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The Story of Harold
"For now -- Relax! And come with me. You have no choice: I've invited you. We will have a lot of sex. You are going to laugh a great deal -- people have no idea how blithe a suicide can be! -- and you will meet a few human beings whom you'll have to love as much as I do."
With these words Terry Andrews, bestselling author of a beloved children's classic welcomes us to his world. THE STORY OF HAROLD is a Dantesque excursion through a garden of tortured and unfulfilled relationships: one with a woman whom Terry sleeps with and cares for but cannot love completely; another with a surgeon, father of six, who is Terry's most cherished -- and most unreciprocating -- lover; and another with a sad young boy already doomed to a life of insecurity and failure, whome Terry strives to redeem -- even as he prepares his own suicide. As Terry beguiles the boy further spellbinding exploits of Harold -- the hero of his famous book -- the reader follows Terry, with terror and pity, to the end of his appointed journey.
With these words Terry Andrews, bestselling author of a beloved children's classic welcomes us to his world. THE STORY OF HAROLD is a Dantesque excursion through a garden of tortured and unfulfilled relationships: one with a woman whom Terry sleeps with and cares for but cannot love completely; another with a surgeon, father of six, who is Terry's most cherished -- and most unreciprocating -- lover; and another with a sad young boy already doomed to a life of insecurity and failure, whome Terry strives to redeem -- even as he prepares his own suicide. As Terry beguiles the boy further spellbinding exploits of Harold -- the hero of his famous book -- the reader follows Terry, with terror and pity, to the end of his appointed journey.
388 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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July 26, 2016
The Story of Harold was written in 1974 by ‘Terry Andrews’ – a pseudonym for the children’s author George Selden, who is most famous for his 1960 classic The Cricket in Times Square. The novel is about a suicidal man named Terry – a writer of children’s books – and it was originally illustrated by Edward Gorey. The narrative follows Terry as he merrily moves towards the date of his proposed suicide while interacting with four key people in his life: his lover Anne Black, a fellow connoisseur of fine arts and a kind and gentle woman; his lover Jim Whittacker, a doctor and devoted family man, and the main source of Terry’s despair; his lover Dan Reilly, an equally suicidal social worker who longs to have Terry burn him alive; and Barney Willington, a melancholy and socially awkward 7-year old who is often placed in Terry’s care.
I found Terry’s voice to be a familiar one: so very la-di-da, so very Upscale Gay Manhattan, the voice of a fatuous, judgmental queen, full of droll asides and nasty put-downs; what made it unique for me was the writing style that captures this voice is itself intensely stylized and extremely mannered, all dashes and ellipses and ceaseless parentheticals, all stops & starts... a striking prose style that is as drolly theatrical as Terry himself. I was surprised to find that his voice did not match his external traits – it turns out that Terry comes across as a thoughtful, charming, even rather sedate person; similarly enjoyable is the wide distance between the snide and rather stereotypically faggy voice and the terse, dominating sexual sadist who appears in the extremely explicit bdsm scenes. I liked all of that because, well... whose inner voice really matches up with how they look anyway?
You didn’t know what to make of this book, at first, but you read it as if in a trance. You couldn’t believe the extremes of the novel, its bizarre schizophrenic style, as it went from a graphic bisexual sexcapade with a married suburban couple... to an oddly tender but defiantly unsentimental scene of Terry telling children’s stories to poor forlorn Barney... to the most horrifically predatory pickup scene you’ve ever read, where Terry ruthlessly exults in manipulating the despairing Dan Reilly into first baring his wretched soul and then giving up his pliant body to our hero’s gleefully sadistic urges. You wanted Terry to die.
The book is practically unknown! The book has practically no reviews! The book should be a cult classic!
I thought Terry was despicable. I thought Terry was heroic. I thought Terry was inhuman and more than human and subhuman and inhumane and humane and a human.
