly pornography only perhaps through the author's command of language does it become obvious after you read a passage several times that no, it's not quite pornographic, it's much closer to literature. And while certainly it may be possible for some people to use it as an assistance in a masturbatory act, I would suggest that there are magazines or even tv shows better suited for such desires. This book really is not intended for a younger audience, and I would object to providing it to a young person. That said, I probably would have been very interested in the book as a teenager. The language is rather flowery which I think is actually a positive feature. In fact this 70s era moment in time has actually made me slightly sad at how poorly people write in contemporary literature. What can you do? Read more books I suppose.

THIS IS A VERY VERY GAY TEXT. WILL PROBABLY OFFEND YOU IF YOU GET OFFENDED BY REPEATED COPULATIONS OF A HOMOSEXUAL NATURE. But seeing as how it's not pornography, sometimes the copulations are skipped over or implied. You know, like in The Great Gatsby. Thanks Lance...I still to this day don't know how I skipped over that part.

[jjmann3 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Michael Rumaker’s “A Day and a Night at the Baths” (The Baths) is an evocative narrative of a gay man’s first trip to the Everard Baths, a realm of, “grime and sweat and steam and chlorine,” on a cold winter day in the 1970s. The sweeping, poetic prose Rumaker employs throughout the piece echoes the courageous language of the then-nascent Gay Liberation movement. After all, this was the 1970s, when there were so few “unrestricted havens, no ports free of the contaminating fathers” for gay men to meet, get to know one another, and have carefree sex. “The heart’s desire and the awakener of the heart; the miracle of a barely imagined paradise, here in this dingy smelly place, heavy with stale body odors and decades-old perspiration of lust-sweat, and fear-sweat, and ashes of spermfire that encrust the walls and floors and ceilings from all the century-long years of those who have searched here in unspeakable pleasure and pain.”

Throughout The Baths, the narrator sought to chuck off almost all consigns of the vapid sense of socially-accepted beauty to embrace the uniqueness of our physiques. In the sauna, “here, we were our naked selves, anonymous, wearing only our bodies, with no other identity than our bare skins, without estrangements of class or money or position, or false distinctions of any kind, not even names if we chose none.” The book describes encounters with all different types of men, young, old, white, dark, beefy, thin — and those with a disability even — “even one struggling about the halls on aluminum crutches, his twisted legs strapped in metal braces” and discovers beauty, hope, and a sense of resilience in each and every framework of lives he encountered. “There is no end to desire.”

The version of The Baths I read included an Afterward penned by the author that was especially poignant to me. As someone born during the very winter of The Baths, I never knew the gay movement sans the cloak of AIDS.

“The queer spirit had a vital if hidden existence, surviving centuries of state and religious persecutions that sought to hobble and murder it—and that still do to this day.” By writing this review, I only hope to impart the notion that books like The Baths are important and need to be shared.

[Bill Arning]

A rush of intoxicating description

Rumaker's description of the baths in pre-HIV america is intelligent, poetic, real and mythic- as record and a tribute to a queer culture being born.

[Luke McCarthy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some insightful passages here about the erotic potential of the bathhouse, but mostly a compilation of terrible sex writing (how many times can one compare a penis to a flower?).

[Nenad Knezevic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having just finished the book, the first word that comes to mind is - excessive. It's too lyrical to be considered pornography, too sexually raw and explicit to be seen as fine erotica. Although fictional, perhaps it's best to see it as a testament to an era in gay history when baths served as the place of exploration and self-discovery, the liminal place of both ultimate vulnerability and empowerment. Rumaker sings an ode to these squalid, smelly, dingy establishments, but one can't fail to recognize them as a by-product of symbolical and physical violence of heteronormativity.

[Joseph Longo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite a trip. First published in 1977, this book is a first-person, fictional account of a pre-AIDS day and night in a New York gay bath house. Poetic and graphic. Well detailed. Maybe a bit too obscure or maybe a bit too surreal at times. But insightful. A broad picture of going to the baths in those pre-AIDS days. Not everyone's cup of tea.

[Liam Ostermann]

This book was one of many that was seized in 1984 from the first gay bookshop in London, or anywhere in the UK, Gay's The Word as part of a policy of intimidation against 'uppity' gays and I am posting information on this event against many of the books seized by the police. This is a history that should not be forgotten.

A day and Night at the Baths and the 1984 attempt to destroy 'Gay's The Word' the UK's first gay bookshop:

This novel was one of many 'imported' gay books which were at the centre of an infamous attempt to push UK gays back into the closet by the conservative government of Margaret Thatcher in 1984. Amazingly this event, important not only for gays but civil liberties in the UK, does not have any kind of Wikipedia entry. Because of this lack I have assembled links to a number of sites which anyone interested in free speech should read. If we don't remember our history we will be condemned to repeat it.

The genesis of the prosecution of 'Gays The Word' was the anger of homophobes to books like 'The Milkman's On His Way' by David Rees which were written for young people and presented being gay as ordinary and nothing to get your-knickers-in-a-twist over. Unfortunately there was no way to ban the offending books because censorship of literature had been laughed out of court at the 'Lady Chatterley Trial' nearly twenty years earlier. But Customs and Excise did have the ability to seize and forbid the import of 'foreign' books, those not published in the UK. As most 'gay' books came from abroad, specifically the USA, this anomaly was the basis for the raid on Gays The Word and the seizure of large amounts of stock. The intention was that the legal costs, plus the disruption to the business, would sink this small independent bookshop long before it came to trial. That it didn't is testimony to the resilience of Gay's The Word, the gay community and all those who supported them.

The best, not perfect, but only, guide to the event is at:

https://www.gayinthe80s.com/2012/10/1...

There follows a series of links to the event connected with an exhibition at the University of London:

The background:

https://www.london.ac.uk/news-events/...

The 142 books seized:

https://exhibitions.london.ac.uk/s/se...

The history of the prosecution:

https://www.london.ac.uk/news-events/...

The fight to clarify the law after the prosecution was dropped:

https://www.london.ac.uk/news-events/...

[Silvermoth · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a very bold book and very sex positive even now. It’s also extremely funny how the protagonist starts as a bit of a snob and becomes more liberated as the book goes on. It is quite a quick read and maybe a bit repetitive so it doesn’t quite have the same staying power as Dancer From the Dance.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating piece of gay history told in fiction but the language was too flowery for my taste.

[K.D. McQuain · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is very little literature on this topic, and as brief as it was, it was certainly an enlightening read.