Maybe - Tomorrow

by Jay Little

Gaylord LeClaire is desperately in love with schoolmate Robert Blake. Blake is everything he wants to be: tall, tan, handsome, athletic, and most of all masculine. He makes Gay wish he'd been born a girl so he could dance and flirt with Blake the way the girls are allowed to.

Written in 1952, Maybe--Tomorrow is a classic piece of mid-century, gay erotica. Gaylord is just beginning to discover his desires and how and when to give in to them. Though his sights are set on Blake, he winds his way through several other lovers in his journey of sexual discovery.

Genres: LGBT

285 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Jay Little was the pen name of Clarence Lewis Miller (b. 1917).

Further reading (PDF).

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Jay^^^Little

Reviews

[Richard]

I can't believe this book is on Good Reads. This is the first gay novel I ever read, back in 1965. Although not very racy there was one scene I read over and over. I reread the book about 10 years ago and was disappointed at how poorly it's written, but it still holds that special place in my heart for being my first. And who could ever forget the young gay hero's name: Gaylord LeClare.

[Lori · Rating 2 out of 5]

They easily could've cut out at least 50% of this book. So much excruciatingly drawn-out high school drama and histrionic teen angst, including entire chapters devoted to the minutiae of various side characters. Protagonist Gaylord (!!!) is constantly crying, which to me made him more annoying than sympathetic. Published in 1952 as a pulp novel, by today's standards most of Maybe - Tomorrow is basically YA contemporary (albeit with some explicit sexuality), which is generally not a genre I care for.

Luckily the story picks up for awhile once we get to New Orleans and visit a gay bar and an afterparty at this hilariously campy guy's exquisitely decorated apartment. This first-hand account of the clandestine LGBT culture of the early '50s is a rare treat and was absolutely fascinating. I especially liked Dusty the "female impersonator" and Pierre the bitchy old queen. Interestingly, the book seems to conflate being gay with being what we would call transgender. (The word "transgender" wasn't coined until the 1990s; trans women in this era were lumped in with drag queens and cross-dressers.) Gaylord's inner confusion at times comes across as blatant gender dysphoria and another gay character laments "boys who should have been girls and girls who should have been boys." The only queer man who isn't effeminate is Bob Blake, who is actually bisexual. (As it turns out, so was Jay Little himself - you can read more here).

Unfortunately we eventually have to return to the insufferably boring small town. There is some extremely contrived conflict towards the end which was way overdone. I get that the author wanted Bob to have an emotional breakthrough that finally forces him to acknowledge his feelings for Gay, but it goes too far into outright verbal abuse and violent jealousy that should have been unforgivable.

Curt Troutwine did an amazing job with the LibriVox audiobook. He should really do this professionally.

[Nur Baig · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the American Schooling System has been complacent for half a century; it sure is flawed when a depiction of high school in 1952 is no different from that we see portrayed today in the western news and media: a popularity contest mired with bullying and social stigma.

I hoped this book to be a deep dive in the psychology of homosexuality along the lines of Foucault. It wasn't. Halfway through it, I saw it titled as erotica! IT IS NOT. It tells us the story of Gaylord experimenting, processing and concluding his emotions and sexual tendencies. The best part of the book is no doubt the portrayal of the gay culture of New Orleans--a celebration of queer with a brush of noir behind latched doors.

Funny to think about an equivalent of that culture in the ever-westernizing Eastern Culture. People of the East--South and South East Asians e.g.--have found it easy to be gay in secrecy and play at an outwardly straight 'acceptable' life. Marriage is a necessity they have been told and they so think, just like food and water. While in certain parts, same-sex oppression is glorified. It's fucked up.

East has found a loophole; a hole to perform everlasting sodomy with.

YIKES!

[Adam Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh pulp from the 1950's. So distinct, so melodramatic! Emotions shift from page to page or more, I hate him, I love him, I hate him! All the gays were too close to their mothers and cry all the time. The hero here cries probably 20 times.
The book is difficult to rate as the first half is very slow small town life with a hysterical queen.
The second half, most of it, is the reason for admission. The hero visits a gay drag bar in 1950's New Orleans. Pages and pages of descriptions of the bar, the clientele, the conversations. There are less than probably 20 writings in this level of detail of the gay scene from this time and still less on New Orleans. It's brilliant, and still wonderful and relevant today.
Near the end we head back to the small town unfortunately. I was sure the book would end in a death but it didn't, after some silly and artificial drama there is actually a happy ending, something more common in gay pulp than many people think.