You thought the novel’s combination of cruelty and kindness, its stark and uncomfortable honesty and its harshly cynical and bitter humor, its sweetness and its mean-spiritedness, its abandon… to be both an invigorating tonic and a terrible-to-the-taste medicine. You didn’t want to admit how much you saw yourself in Terry, his bisexuality of course, but also his perversity (Perversity is just another word for nothing left to lose! Right, Terry? Ha!) and his pettiness (But a largeness of spirit as well! Sometimes! Ha!) and his sadism (But only with consenting adults! Ha, right! There are so many different ways to be sadistic and sometimes consent isn’t even a factor!) and his suicidal feelings (But don’t worry! There’s nothing to worry about! Ha!) and his respect for families, his love of children (Until they grow up into adults! Until those families begin to look like houses of cards! Then you hate them! Ha!)… you didn’t want a connection to Terry, you didn’t want see yourself in him, you didn’t want to admit that to yourself! You wanted to lie.
The Story of Harold is fiction for people who like challenging prose, who see the challenge as a game, who appreciate writing that is flexible, dynamic, experimental; looking it up on Amazon, the books Nightwood and The Exquisite Corpse come up as well: take note. The Story of Harold is a book for people who want to see what NYC was like at a certain time in the 70s, a snapshot of a particular world that is now gone or at least transformed, a document of life pre-AIDS, pre-80s, pre-internet, pre-polite and sensitive ways to talk about gender & race & class & beauty & ugliness & sexuality & sex. The Story of Harold is a story for people who like stories, stories that are simple and resonant, simple yet multi-leveled, stories within stories, stories with surprise endings, stories about stories, stories that act as a looking glass or a camera obscura or a microscope or a macroscope through which to view the world around us, stories as a way to look at ourselves of course.
I was constantly impressed with the juggling act that Andrews pulls off, so many balls in the air. I saw a ball that was about loving a woman, being devoted to her, but a one-sided sort of love where the man loves but the woman is actually in love; I saw a ball that was about how to get through to a lonely, misunderstood child and how to talk to that child in a way that is honest and real, that was about wanting to give protection but knowing the need for that child to be a part of the world – prepared for the world, that was not just about loving children but actually understanding them; I saw a ball about how the seduced is often the seducer, the bottom that tops from beneath, the masochist whose strength outstrips the sadist, the objectified who becomes the objectifier; I saw a ball that was about the difference between sex and love, between friendship and “love” and how they can be equal things but sometimes a person so craves that love, being in love, that they don’t recognize that sometimes sex is just sex and that friendship can be as important as love. I was amazed at how Andrews kept juggling those balls, all of them whirling around but never knocking each other out of the air, never connecting... until they do connect.
You loved this book and yet you often avoided it; you look into mirrors all the time but many times you didn’t want to look at this one. You thought you saw where the novel was going, and you were right and you were wrong, but you didn’t expect the tension to build and build (that inexorable move towards suicide always there), to grow more deeply emotional, all moving towards… a dinner party – a dinner party for four! – where the strands come together, where the prosaic becomes the ineffable, where a loving father plays a game with a forlorn child that means everything, and where a bisexual gent realizes that life is all small moments, that’s what’s important, all those mundane moments that accumulate and create a life, a good life – life is good, it really can be! – you didn’t expect the novel to take a breath and suddenly affirm life – The Story of Harold is a life-affirming book! It truly is! – you didn’t realize that you were holding your breath, you had no idea how much you needed Terry to live – to live and be happy! – you didn’t expect how deep and life-affirming the book turned out to be, a beautiful terrible excruciating wonderful monster, a book that looked inside you and knocked you around and loved you and, in the end, said that life was good. You wanted to cry.
And so you did!
thanks for the loaner, Mike Puma.
I found Terry’s voice to be a familiar one: so very la-di-da, so very Upscale Gay Manhattan, the voice of a fatuous, judgmental queen, full of droll asides and nasty put-downs; what made it unique for me was the writing style that captures this voice is itself intensely stylized and extremely mannered, all dashes and ellipses and ceaseless parentheticals, all stops & starts... a striking prose style that is as drolly theatrical as Terry himself. I was surprised to find that his voice did not match his external traits – it turns out that Terry comes across as a thoughtful, charming, even rather sedate person; similarly enjoyable is the wide distance between the snide and rather stereotypically faggy voice and the terse, dominating sexual sadist who appears in the extremely explicit bdsm scenes. I liked all of that because, well... whose inner voice really matches up with how they look anyway?
You didn’t know what to make of this book, at first, but you read it as if in a trance. You couldn’t believe the extremes of the novel, its bizarre schizophrenic style, as it went from a graphic bisexual sexcapade with a married suburban couple... to an oddly tender but defiantly unsentimental scene of Terry telling children’s stories to poor forlorn Barney... to the most horrifically predatory pickup scene you’ve ever read, where Terry ruthlessly exults in manipulating the despairing Dan Reilly into first baring his wretched soul and then giving up his pliant body to our hero’s gleefully sadistic urges. You wanted Terry to die.
The book is practically unknown! The book has practically no reviews! The book should be a cult classic!
I thought Terry was despicable. I thought Terry was heroic. I thought Terry was inhuman and more than human and subhuman and inhumane and humane and a human.
You thought the novel’s combination of cruelty and kindness, its stark and uncomfortable honesty and its harshly cynical and bitter humor, its sweetness and its mean-spiritedness, its abandon… to be both an invigorating tonic and a terrible-to-the-taste medicine. You didn’t want to admit how much you saw yourself in Terry, his bisexuality of course, but also his perversity (Perversity is just another word for nothing left to lose! Right, Terry? Ha!) and his pettiness (But a largeness of spirit as well! Sometimes! Ha!) and his sadism (But only with consenting adults! Ha, right! There are so many different ways to be sadistic and sometimes consent isn’t even a factor!) and his suicidal feelings (But don’t worry! There’s nothing to worry about! Ha!) and his respect for families, his love of children (Until they grow up into adults! Until those families begin to look like houses of cards! Then you hate them! Ha!)… you didn’t want a connection to Terry, you didn’t want see yourself in him, you didn’t want to admit that to yourself! You wanted to lie.
The Story of Harold is fiction for people who like challenging prose, who see the challenge as a game, who appreciate writing that is flexible, dynamic, experimental; looking it up on Amazon, the books Nightwood and The Exquisite Corpse come up as well: take note. The Story of Harold is a book for people who want to see what NYC was like at a certain time in the 70s, a snapshot of a particular world that is now gone or at least transformed, a document of life pre-AIDS, pre-80s, pre-internet, pre-polite and sensitive ways to talk about gender & race & class & beauty & ugliness & sexuality & sex. The Story of Harold is a story for people who like stories, stories that are simple and resonant, simple yet multi-leveled, stories within stories, stories with surprise endings, stories about stories, stories that act as a looking glass or a camera obscura or a microscope or a macroscope through which to view the world around us, stories as a way to look at ourselves of course.
I was constantly impressed with the juggling act that Andrews pulls off, so many balls in the air. I saw a ball that was about loving a woman, being devoted to her, but a one-sided sort of love where the man loves but the woman is actually in love; I saw a ball that was about how to get through to a lonely, misunderstood child and how to talk to that child in a way that is honest and real, that was about wanting to give protection but knowing the need for that child to be a part of the world – prepared for the world, that was not just about loving children but actually understanding them; I saw a ball about how the seduced is often the seducer, the bottom that tops from beneath, the masochist whose strength outstrips the sadist, the objectified who becomes the objectifier; I saw a ball that was about the difference between sex and love, between friendship and “love” and how they can be equal things but sometimes a person so craves that love, being in love, that they don’t recognize that sometimes sex is just sex and that friendship can be as important as love. I was amazed at how Andrews kept juggling those balls, all of them whirling around but never knocking each other out of the air, never connecting... until they do connect.