[Sam William · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the time of the romantic sixties it fit right in. First romantic gay novel I ever read and it was loaded with passion and the pain of hiding ones true self in those times. It was rather daring fir them and will remain beautiful in my opinion. A HS football player jock and a solemn and pretty boy? How hot can you get and still timely now. It was innocent and explicit for-we all new these things were going on in HS then and to have a book exemplify them was beautiful. You could feel the love!

[Harrison Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

First published in 1951, this almost 300-page novel explores the gay awakening of a 17-year old boy in rural Texas. The novel develops very slowly against the backdrop of gay stereotypes -- a good-looking but "sissy" boy named Gaylord (yes, that's right) who wanted to dress as a girl, use makeup, and play with dolls, all seemingly facilitated by a controlling mother. He develops a significant crush on the high school quarterback, who is also not surprisingly good-looking, and who seems to show an interest in Gaylord and who further rescues Gaylord from an attempted violent rape in the high school gymnasium. The sexual tension between the two develops very slowly over the first half of the book. Soon, a new student is added to the mix (yes, also good looking), as well as a couple of sexual incidents with women, which all serve to increase Gaylord's confusing desires. Of course, all the male students are portrayed as routine smokers.

The last third of the novel adds about another half dozen characters involving a trip to New Orleans that exposes Gaylord to the "real" gay world, again stereotypically described as full of effeminate men, drag queens, and alcoholics. Although he is only 17, Gaylord is served quite a few drinks in a local gay bar, but surprisingly does not get drunk or sick. He meets an older gay man (28 years) who takes him under his wing for a couple of days.

The choice of Gaylord as a name is an interesting one, as it is clear in the novel that the moniker "gay" was already in wide use to describe gay people at the time the novel was written.

Certainly, read against today's knowledge of gay life, this is a sad novel, although it purports to set up a possible happy ending. At best, it gives a view of what New Orleans may have been like after the end of World War II, with its wild nightlife.

[Carlton Higginbotham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this novel 60 years ago when I was a teenager. Although I knew I was attracted to boys, I was not attracted to anyone in particular. In fact out of about 900 boys in my high school, I was slightly attracted to maybe three. Of course we didn't talk about sex much, and especially not about people being gay. So this novel, given to be by friend who was a year older and who was sexually active, was a revolution at the time. The language and viewpoint in this novel is dated, bring written in 1952, 16 years before Stonewall. It seems misleading to depict a gay adolescent boy as dreaming of being female, and the love/lust interests are the clichéd football player and farm boy. Parts of the novel still move me, but it does seem tedious at times. That said, it would probably be a good read for a teenage boy struggling with questions of his own sexuality.

[Valentin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was fascinated by the introspection going on within Gaylord, and it was quite an experience witnessing his introduction into gay culture before our very eyes. It feels very valuable to learn how someone may have navigated their identity when words to describe it were less well known and more loosely defined. It's a fairly quick read and a page turner with traumatizing, messy and sweet moments. They're fickle teenagers regardless of sexuality, and being introduced to the urban queer world is a culture shock. I'm not as shocked by the racism being into older literature, but it's still rough. The character that says the worst of it is supposed to be ignorant, but a sweetheart. If I'm giving the author the benefit of the doubt, perhaps the protagonist's attempts to not be so racist are an intentional contrast to this other character.

[WafflingCozmonaught · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a zoomer like me this is the prehistoric version of gay Wattpad smut. Despite its age, the trademark tropes are all there.

A white noise plot. A hunky athlete love interest that everyone wants. A gawky but "attractive" protagonist that spouts soliloquies about every little thought that crosses his mind.

And... Well... It's was better than I thought it would be!

It's not good, of course. In fact it's pretty bad. It's sappy and cliche and bloated. But it will make you roll your eyes in that this-is-so-stupid-but-also-kinda-endearing way. The main character's name is Gaylord for Chrissake. It reminded me of my high school days spent trawling through old forums and message boards for trash like this.

Delightfully inoffensive. Let's call it that.

Rating: 3/10

[Liam Ostermann]

I am going to have to make a separate shelf for old gay novels because:

1. I may want to read them

and

2. I am always annoyed when I read how 'impossible' it was for E M Forster to publish Maurice in his lifetime because it had a happy ending when in fact he was about as untouchable as a gay man then, or even now, might wish. It wasn't impossible, he didn't want to come out of the closet.

But I can never remember examples likes this to counter attack with!

[Lu · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay but not great.

This was my favorite part, the only part that stood out for me.

P. 228

"Promise me one thing... one thing out of all I've said, remember this; whoever or whatever you love is beautiful, for love is beautiful. It depends on you, your words and actions, if it becomes ugly. "

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is so sensitive, passionate, and romantic that it brings tears to my eyes.