You loved this book and yet you often avoided it; you look into mirrors all the time but many times you didn’t want to look at this one. You thought you saw where the novel was going, and you were right and you were wrong, but you didn’t expect the tension to build and build (that inexorable move towards suicide always there), to grow more deeply emotional, all moving towards… a dinner party – a dinner party for four! – where the strands come together, where the prosaic becomes the ineffable, where a loving father plays a game with a forlorn child that means everything, and where a bisexual gent realizes that life is all small moments, that’s what’s important, all those mundane moments that accumulate and create a life, a good life – life is good, it really can be! – you didn’t expect the novel to take a breath and suddenly affirm life – The Story of Harold is a life-affirming book! It truly is! – you didn’t realize that you were holding your breath, you had no idea how much you needed Terry to live – to live and be happy! – you didn’t expect how deep and life-affirming the book turned out to be, a beautiful terrible excruciating wonderful monster, a book that looked inside you and knocked you around and loved you and, in the end, said that life was good. You wanted to cry.
And so you did!
thanks for the loaner, Mike Puma.
January 26, 2015
"Friendship may be democratic, but love is totalitarian." Herein one of the wiser lines to be found in a 20thC novel.
An homage at times to Dante's "The Divine Comedy," this scaldingly original - and unknown - work (1974) plows sexually & socially into the absurdity of human existence. Roaming from purgatory to paradise it nakedly wrestles with despair and desire -- and delivers hilarity. Messrs Capote, Vidal, etc -- you couldn't pull it off.
Who is this Terry Andrews who demands that sentiment be checked at the door, along with clothes ? This is the only novel he ever published. Terry is children's author George Selden (1929-89), who wrote the award-winning children's book "The Cricket in Times Square" (1960). Here's his 2d classic. Terry, who narrates this NYC story, begins his wander in the City of Dis by reveling in a 3-some with a married couple. Decent people, he stresses, minus "the middle-class moans of sexual satisfaction."
"Is your wife understanding?" he asks.
"Sure. You dig cunt, too?"
"She'll be able to answer that when I leave."
That's page 2. Let there be no misunderstanding. If you're fussed, scram now. The comedy proceeds with an orgy (a football player from LA has "thighs you could prop up a skyscraper with") and Terry's afternoons with a married man, "happily married" as the phrasing goes, who needs a gay "fix" twice a month. His wife ("God spent too much time on her larynx and not enough at balancing features") ignores anything that might be unpleasant; she's a very decent woman. Everyone is decent. There's a problem. Terry loves the lug. Meantime, he's seeing Anne: "In all good sex a cleanliness is necessary," he reflects, even when "eating a pretty cat like Anne." He also picks up a chap on the Bowery long before it had luxe condos. Says Terry, "With a confident chuckle -- as John Foster Dulles must have chuckled when he got us involved in Southeast Asia -- I said, Hi."
Within this story are a series of wondrous children's stories that Terry tells to his Beatrice, a 7-year old tot he calls Barney -- an innocent who sees the world with pure eyes. Barney cannot hear enough about the imaginary Harold and his adventures with Minkcoat, Jake Moth and Big Bob Bat. These fables overlap with real life. Terry is fascinated by the Impossible, the Possible, the Real. He favors the Impossible, which sends him to paradise. "What happened to Harold?" the kid asks before moving away.
Like Dante, Terry Andrews -- a children's author -- is assembling a dream in this Existential exploration of a civilized life where people desperately want to connect. Terry's writing style is urbane, slangy, poetic, raw and always conversational. Two other GRs, who give the book 5-stars, discuss this with great insight. For literary sleuths there's a salute to "The Cricket on the Hearth," for Terry's sometime lover has a blind son named Ben who will recall the blind Bertha in the Dickens tale.
Why isn't the novel reissued by NYRB? Mostly it's a middle-brow outfit that sticks to the usual suspects or those favored by the cabal on New York's Upper West Side. ~ What the fuck.
An homage at times to Dante's "The Divine Comedy," this scaldingly original - and unknown - work (1974) plows sexually & socially into the absurdity of human existence. Roaming from purgatory to paradise it nakedly wrestles with despair and desire -- and delivers hilarity. Messrs Capote, Vidal, etc -- you couldn't pull it off.
Who is this Terry Andrews who demands that sentiment be checked at the door, along with clothes ? This is the only novel he ever published. Terry is children's author George Selden (1929-89), who wrote the award-winning children's book "The Cricket in Times Square" (1960). Here's his 2d classic. Terry, who narrates this NYC story, begins his wander in the City of Dis by reveling in a 3-some with a married couple. Decent people, he stresses, minus "the middle-class moans of sexual satisfaction."
"Is your wife understanding?" he asks.
"Sure. You dig cunt, too?"
"She'll be able to answer that when I leave."
That's page 2. Let there be no misunderstanding. If you're fussed, scram now. The comedy proceeds with an orgy (a football player from LA has "thighs you could prop up a skyscraper with") and Terry's afternoons with a married man, "happily married" as the phrasing goes, who needs a gay "fix" twice a month. His wife ("God spent too much time on her larynx and not enough at balancing features") ignores anything that might be unpleasant; she's a very decent woman. Everyone is decent. There's a problem. Terry loves the lug. Meantime, he's seeing Anne: "In all good sex a cleanliness is necessary," he reflects, even when "eating a pretty cat like Anne." He also picks up a chap on the Bowery long before it had luxe condos. Says Terry, "With a confident chuckle -- as John Foster Dulles must have chuckled when he got us involved in Southeast Asia -- I said, Hi."
Within this story are a series of wondrous children's stories that Terry tells to his Beatrice, a 7-year old tot he calls Barney -- an innocent who sees the world with pure eyes. Barney cannot hear enough about the imaginary Harold and his adventures with Minkcoat, Jake Moth and Big Bob Bat. These fables overlap with real life. Terry is fascinated by the Impossible, the Possible, the Real. He favors the Impossible, which sends him to paradise. "What happened to Harold?" the kid asks before moving away.
Like Dante, Terry Andrews -- a children's author -- is assembling a dream in this Existential exploration of a civilized life where people desperately want to connect. Terry's writing style is urbane, slangy, poetic, raw and always conversational. Two other GRs, who give the book 5-stars, discuss this with great insight. For literary sleuths there's a salute to "The Cricket on the Hearth," for Terry's sometime lover has a blind son named Ben who will recall the blind Bertha in the Dickens tale.
Why isn't the novel reissued by NYRB? Mostly it's a middle-brow outfit that sticks to the usual suspects or those favored by the cabal on New York's Upper West Side. ~ What the fuck.
February 15, 2014
"Terry Andrews" is the pen name of noted children's book author George Selden (The Cricket in Times Square). The protagonist of this book is also named "Terry Andrews," who not coincidentally happens to be a noted author of children's books—his Harold books occupying the same spot on the shelves of children in the book's world as Selden's do on those of our own. He is also a bisexual, a libertine, a bon vivant, a sexual sadist and a spiritual masochist who is counting down the days until his suicide. I don't know much about Selden's life, but I'm assuming this is at least partially autobiographical, or at least elucidative of deep truths of Selden's nature; otherwise, what's the point?
Terry (the book-Terry, that is) divides his life in a tripartite fashion, splitting his attention unequally between his casual, occasional fuck-buddy relationship with his friend Anne Black; his overriding, obsessive love for the handsome, inscrutable (but always screwable) Jim Whittaker—a happily married doctor with six kids; and his domineering, sadistic relationship with masochistic social worker Dan Reilly—even more genuinely suicidal than Terry, and whose deepest fantasy is to be tied to a stake and burned to death, with Terry lighting that final match. And then there are the frequent bathhouse hook-ups and swingin' orgies that provide Terry with needed release, so if Facebook had existed at the time, his relationship status would undoubtedly be "It's complicated." This is the late sixties, though, so all this screwing is relatively danger-free, as all Terry has to worry about is the occasional case of crabs or the clap. Better times, you might say.
A fourth piece of the puzzle of Terry's life arrives in the form of seven-year-old Barney Willington, the shlubby, insecure son of Terry's friend Edith. Because Barney is lacking a father figure and is an immense fan of the Harold books, Terry is called on spend some occasional quality time with the little spud. At first Terry regards this inarticulate little hanger-on as a burden, a dull lump of a boy, but as time progresses he begins to develop a genuine affection for Barney and to see himself as a mentor who will bring his young charge out of his shell. Barney craves Terry's stories, especially Harold stories, so much of the time he and Terry spend together consists of stories-within-a-story, as Terry spins Harold tales that become increasingly based on Terry's own life and his relationships with his lovers and with his own personal demons (cleaned-up kiddie versions, of course). This is an odd juxtaposition, at times making the book feel like a cross between The 120 Days of Sodom and The Phantom Tollbooth. That's actually more charming than it sounds. It is through telling these stories that Terry finds a renewed sense of purpose and hope. Yes, there is a redemption arc, but it is not of the cloying, sentimental variety. Andrews (or Selden, rather) pulls off an amazing high-wire balancing act here, but even if he fell off, you have the feeling that he would somehow stick the landing.
Anyway, take it from me, it's superb. The writing is mercurial, fiendish, funny, frank, devastating. See mark monday's review, please. He does the book much better justice than I do.
Terry (the book-Terry, that is) divides his life in a tripartite fashion, splitting his attention unequally between his casual, occasional fuck-buddy relationship with his friend Anne Black; his overriding, obsessive love for the handsome, inscrutable (but always screwable) Jim Whittaker—a happily married doctor with six kids; and his domineering, sadistic relationship with masochistic social worker Dan Reilly—even more genuinely suicidal than Terry, and whose deepest fantasy is to be tied to a stake and burned to death, with Terry lighting that final match. And then there are the frequent bathhouse hook-ups and swingin' orgies that provide Terry with needed release, so if Facebook had existed at the time, his relationship status would undoubtedly be "It's complicated." This is the late sixties, though, so all this screwing is relatively danger-free, as all Terry has to worry about is the occasional case of crabs or the clap. Better times, you might say.
A fourth piece of the puzzle of Terry's life arrives in the form of seven-year-old Barney Willington, the shlubby, insecure son of Terry's friend Edith. Because Barney is lacking a father figure and is an immense fan of the Harold books, Terry is called on spend some occasional quality time with the little spud. At first Terry regards this inarticulate little hanger-on as a burden, a dull lump of a boy, but as time progresses he begins to develop a genuine affection for Barney and to see himself as a mentor who will bring his young charge out of his shell. Barney craves Terry's stories, especially Harold stories, so much of the time he and Terry spend together consists of stories-within-a-story, as Terry spins Harold tales that become increasingly based on Terry's own life and his relationships with his lovers and with his own personal demons (cleaned-up kiddie versions, of course). This is an odd juxtaposition, at times making the book feel like a cross between The 120 Days of Sodom and The Phantom Tollbooth. That's actually more charming than it sounds. It is through telling these stories that Terry finds a renewed sense of purpose and hope. Yes, there is a redemption arc, but it is not of the cloying, sentimental variety. Andrews (or Selden, rather) pulls off an amazing high-wire balancing act here, but even if he fell off, you have the feeling that he would somehow stick the landing.
Anyway, take it from me, it's superb. The writing is mercurial, fiendish, funny, frank, devastating. See mark monday's review, please. He does the book much better justice than I do.
July 25, 2013
I'm trying to figure out why I hated this book so virulently. I think it all comes down to the ...breathless! writing style that... Andrews (or George Selden, if the Internet is to be believed)... adopts here. Lotsa ellipses, with a heaping helping of internalized homophobia, not to mention some... really odd... no, really, really, really odd S&M passages. The authorial voice was just too deeply weird for me. The tone swung wildly from giddy excitement to deep depression, and the addition of a children's story which the protagonist was recounting to a strange little boy was whiplash-inducing.
I was interested in this as I adored Selden's The Cricket in Times Square series, and when I heard about this closet classic I knew I had to read it. My motives were not particularly pure, and I suppose I deserve what I got for going in search of cheap thrills.
I don't know if the gay S&M stuff I've read and enjoyed is simply less mannered, or more modern, or just more writerly, but this was torture. Heh, no pun intended.
I was interested in this as I adored Selden's The Cricket in Times Square series, and when I heard about this closet classic I knew I had to read it. My motives were not particularly pure, and I suppose I deserve what I got for going in search of cheap thrills.
I don't know if the gay S&M stuff I've read and enjoyed is simply less mannered, or more modern, or just more writerly, but this was torture. Heh, no pun intended.
March 5, 2009
This is a difficult and beautiful book, about sex, love, friendship and childhood. One small warning: I can imagine the gay S&M scenes turning some people off.
December 29, 2021
The Story of Harold is the best book I have ever read. Not an understatement.
I love this book. and I love Terry and I hate him and I envy him and he disgusts me and I care so much that when he did something I did not like, I had to put the book away for a week until I forgave him. I sound insane (But - Maybe I am! Ha!). It’s written in a way that it’s just REAL. it’s conversations and honest and impure and horrible and beautiful thoughts.
I am not good with words. Not like other people on this page - my review does not add a lot. But if I can add anything: if you’re considering reading this book - read it.
I love this book. and I love Terry and I hate him and I envy him and he disgusts me and I care so much that when he did something I did not like, I had to put the book away for a week until I forgave him. I sound insane (But - Maybe I am! Ha!). It’s written in a way that it’s just REAL. it’s conversations and honest and impure and horrible and beautiful thoughts.
I am not good with words. Not like other people on this page - my review does not add a lot. But if I can add anything: if you’re considering reading this book - read it.
Want to Read
March 2, 2025This book was one of many that were 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.
The Story of Harold 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/...
This is a history that should not be forgotten.
The Story of Harold 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/...
May 27, 2023
Somewhat uneven: the spinning plates of Terry’s various relationships aren’t balanced as deftly as they might be—we get a lot of very rich stuff with Jim Whittaker and Barney, but Anne Black, though she has some wonderful moments, is a little sketchier, and the suicidal masochist Danny (one of the more intriguing and strange figures in this novel) receives only a few very stark but intermittent sequences. The queeny, narcissistic authorial voice (not quite my bag, but one I came to admire over the course of the book), interestingly self-recursive and often funny, was just as often rather tediously insistent on its overemphasized metaphors and symbols (stop capitalizing Impossible—I get it!); there’s a dangerous plunge into the sentimental near the end that I’m not sure Andrews entirely lands. And still—it is often incredibly entertaining, beautifully textured, highly exceptional novel of queer life immediately post-Stonewall that, despite its many flaws, has enough seductive imagination and strongly-realized sentences, formal gimmicks, tableaux, characters, what have you, to enrich the mind for weeks. It may not be a truly great novel, but there’s more than enough to justify multiple rereads (I could see myself diving back in relatively soon), and certainly a new reprint—and really, why hasn’t this been reprinted? It’s kind of major!
January 19, 2024
los suicidas son mis personas favoritas
August 10, 2014
Copyright 1980, by Terry Andrews, a pseudonym of George Selden, author of the classic kids' book "A Cricket in Times Square"! Scandal!
This is the story of a bisexual children's book author and his considerable escapades in New York City. Whilst searching for love and/or fulfillment, our hero befriends a disturbed young boy (the titular Harold) as well as a homeless man who is looking for someone to kill him. It's a pretty dark story, but well written and certainly not dull~ with one exception. The writer in the book begins writing The Story of Harold as a gift to his young friend. Most of the text of that book-within-a-book is included, and after a while I found myself skimming these parts to get back to the grown-ups' tale. People might say I'd missed the best part, or the narrative needs this extra text to fulfill its promise, and I'm willing to listen, but I found Harold's tale to be a bit of a snooze.
Snooze, however, is the last word I'd use for the rest of the book. Dark, occasionally disturbing, and at times out-and-out raunchy are much more accurate terms. Our hero ranges far and wide in search of his own physical and emotional fulfillment and we're treated to more than one scene of swingers' parties and BDSM orgies as well as the 'ordinary' hook up and one night stand. Which leads me to an observation.
These Avon paperbacks were, I feel, pretty revolutionary. Mainstream gay fiction put out by a mainstream publishing house usually known for its paperback romances. How delightfully groundbreaking! Whatever the quality (and they're mostly not bad) the fact that they existed is important and fun. But the more I read, the more I noticed that, even though the stories themselves were realistically queer, they were also uniformly sexless.
Now, the characters in the books are not sexless. They hook up and fall in love just like the straight couples in the other Avon publications, but any scenes of a carnal nature are completely glossed over, usually with something along the lines of "...and with a sigh, they they fell onto the bed." The one exception is this book, which is completely filthy, and I have wondered why. Is it because the author was successful and well-established under his own name? Or is it possibly because the character is bisexual, and many of the sex scenes involve women? I have no answers, but these are my speculations.
This is an interesting read, if nothing else. I don't think it's for everyone, but it's certainly worth a try.
This is the story of a bisexual children's book author and his considerable escapades in New York City. Whilst searching for love and/or fulfillment, our hero befriends a disturbed young boy (the titular Harold) as well as a homeless man who is looking for someone to kill him. It's a pretty dark story, but well written and certainly not dull~ with one exception. The writer in the book begins writing The Story of Harold as a gift to his young friend. Most of the text of that book-within-a-book is included, and after a while I found myself skimming these parts to get back to the grown-ups' tale. People might say I'd missed the best part, or the narrative needs this extra text to fulfill its promise, and I'm willing to listen, but I found Harold's tale to be a bit of a snooze.
Snooze, however, is the last word I'd use for the rest of the book. Dark, occasionally disturbing, and at times out-and-out raunchy are much more accurate terms. Our hero ranges far and wide in search of his own physical and emotional fulfillment and we're treated to more than one scene of swingers' parties and BDSM orgies as well as the 'ordinary' hook up and one night stand. Which leads me to an observation.
These Avon paperbacks were, I feel, pretty revolutionary. Mainstream gay fiction put out by a mainstream publishing house usually known for its paperback romances. How delightfully groundbreaking! Whatever the quality (and they're mostly not bad) the fact that they existed is important and fun. But the more I read, the more I noticed that, even though the stories themselves were realistically queer, they were also uniformly sexless.
Now, the characters in the books are not sexless. They hook up and fall in love just like the straight couples in the other Avon publications, but any scenes of a carnal nature are completely glossed over, usually with something along the lines of "...and with a sigh, they they fell onto the bed." The one exception is this book, which is completely filthy, and I have wondered why. Is it because the author was successful and well-established under his own name? Or is it possibly because the character is bisexual, and many of the sex scenes involve women? I have no answers, but these are my speculations.
This is an interesting read, if nothing else. I don't think it's for everyone, but it's certainly worth a try.
August 26, 2013
Apparently written by George Selden. Dark, depressing, disturbing, with a very 1970s feel, I was fascinated despite myself.
June 22, 2016
A complex story within a story of a man's struggle with his identity.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews