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Totempole
Gay novel tracing the history of an American trying to resist from infancy, a powerful urge to homosexuality. At each level, he finds sexuality: in infancy, obsession; at summer camp, in puberty; in Korea, with a prisoner of war, fulfillment, justification and self-acceptance.
411 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
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About the author
Sanford Friedman
12 books6 followersSanford Friedman was an American novelist. After graduating from the Horace Mann School and the Carnegie Institute of Technology, he was stationed as a military police officer in Korea, earning a Bronze Star. He began his career as a playwright and theater producer, and was later a writing instructor at Juilliard and SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders). “Ocean,” a chapter from Totempole, was serialized in Partisan Review in 1964 and won second prize in the 1965 O. Henry Awards. Totempole (1965) was followed by the novels A Haunted Woman (1968), Still Life (1975), and Rip Van Winkle (1980). At the time of his death, Friedman left behind an unpublished manuscript for the novel Conversations with Beethoven.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
February 23, 2016
This begins not with a moo-cow but with a horsie. Horsie. Stevie Wolfe is two years-old and he is fascinated with the sight and smell of the horses in the stables across the road from his family's vacation home. He is an observant child, and will grow introspective. Upon Horsie will be stacked the other sections of his life: Ocean, Salamander, Loon, Moose, Monkeys, Lice and Rats. Like the sections of a totempole, serving an allegorical and figurative purpose.
Stevie moves from the ocean to summer camp, to high school, college and finally to war. His father was overbearing, abusive to Stevie's mother. His brother was cold, demeaning. His body, like the totempole, is itself a character in the story, beautiful to others but horrid to Stevie. In a middle chapter, Stevie mentally and physically tortures another boy. I'll let Freud figure that out.
This has been described as a gay novel (an nyrb-classics description, not mine). And through the first six chapters I felt, okay, the author, very autobiographically and with almost embarrassingly broad strokes, is attempting to explain a painful confusion. Then Stevie Wolfe went to college, a drama school, and crossed a physical threshold.
Yet all that is simmering prelude. Drafted into the Korean War, Stevie is assigned to the personnel section in a Prisoner of War camp. The prisoners there were North Korean soldiers who were avowedly anti-communist. Neither one thing nor the other. Stevie becomes their English tutor. He is barely recognizable from the child torturer or confused adolescent of the earlier sections. He falls in love, and what follows is a remarkable dialogue between Stevie and Pak Sun Bo, about the War, and about human relativity.
And yet, Stephen thought, opening his eyes and seeing the empty barracks, the empty beds, the truth is that I am neither! Neither gook nor GI, neither here nor there, fish nor fowl, straight nor queer, prisoner nor free! I'm neither one nor both but in between . . . without myself . . . partitioned, like Korea. . . .
So, finally, Totempole tells us not what it's like to be gay, but what it's like to be human.
Stevie moves from the ocean to summer camp, to high school, college and finally to war. His father was overbearing, abusive to Stevie's mother. His brother was cold, demeaning. His body, like the totempole, is itself a character in the story, beautiful to others but horrid to Stevie. In a middle chapter, Stevie mentally and physically tortures another boy. I'll let Freud figure that out.
This has been described as a gay novel (an nyrb-classics description, not mine). And through the first six chapters I felt, okay, the author, very autobiographically and with almost embarrassingly broad strokes, is attempting to explain a painful confusion. Then Stevie Wolfe went to college, a drama school, and crossed a physical threshold.
Yet all that is simmering prelude. Drafted into the Korean War, Stevie is assigned to the personnel section in a Prisoner of War camp. The prisoners there were North Korean soldiers who were avowedly anti-communist. Neither one thing nor the other. Stevie becomes their English tutor. He is barely recognizable from the child torturer or confused adolescent of the earlier sections. He falls in love, and what follows is a remarkable dialogue between Stevie and Pak Sun Bo, about the War, and about human relativity.
And yet, Stephen thought, opening his eyes and seeing the empty barracks, the empty beds, the truth is that I am neither! Neither gook nor GI, neither here nor there, fish nor fowl, straight nor queer, prisoner nor free! I'm neither one nor both but in between . . . without myself . . . partitioned, like Korea. . . .
So, finally, Totempole tells us not what it's like to be gay, but what it's like to be human.
August 22, 2019
As stunned as I am surprised by this book, this bildungsroman is absolutely the best gay coming-of-age story I have ever read. I am astounded that such a thought-provoking, critical, and openly queer book was published in 1961.
"Totempole" tells the story of Stephen Wolfe from his first memories at age 2 all the way through his adult self. What makes this book so remarkable is the ways in which the author, Sanford Friedman, uses the internal psychology of the protagonist to drive the story, but also complicate it. While gay coming-of-age stories are a dime a dozen, few are truly able to encapsulate the psychological underpinnings that young gay men go through as they first recognize their sexuality, often spend much time hating themselves for it, and then spend years overcoming the psychological barriers of self-hatred in order to find pleasure in life AND in sex. In the case of "Totempole," Friedman works out how coming-of-age as gay involves a transcending of inhibitions and then a return to one's internal world, finally able to accept oneself for who they truly are.
The fact that such an impressive book was published in 1961 and falls outside the narrative we tell ourselves about the history of gay fiction (Felice Picano even said "all fiction before Stonewall was "homosexual fiction" rather than "gay fiction) flies in the face of this narrative and disrupts the stories we tell ourselves about queer history. A once forgotten book - out of print for decades - this book MUST be returned and centered in the queer fictional canon.
"Totempole" tells the story of Stephen Wolfe from his first memories at age 2 all the way through his adult self. What makes this book so remarkable is the ways in which the author, Sanford Friedman, uses the internal psychology of the protagonist to drive the story, but also complicate it. While gay coming-of-age stories are a dime a dozen, few are truly able to encapsulate the psychological underpinnings that young gay men go through as they first recognize their sexuality, often spend much time hating themselves for it, and then spend years overcoming the psychological barriers of self-hatred in order to find pleasure in life AND in sex. In the case of "Totempole," Friedman works out how coming-of-age as gay involves a transcending of inhibitions and then a return to one's internal world, finally able to accept oneself for who they truly are.
The fact that such an impressive book was published in 1961 and falls outside the narrative we tell ourselves about the history of gay fiction (Felice Picano even said "all fiction before Stonewall was "homosexual fiction" rather than "gay fiction) flies in the face of this narrative and disrupts the stories we tell ourselves about queer history. A once forgotten book - out of print for decades - this book MUST be returned and centered in the queer fictional canon.
October 9, 2014
Everybody forgot about--or never heard of--this delightful, important 20C work of fiction, until NYRB recently reissued it. Like Portnoy's Complaint, Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz or Foreskin's Lament, it has male sexual coming of age, humor and a Freudian ("Totempole") consciousness--but here it's gay AND it's without bitterness. Instead, it has a much kinder awareness of self and others. Moreover, the vivid details from Jersey Shore 1930's to Korean War 1950's manage to make the backdrop of growing up at once familiar and remote. Amazing that a gay narrative with this depth of emotional awareness and frankness could be published in 1965. Deserves to be among the greats.
January 15, 2016
Defied my expectations and more than lived up to the hype. A gay novel for the ages. Friedman delivers a masterful rendering of dialogue, along with acute, sensitive psychological observations of a boy's developing sensual and sexual desires. An interesting balance of intimate character insights presented at an almost clinical, distant remove--we feel both at one with the characters and also apart from them, particularly the protagonist Stephen. This dichotomy neatly (and subtly) mirrors the “coming out” process so beautifully and delicately explored in the story. The book's only flaw is the heavy-handedness of the politics (global and sexual) in the last section, which--while understandable in the context of being published in 1965--unfortunately cements this as a “book of its time” and not a timeless masterpiece. But it’s so, so, so close to being one that, even at 400 pages, it felt unfairly and tragically short; I wanted so much more of Stephen and the Wolfes. A shoutout of thanks to New York Review of Books for bringing this classic gay novel back into print.
July 21, 2025
The GR summary of this novel is fine but it is instructive to read how a novel like this was presented when first published and below I quote from the flyleaf of the first UK edition from Anthony Blond in 1966:
""I think 'Totempole' an extraordinarily courageous and highly moral work. The author tells exactly what it was like to be himself at a certain time and place and, uniquely, I believed him. Truth is rare; he seems to have it" - Gore Vidal.
"Stanford Friedman describes 'Totempole' as presenting the erotic evolution of its hero, Stephen Wolfe. In ever-widening circles, Stephen's growth is traced from the interlocking family unit (mother, father, brother) in New York, through summer camp, college in the Middle West, and military service in Korea.
"'Totempole' may be interpreted as the history of an intelligent American trying to resist, from infancy, a powerful urge to homosexuality. At each level he finds sexuality; in infancy, obsessions; at summer camp, a passionate schwarmerei (see my footnote *1 below); in puberty, guilt; at college, after a brave attempt with a girl, sensuality and still guilt; and only Korea, with a prisoner of war, fulfillment, justification and self acceptance."
I do not say that the above is better than the summary on the new NYRB edition quoted by GR only that it is instructive in how you read the past. Many reviewers are amazed that a novel like this was published back in the 1960s but the past is 'a different country' (thank you L.P. Hartley) and we are constantly viewing it through the distorting memories of the present. I do think the greatest danger for this wonderful novel is to only see it as a 'gay-coming-out' story, which it is of course, but it is so much more:
"...And yet, Stephen thought, opening his eyes and seeing the empty barracks, the empty beds, the truth is that I am neither! Neither gook nor GI, neither here nor there, fish nor fowl, straight nor queer, prisoner nor free! I'm neither one nor both but in between . . . without myself . . . partitioned, like Korea..."
At this distance so much of the real power of the section in Korea is in danger of being lost. Aside from being a masterful portrait of the absurdities and cruelties of America at war which can stand comparison with 'The Gallery' by John Horne Burns and 'Naples 44' by Norman Lewis it is more then simply his homosexuality Stephen Wolfe comes to terms with. It is his acceptance of the Koreans in the POW camp as human beings of equal merit as himself that would have made many reviewers and readers at the time uncomfortable. The superiority of the white man to Asians was so deep rooted that it was not even questioned. When Stephen has sex with a Korean it is not simply 'homosexuality' that would offend, but his allowing himself to be fucked by a Korean was demeaning to all codes of racial superiority and whether active or passive sex between Stephen, the white American, and the Korean soldier was tantamount to miscegenation. Stephen's growth is not just sexual it is more universal and for Sanford Friedman was as important,
A truly wonderful novel. It is well worth exploring some of the rich media that appeared around the time of the novels reissue and would suggest https://lambdaliteraryreview.org/2014... as starting point, not because it is the best but because there are no pay walls.
*1 "Schwarmerei" is a German word, sometimes used in English, that refers to excessive or unbridled enthusiasm, sentimentality, or even fanaticism. It also can have a slightly negative connotation, suggesting an over-the-top or irrational fervor.
""I think 'Totempole' an extraordinarily courageous and highly moral work. The author tells exactly what it was like to be himself at a certain time and place and, uniquely, I believed him. Truth is rare; he seems to have it" - Gore Vidal.
"Stanford Friedman describes 'Totempole' as presenting the erotic evolution of its hero, Stephen Wolfe. In ever-widening circles, Stephen's growth is traced from the interlocking family unit (mother, father, brother) in New York, through summer camp, college in the Middle West, and military service in Korea.
"'Totempole' may be interpreted as the history of an intelligent American trying to resist, from infancy, a powerful urge to homosexuality. At each level he finds sexuality; in infancy, obsessions; at summer camp, a passionate schwarmerei (see my footnote *1 below); in puberty, guilt; at college, after a brave attempt with a girl, sensuality and still guilt; and only Korea, with a prisoner of war, fulfillment, justification and self acceptance."
I do not say that the above is better than the summary on the new NYRB edition quoted by GR only that it is instructive in how you read the past. Many reviewers are amazed that a novel like this was published back in the 1960s but the past is 'a different country' (thank you L.P. Hartley) and we are constantly viewing it through the distorting memories of the present. I do think the greatest danger for this wonderful novel is to only see it as a 'gay-coming-out' story, which it is of course, but it is so much more:
"...And yet, Stephen thought, opening his eyes and seeing the empty barracks, the empty beds, the truth is that I am neither! Neither gook nor GI, neither here nor there, fish nor fowl, straight nor queer, prisoner nor free! I'm neither one nor both but in between . . . without myself . . . partitioned, like Korea..."
At this distance so much of the real power of the section in Korea is in danger of being lost. Aside from being a masterful portrait of the absurdities and cruelties of America at war which can stand comparison with 'The Gallery' by John Horne Burns and 'Naples 44' by Norman Lewis it is more then simply his homosexuality Stephen Wolfe comes to terms with. It is his acceptance of the Koreans in the POW camp as human beings of equal merit as himself that would have made many reviewers and readers at the time uncomfortable. The superiority of the white man to Asians was so deep rooted that it was not even questioned. When Stephen has sex with a Korean it is not simply 'homosexuality' that would offend, but his allowing himself to be fucked by a Korean was demeaning to all codes of racial superiority and whether active or passive sex between Stephen, the white American, and the Korean soldier was tantamount to miscegenation. Stephen's growth is not just sexual it is more universal and for Sanford Friedman was as important,
A truly wonderful novel. It is well worth exploring some of the rich media that appeared around the time of the novels reissue and would suggest https://lambdaliteraryreview.org/2014... as starting point, not because it is the best but because there are no pay walls.
*1 "Schwarmerei" is a German word, sometimes used in English, that refers to excessive or unbridled enthusiasm, sentimentality, or even fanaticism. It also can have a slightly negative connotation, suggesting an over-the-top or irrational fervor.
January 6, 2015
It's interesting that such a sexually and emotionally explicit novel about a young man's gay sexual awakening could/would be published by a major American publishing house (Dutton) in 1965. Good for them. It received mixed reviews, given its subject matter. Many praised it, but some reviewers (the New York Times is mentioned in Peter Cameron's Afterword) were squeamish and couldn't control their own eyerolling.
Friedman's writing style is very straightforward and matter-of-fact. There aren't a lot of literary curlicues here. He recounts the life of Stephen Wolfe, a Jewish boy born into a middle class New York City family in 1928, from age two to age twenty-two. Stephen is always highly aware of his body, his sexuality, and his emotions, although he doesn't always understand them. (Who does?) His religious Jewish upbringing, along with his secular education, assist him in learning to be ashamed of his body and his erotic feelings. Even at college, where he manages to end up with a gay roommate who is very comfortable with his sexuality, and with whom he has a physical relationship (after dating a girl), Stephen can't rid himself of his sense of shame. Only as a soldier serving in the Korean War, where he becomes an English teacher to a group of Korean POWs, does he develop an ability to love and be loved, and to integrate it fully with his sexual feelings. Friedman was lauded for being one of the first serious novelists to create a gay novel with a happy ending.
February 13, 2023
4.5 stars. Some parts of this book haven’t aged as well (the Freudian overtones, some of the sections involving Korea), but overall it’s brilliantly written. It helps to see what overtly queer narratives looked like in that time, to give greater perspective on what narratives we’re writing now and why, and what the alternatives are. The writing was at times almost naively earnest but so vivid and convincing that I didn’t care. Most importantly, the main character was 3-dimensional and had many struggles and facets of his character that coexisted with his sexuality, which is partly why I think it succeeded in addressing his sexuality in the first place. An important queer novel
February 11, 2018
Possibly the only gay novel that features both the Jersey Shore and Pusan, South Korea as settings. TOTEMPOLE is wonderful experience.
October 7, 2021
More like 3.5 stars.
The story of a young, gay Jewish kid growing up in New York in the '30s and '40s as written by a young, gay Jewish kid who grew up in New York in the '30s and '40s. For the time it was published in the '60s, it must have been not a little revolutionary for its themes of sexuality in children and its unabashed and often sweet (and cheesy) romance between a young GI and a North Korean POW.
Not being gay, I enjoyed the novel in a roundabout way for describing and typifying an adolescence I never went through, and I respect the respect the novel has garnered as a classic among its intended audience. Friedman is certainly unafraid to describe the childhood development of a future gay person although for my tastes it leans a bit too Freudian. Wolfe, our protagonist, seems to have his roots for his fancying other men in the fact that his father never wore pajama bottoms...?
Wolfe's slow sexual arc and acceptance of his proclivities takes a long, winding road, piece by piece falling into place like the titular narrative shaft. At times it might feel frustrating to the 21st century reader, as when Wolfe, who doesn't realize he is gay, finds himself impotent when trying to have sex with his hot female theater-classmate but succeeds with flying colors when his (male)roommate seduces him. I'm not sure what else might spell it out, short of a billboard announcement or megaphone, but maybe that's just for sheer character development.
That's the novel's core value, I think, as an in-depth exploration of a burgeoning young person's sexuality, even if at times the romance bits, as I mentioned, are a little cheesy. The novel seems to suggest its own culmination is Wolfe's acceptance of anal intercourse and what it calls "the feminine role", but, hey, whatever it takes, I guess!
The story of a young, gay Jewish kid growing up in New York in the '30s and '40s as written by a young, gay Jewish kid who grew up in New York in the '30s and '40s. For the time it was published in the '60s, it must have been not a little revolutionary for its themes of sexuality in children and its unabashed and often sweet (and cheesy) romance between a young GI and a North Korean POW.
Not being gay, I enjoyed the novel in a roundabout way for describing and typifying an adolescence I never went through, and I respect the respect the novel has garnered as a classic among its intended audience. Friedman is certainly unafraid to describe the childhood development of a future gay person although for my tastes it leans a bit too Freudian. Wolfe, our protagonist, seems to have his roots for his fancying other men in the fact that his father never wore pajama bottoms...?
Wolfe's slow sexual arc and acceptance of his proclivities takes a long, winding road, piece by piece falling into place like the titular narrative shaft. At times it might feel frustrating to the 21st century reader, as when Wolfe, who doesn't realize he is gay, finds himself impotent when trying to have sex with his hot female theater-classmate but succeeds with flying colors when his (male)roommate seduces him. I'm not sure what else might spell it out, short of a billboard announcement or megaphone, but maybe that's just for sheer character development.
That's the novel's core value, I think, as an in-depth exploration of a burgeoning young person's sexuality, even if at times the romance bits, as I mentioned, are a little cheesy. The novel seems to suggest its own culmination is Wolfe's acceptance of anal intercourse and what it calls "the feminine role", but, hey, whatever it takes, I guess!
November 15, 2014
An incredibly rich reading experience -- one of the more complex, emotionally sophisticated books I've read in a while.***
Friedman "gets" how sexuality is expressed at the most gut level, and writes so beautifully about its ineffability -- how it is an essential, controlling part of us and yet still remains utterly mysterious and unknowable. Or is he perhaps saying that if childhood is our most innocent, open time, perhaps its also the time we are closes to understanding sexuality? It definitely feels like this is his argument, and I don't mean it in a sicko pedo way. For even though the book is filled with one disturbing animalistic moment after another -- the priapic monkey, the writhing chopped lizard tail, the discarded underwear filled with lice -- it all still feels completely natural and human, and without malice. As many reviewers have written, this is in contrast to such shame-filled stories of pubescent randiness from the likes of Roth and Updike.) Moreover, this is not a Logo Special Episode about The Perils of Coming Out Before Stonewall, and that is a merciful relief.
The book is very clearly split in two parts -- the final chapter (really more a standalone novella) in the Korean POW camp and then the series of bizarre sketches from childhood that precede it. Except for its setting in the "Forgotten War," that final novella doesn't feel particularly unique as far as story line or emotional depth -- a nice enough story, sure, but nothing that hasn't been done before. But putting that traditional story of thwarted love in the context of the churning, surreal, emotionally destabilizing passages that come before makes it sing, like going to a concert and hearing a series of ever more virtuosic cadenzas first before you hear the actual concerto they are meant to be the capstone and climax of. Further proof that Stephen's most alive moments are in childhood -- at 2 years old, before speech no less -- and that his adulthood pales in comparison. What that means as far as how Stephen deals with his sexuality and his subconscious longings is something even the greatest Freudian could never parse.
Peter Cameron's afterword mentions that Signet chose this as the lead title on its 1965 fiction list, which is absolutely astounding. The bestseller list of 1965 reads like a Midcentury Macho Man Studies syllabus -- Bellow, Fleming, le Carré, and Roth and Updike were soon to follow -- so to think that this tender, bizarre, thoroughly queer (in sensibility and structure) story would be worthy of attention in this context makes me want to jump in my DeLorean and go hug whoever was the head of marketing and sales at the time. Of course, bestseller lists mean nothing as far as longevity is concerned. Does anyone read Michener anymore? For here are some other books released in 1965, not nearly as popular as the Bond novels but much more enduring, in the context of which Totempole seems to fit perfectly: Ariel; In Cold Blood; Everything That Rises Must Converge; Cosmicomics; The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.
-------
***Listen (and I don't care if I have to give up all my hipster bona fides on admitting this): the truth is that I have hated every single NYRB Classics I have ever read (except The Dud Avocado). It seemed that the NYRB was engaged in a futile exercise, trying to revive awful books that clearly should have been left to die out and slip out of print forever on their own. I made a pact with myself to read this one final NYRB title, and if I hated it, give up on them forever and ever and ever. CURSE YOU SANFORD FRIEDMAN!
Friedman "gets" how sexuality is expressed at the most gut level, and writes so beautifully about its ineffability -- how it is an essential, controlling part of us and yet still remains utterly mysterious and unknowable. Or is he perhaps saying that if childhood is our most innocent, open time, perhaps its also the time we are closes to understanding sexuality? It definitely feels like this is his argument, and I don't mean it in a sicko pedo way. For even though the book is filled with one disturbing animalistic moment after another -- the priapic monkey, the writhing chopped lizard tail, the discarded underwear filled with lice -- it all still feels completely natural and human, and without malice. As many reviewers have written, this is in contrast to such shame-filled stories of pubescent randiness from the likes of Roth and Updike.) Moreover, this is not a Logo Special Episode about The Perils of Coming Out Before Stonewall, and that is a merciful relief.
The book is very clearly split in two parts -- the final chapter (really more a standalone novella) in the Korean POW camp and then the series of bizarre sketches from childhood that precede it. Except for its setting in the "Forgotten War," that final novella doesn't feel particularly unique as far as story line or emotional depth -- a nice enough story, sure, but nothing that hasn't been done before. But putting that traditional story of thwarted love in the context of the churning, surreal, emotionally destabilizing passages that come before makes it sing, like going to a concert and hearing a series of ever more virtuosic cadenzas first before you hear the actual concerto they are meant to be the capstone and climax of. Further proof that Stephen's most alive moments are in childhood -- at 2 years old, before speech no less -- and that his adulthood pales in comparison. What that means as far as how Stephen deals with his sexuality and his subconscious longings is something even the greatest Freudian could never parse.
Peter Cameron's afterword mentions that Signet chose this as the lead title on its 1965 fiction list, which is absolutely astounding. The bestseller list of 1965 reads like a Midcentury Macho Man Studies syllabus -- Bellow, Fleming, le Carré, and Roth and Updike were soon to follow -- so to think that this tender, bizarre, thoroughly queer (in sensibility and structure) story would be worthy of attention in this context makes me want to jump in my DeLorean and go hug whoever was the head of marketing and sales at the time. Of course, bestseller lists mean nothing as far as longevity is concerned. Does anyone read Michener anymore? For here are some other books released in 1965, not nearly as popular as the Bond novels but much more enduring, in the context of which Totempole seems to fit perfectly: Ariel; In Cold Blood; Everything That Rises Must Converge; Cosmicomics; The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.
-------
***Listen (and I don't care if I have to give up all my hipster bona fides on admitting this): the truth is that I have hated every single NYRB Classics I have ever read (except The Dud Avocado). It seemed that the NYRB was engaged in a futile exercise, trying to revive awful books that clearly should have been left to die out and slip out of print forever on their own. I made a pact with myself to read this one final NYRB title, and if I hated it, give up on them forever and ever and ever. CURSE YOU SANFORD FRIEDMAN!
December 12, 2025
I picked up Totempole (first published in 1961) in a second-hand bookstore. I had never heard of it, but purchased it mostly on the ‘authority’ of the NYRB Classics label. Now, after just finishing it, I can say that I’m so glad I found it. It’s the only book I’ve ever read that takes a deep and ‘realistic’ look at the psychological and sexual development of a gay male, from early boyhood through to manhood, firmly illustrating “what it feels like to grow up, and be, homosexual” (from the Afterword by Peter Cameron). Totempole “isn’t about life in the closet, and it isn’t about coming out [to friends and family]. It’s about [ . . . ] coming out to oneself.” Totempole is a long, but a compelling read, each chapter devoted to a different stage of the protagonist’s (Stephen Wolfe) growth. The tone varies, being at times heartbreakingly sad, and at points almost outrageously funny. Totempole is a bit dated (heavy on the Freudian imagery), and the borderline antisemitic portrait of insular and suffocating middle class Jewish family life I found somewhat distasteful. It’s no accident that when Stephen returns to America (after serving in the Korean War), his troop transport “steams through the Golden Gate,” placing him happily on the side of the continent opposite to his parents’ New York location. I like to think that gay boys and men in these times don’t have to cut themselves off quite so much from their families to live happy and meaningful lives.
October 1, 2025
took far too long, but ultimately a very delicate and empathetic novel that, against all odds, takes a rather blunt look at a young manʼs psychology. works like this from the 60s deserve much higher praise. I remember feeling so attuned to Stephens pathology and worldview and even when I didnʼt directly relate to his experiences, Sanford Friedman beautifully articulated it so that I could come close.
4.75
4.75
July 6, 2017
TOTEMPOLE is an episodic novel written in eight sections, and one I had been looking forward to reading for a long time. Unfortunately, the last two sections disassociate from the previous six in such a jarring, sudden way that I ended up drifting off, and not enjoying the last 150 pages of the book. I enjoyed the "young" Stephen much more than the 22 year old Stephen. I would have given the book more stars if it had just stayed on the trajectory of the first 200 pages. This is all just a matter of "taste" however, and the brevity of the writing is impressive, even at 400+ pages. The last section "Rats" is incredibly powerful, but the Stephen in "Rats" doesn't feel like the Stephen in any other section of the book. I really wish "Rats" had been its own novel.
I highly recommend the Afterword by Peter Cameron. Make sure to read that first to get a better understanding of the novel's function and history.
I highly recommend the Afterword by Peter Cameron. Make sure to read that first to get a better understanding of the novel's function and history.
March 6, 2015
My favorite moment in the novel concerns a toy monkey that our hero has had since childhood. He's arrived at college at age 17 to study acting. Gottlieb is his roommate whom he's just met.
It the time it took Gottlieb to get ready Stephen unpacked the entire contents of his trunk, including Oscar II. He couldn't decide whether to keep the toy on his bed or out of sight. In his heart he knew he would want to have Oscar with him at night, but he was afraid of Gottlieb's ridicule. "Forgive me," he whispered, petting the monkey's head and placing him in the top drawer of the bureau..."
May 18, 2016
This very strong and successful novel was published all the way back in the pre-Stonewall era, in 1965! It contains the best account I've ever read of what it was like to grow up gay and Jewish in New York City in the 1930s and 40s. The novel ends with a fascinating account of the experiences of a gay army officer during the Korean War - in Friedman's telling not at all what I was expecting! What prevents it from receiving from me that elusive fifth star is its episodic construction, as well as the fact that I felt it spent a little too much time dealing with experiences of the central character at summer camp in Maine.
October 14, 2023
[1965] This is probably a three or four star book but my enjoyment was more of a two to three star experience. An old new (or new old?) unfolding of the gay coming of age story. We follow Steven from age two to his twenties, with each chapter addressing a different age in his life. Each chapter felt to me almost like a different person and I missed that connective thread to make it feel like one person. I was so thrown by one chapter early in his life that was characterized by an intense cruelty found in no other phase of his life, and from then on I had trouble reconciling the boy he was there with the man he became.
February 23, 2018
Obviously I was much more impressed with this in 1986 than I was when I read it again this week. Today, I probably wouldn't give it even three stars, and I find that the section in which Stephen is an adult in Korea is the only part that appeals.
But of course, like most of us, I've read a great many more gay-themed novels in the intervening years and so have much more with which to compare this early (1965) example.
But of course, like most of us, I've read a great many more gay-themed novels in the intervening years and so have much more with which to compare this early (1965) example.
October 23, 2014
This was a lovely book. As has been mentioned by many, the fact that this book disappeared for many years until NYRB reissued it, is surprising. I found it beautifully written and the structure somewhat unique in that it was not a flow of events but sort of snippets of a young man's life from about two years old into his early twenties. "Totempole" reads like a modern classic - and hopefully this reissue will make it one!
October 31, 2015
Fascinating and oh-so Freudian, this "novel" tracks Stephen Wolfe from infancy to adulthood. The psychology is well done--specific to the character but also universally relatable to anyone who grew up gay and struggled with this realization, no matter the time or era. The prose was overcooked at times, serviceable more than memorable. Recommended, but this won't go in my "reread" pile.
Read
May 25, 2015Decided I was not interested in the book. Did not read
July 23, 2015
American contemp....1930s-1950s New England, Korea....discovering oneself. Refreshingly raw and insightful prose - nice surprise for a random pick from a used bookstore in Vancouver.
June 13, 2023
Sanford Friedman's Totempole is a fascinating, complex and self-questioning coming-of-age and coming-out novel, that deserves to be celebrated for proclaiming the possibility of queer joy and self-liberation.
In eight distinct chapters, the novel explores stages of development and self-discovery for Stephen Wolfe, a young boy fascinated with nature, drama and the arts, from an upperclass Jewish New York family in the 1930s, through the 40s, and finally his period of military service in the Korean War.
It captures a sense of a boy fighting for his sense of liberty, curiosity and desire, from nascent understanding of the world to full conflict with his burgeoning sexuality. He is trapped in structures of masculinity, Jewishness, family and heteronormativity, his sense of love and belonging are always at stake, under threat of revealing how dear things are to him in case he transgress unspoken codes.
Totempole is not a continuous narrative in its development, however. It takes its cue from his first major love, for the crafts instructor at the youth camp Uncle Hank, who over two years sculpts a totem, each section having its own legend behind it. Wolfe's life is also told in a structure of 8 distinct chapters, each showing different key points of development and a totemic animal to characterise it. Some of the most beautiful imagery is in the way Stephen is enchanted by the wild, the ocean, the Salamanders and Loon birds that lure him away from human interaction, and haunt his sentimental understanding of the world.
Published first in 1961, it was met with derision if not disgust. If it was provocative for homosexual lives to be visible, for men to find love and acceptance in each other - and thus overcome the internalised shame that is instilled to repress us - is a direct threat to power and hegemony.
That is not to call it's protagonist heroic. I found some aspects of the novel brilliantly troubled, and Stephen Wolfe embodies much of that conflict in himself; it is played out as he is trained to dissociate from his body, to feel repulsed by his scars, or even to turn his self-hatred on another adoring camper, Marvin.
There is a loss of other characters in the novel. From chapter to chapter, we see the importance of others on Stephen's development, but they often fall by the wayside later on. This can be alienating for the reader, especially when the boy Stephen's effervescent character goes through an odious stage in adolescence and there is a lack of previous characters sharing in the development. But through this, it also focuses the psychological portrait to a fine detail, as the Stephen becomes the dandyish but conflicted actor at college and finally as English teacher discovering a mature love in Korea that allows him to address his self-hatred, uniting body and soul through a new evaluation of beauty. Thus, a love for the world and self re-emerges in adulthood that allows a true symbiosis with the other.
If the novel weren't so self-knowing in depicting the failures of humans in their treatment of each other, it could be said that Stephen Wolfe's liberation of self was problematic in its dependence on the prisoner Sun Bo, an exploitation of a colonial power dynamic. However, these structures are not determinate of their discovery of the ways in which they liberate each other, seeking a symbiosis in love that focuses on joy in affection.
In eight distinct chapters, the novel explores stages of development and self-discovery for Stephen Wolfe, a young boy fascinated with nature, drama and the arts, from an upperclass Jewish New York family in the 1930s, through the 40s, and finally his period of military service in the Korean War.
It captures a sense of a boy fighting for his sense of liberty, curiosity and desire, from nascent understanding of the world to full conflict with his burgeoning sexuality. He is trapped in structures of masculinity, Jewishness, family and heteronormativity, his sense of love and belonging are always at stake, under threat of revealing how dear things are to him in case he transgress unspoken codes.
Totempole is not a continuous narrative in its development, however. It takes its cue from his first major love, for the crafts instructor at the youth camp Uncle Hank, who over two years sculpts a totem, each section having its own legend behind it. Wolfe's life is also told in a structure of 8 distinct chapters, each showing different key points of development and a totemic animal to characterise it. Some of the most beautiful imagery is in the way Stephen is enchanted by the wild, the ocean, the Salamanders and Loon birds that lure him away from human interaction, and haunt his sentimental understanding of the world.
Published first in 1961, it was met with derision if not disgust. If it was provocative for homosexual lives to be visible, for men to find love and acceptance in each other - and thus overcome the internalised shame that is instilled to repress us - is a direct threat to power and hegemony.
That is not to call it's protagonist heroic. I found some aspects of the novel brilliantly troubled, and Stephen Wolfe embodies much of that conflict in himself; it is played out as he is trained to dissociate from his body, to feel repulsed by his scars, or even to turn his self-hatred on another adoring camper, Marvin.
There is a loss of other characters in the novel. From chapter to chapter, we see the importance of others on Stephen's development, but they often fall by the wayside later on. This can be alienating for the reader, especially when the boy Stephen's effervescent character goes through an odious stage in adolescence and there is a lack of previous characters sharing in the development. But through this, it also focuses the psychological portrait to a fine detail, as the Stephen becomes the dandyish but conflicted actor at college and finally as English teacher discovering a mature love in Korea that allows him to address his self-hatred, uniting body and soul through a new evaluation of beauty. Thus, a love for the world and self re-emerges in adulthood that allows a true symbiosis with the other.
If the novel weren't so self-knowing in depicting the failures of humans in their treatment of each other, it could be said that Stephen Wolfe's liberation of self was problematic in its dependence on the prisoner Sun Bo, an exploitation of a colonial power dynamic. However, these structures are not determinate of their discovery of the ways in which they liberate each other, seeking a symbiosis in love that focuses on joy in affection.
September 25, 2025
The older I get, the more I appreciate the "three classical unities". Concentrating the action in a short period of time allows the creator to define characters without having to labor over their development; and if one wishes to trace the development of a character, one ends up having to write a Bildungsroman, and that almost invariably requires several hundred pages.
*Totempole* is often described as a Bildungsroman, which it most definitely is not, despite its 400-ish pages. What little "Bildung" there is -- in this case limited to the main character's understanding and acceptance of his homosexuality -- actually occurs only in the final chapter. Otherwise what do we have here? As fellow Goodreads reviewer Kirsten correctly (and, sadly, uniquely) points out, the various chapters hardly add up; they're a collection of chronologically arranged short stories that more often than not are either irrelevant to character development and might as well belong to some other character, or they illuminate dead ends. Oh well.
That's the main problem with this novel. There are several additional, more localized ones, of which the following are my favorites:
1. The first chapter is simply embarrassing. Couched in the vicious post- or, better, pseudo-Freudianism of such frauds as Albert Ellis and Irving Bieber, we have a two-year-old obsessed with the penises of horses and -- one cringes -- Dad, who thoughtfully wears pajama tops but not pajama bottoms. (We also get a classic case of Freudian hysteria in the person of little Stephen's mother.) Worse than that, the kid speaks entirely in nouns. Obviously Friedman hadn't known any two-year-olds since he was himself just about that age, because the only two-year-olds who display this characteristic are autistic. No sign of autism in little Stephen's future -- heh -- development.
2. Stephen goes to college, tries out -- and fails at -- heterosexuality with a classmate, and ends up falling for the charms of his roommate, whose sexual interest in him had initially disgusted him. (This roommate, by the way, knows all his Greek legends but somehow doesn't know the word "hedonism"; Friedman has an annoying habit of making his characters as knowledgeable or ignorant as necessary for the immediate effect without concern for overall credibility.) A couple of days of bliss ensue, until one day Stephen discovers he has public lice. Having absorbed the sexual mores of Grandpa and the rabbi (but not, as far as we know, Mom and Dad), he imagines that the seed he'd spilled had mutated into parasites out to eat him alive. But what's the best part of all this? The roommate/boyfriend doesn't have crabs! So how did Stephen get them? I find it remarkable that Friedman seems just as ignorant of how public lice are transmitted (hint to author: it ain't by sitting on tainted toilet seats) as Stephen is. So anyway, Stephen spurns his roommate for a second time. But wait! -- as they say on infomercials -- there's more! Stephen ends up drunk at a party and, disgusted by the mere sight of his roommate/ex and the homosexual depravity he represents, **falls head over heels for another boy**. Well, yeah, I suppose there are guys out there who are that badly messed up. (In fact, I know there are. Just don't ask me how I know.) But instead of teasing out all this mess in a comprehensible manner, Friedman simply rings down the curtain on the chapter.
3. The final and by far longest chapter sees Stephen heading off to Korea, in his pocket a "good" tin monkey toy (as opposed to — in a rare moment of inter-chapter continuity — those bad zoo monkeys he'd seen masturbating several chapters back) and Kierkegaard's *Fear and Trembling* -- so you know that Stephen is still a basket case. He ends up being bowled over by the masculine charms of various Korean POWs (in this case anticommunist North Koreans whose fate had yet to be determined); the author's description of Stephen's infatuations is mawkish unto cringeworthy. So he ends up volunteering to give them English lessons -- again, it's astonishing which unusual words the POWs know, and which simple ones they don't -- and otherwise the only lessons they need seem to pertain to inflections of verbs while they read Katherine Mansfield and Hemingway. Not that any language instruction actually transpires in the episodes Friedman relates; mostly they talk about the evils of communism and the virtues of Adlai Stevenson. This is also a most curious bunch of Koreans, as they all seem to be at least positively accepting of situational homosexuality if not actively practicing it themselves. This doesn't correspond to any description of Korean society I've ever come across -- not even contemporary Korean society -- and despite the author's having been stationed in Korea I imagine that he looked back on his time there not only with glasses that were rose-tinted but smeared with David Hamilton Vaseline as well. Anyway our Stephen finally grows to accept his homosexuality -- both topping and bottoming! -- as well as his rather trivial physical imperfections (three guesses as to what isn't "big enough" and the first two guesses don't count) in the loving embrace of a widowed Korean physician. Which meets with the approval of all the fellow Koreans and somehow entirely escapes the notice of all the fellow Americans. But of course tours of duty don't last forever. The last we see of Stephen, he's disembarking in San Francisco harbor, aware that "he had lost something of himself" but knowing "by instinct that he had lost it in the sea." I'd be more than willing to bet that this means he subsequently returned to a life of frigidity, if only I had a way of collecting.
As far as Gay Lit is concerned, this is of exclusively historical interest. Most of the prose is well executed despite certain mechanical lapses ("layed", "GI's" as plural); otherwise I'd give one star.
*Totempole* is often described as a Bildungsroman, which it most definitely is not, despite its 400-ish pages. What little "Bildung" there is -- in this case limited to the main character's understanding and acceptance of his homosexuality -- actually occurs only in the final chapter. Otherwise what do we have here? As fellow Goodreads reviewer Kirsten correctly (and, sadly, uniquely) points out, the various chapters hardly add up; they're a collection of chronologically arranged short stories that more often than not are either irrelevant to character development and might as well belong to some other character, or they illuminate dead ends. Oh well.
That's the main problem with this novel. There are several additional, more localized ones, of which the following are my favorites:
1. The first chapter is simply embarrassing. Couched in the vicious post- or, better, pseudo-Freudianism of such frauds as Albert Ellis and Irving Bieber, we have a two-year-old obsessed with the penises of horses and -- one cringes -- Dad, who thoughtfully wears pajama tops but not pajama bottoms. (We also get a classic case of Freudian hysteria in the person of little Stephen's mother.) Worse than that, the kid speaks entirely in nouns. Obviously Friedman hadn't known any two-year-olds since he was himself just about that age, because the only two-year-olds who display this characteristic are autistic. No sign of autism in little Stephen's future -- heh -- development.
2. Stephen goes to college, tries out -- and fails at -- heterosexuality with a classmate, and ends up falling for the charms of his roommate, whose sexual interest in him had initially disgusted him. (This roommate, by the way, knows all his Greek legends but somehow doesn't know the word "hedonism"; Friedman has an annoying habit of making his characters as knowledgeable or ignorant as necessary for the immediate effect without concern for overall credibility.) A couple of days of bliss ensue, until one day Stephen discovers he has public lice. Having absorbed the sexual mores of Grandpa and the rabbi (but not, as far as we know, Mom and Dad), he imagines that the seed he'd spilled had mutated into parasites out to eat him alive. But what's the best part of all this? The roommate/boyfriend doesn't have crabs! So how did Stephen get them? I find it remarkable that Friedman seems just as ignorant of how public lice are transmitted (hint to author: it ain't by sitting on tainted toilet seats) as Stephen is. So anyway, Stephen spurns his roommate for a second time. But wait! -- as they say on infomercials -- there's more! Stephen ends up drunk at a party and, disgusted by the mere sight of his roommate/ex and the homosexual depravity he represents, **falls head over heels for another boy**. Well, yeah, I suppose there are guys out there who are that badly messed up. (In fact, I know there are. Just don't ask me how I know.) But instead of teasing out all this mess in a comprehensible manner, Friedman simply rings down the curtain on the chapter.
3. The final and by far longest chapter sees Stephen heading off to Korea, in his pocket a "good" tin monkey toy (as opposed to — in a rare moment of inter-chapter continuity — those bad zoo monkeys he'd seen masturbating several chapters back) and Kierkegaard's *Fear and Trembling* -- so you know that Stephen is still a basket case. He ends up being bowled over by the masculine charms of various Korean POWs (in this case anticommunist North Koreans whose fate had yet to be determined); the author's description of Stephen's infatuations is mawkish unto cringeworthy. So he ends up volunteering to give them English lessons -- again, it's astonishing which unusual words the POWs know, and which simple ones they don't -- and otherwise the only lessons they need seem to pertain to inflections of verbs while they read Katherine Mansfield and Hemingway. Not that any language instruction actually transpires in the episodes Friedman relates; mostly they talk about the evils of communism and the virtues of Adlai Stevenson. This is also a most curious bunch of Koreans, as they all seem to be at least positively accepting of situational homosexuality if not actively practicing it themselves. This doesn't correspond to any description of Korean society I've ever come across -- not even contemporary Korean society -- and despite the author's having been stationed in Korea I imagine that he looked back on his time there not only with glasses that were rose-tinted but smeared with David Hamilton Vaseline as well. Anyway our Stephen finally grows to accept his homosexuality -- both topping and bottoming! -- as well as his rather trivial physical imperfections (three guesses as to what isn't "big enough" and the first two guesses don't count) in the loving embrace of a widowed Korean physician. Which meets with the approval of all the fellow Koreans and somehow entirely escapes the notice of all the fellow Americans. But of course tours of duty don't last forever. The last we see of Stephen, he's disembarking in San Francisco harbor, aware that "he had lost something of himself" but knowing "by instinct that he had lost it in the sea." I'd be more than willing to bet that this means he subsequently returned to a life of frigidity, if only I had a way of collecting.
As far as Gay Lit is concerned, this is of exclusively historical interest. Most of the prose is well executed despite certain mechanical lapses ("layed", "GI's" as plural); otherwise I'd give one star.
September 27, 2019
I'd never heard of this novel before it was suggested by my book club. I asked around, asked people who read more regularly than I do, and none of them had heard of it, either. One of my good friends who's a former bookseller--a man with a mind like a steel trap when it comes to titles and plots and writers, a lifelong bibliophile who would've been in his late teens when Totempole came out--wasn't even familiar with the author.
So, I went into it blindly, and I was pleasantly surprised. Among the many things that I enjoyed about the novel, two stand out:
1. The scenarios are spot-on. The moments that Friedman fixates on--moments of panic in the doctor's office, the power of emotional intimacy between men, being a freshman and wanting to let your freak flag fly, the inherent drama of the Drama Club, internal monologues about privilege--they resonated with me because I'd experienced them myself. Stephen's long, slow awakening takes place half a century before my own, but there are many, many parallels.
2. The hero isn't punished. We've become so used to LGBT characters being discovered, reviled, and punished for who they are that we've come to expect it, even in today's novels, movies, and TV shows. (Why else would coming-out videos still be a thing on YouTube?) But that's not how Totempole plays out. Whatever torture Stephen experiences--and he experiences plenty--comes from within, not without. Don't get me wrong, those parts of the novel are still painful, but reading about self-immolation is different from reading about beatings and deaths.
I wouldn't call Totempole the best coming-of-age novel I've ever read, nor the best LGBT novel on my shelf. However, I can say that it still rings true in many ways. And as a welcome bonus, it moves along at a clip, thanks to Friedman's simple, direct writing style. I'm sorry that the novel didn't generate more fame for Friedman during his life, but I hope that, in time, people will come to see the importance of a novel that previous generations overlooked.
So, I went into it blindly, and I was pleasantly surprised. Among the many things that I enjoyed about the novel, two stand out:
1. The scenarios are spot-on. The moments that Friedman fixates on--moments of panic in the doctor's office, the power of emotional intimacy between men, being a freshman and wanting to let your freak flag fly, the inherent drama of the Drama Club, internal monologues about privilege--they resonated with me because I'd experienced them myself. Stephen's long, slow awakening takes place half a century before my own, but there are many, many parallels.
2. The hero isn't punished. We've become so used to LGBT characters being discovered, reviled, and punished for who they are that we've come to expect it, even in today's novels, movies, and TV shows. (Why else would coming-out videos still be a thing on YouTube?) But that's not how Totempole plays out. Whatever torture Stephen experiences--and he experiences plenty--comes from within, not without. Don't get me wrong, those parts of the novel are still painful, but reading about self-immolation is different from reading about beatings and deaths.
I wouldn't call Totempole the best coming-of-age novel I've ever read, nor the best LGBT novel on my shelf. However, I can say that it still rings true in many ways. And as a welcome bonus, it moves along at a clip, thanks to Friedman's simple, direct writing style. I'm sorry that the novel didn't generate more fame for Friedman during his life, but I hope that, in time, people will come to see the importance of a novel that previous generations overlooked.
March 31, 2023
A forgotten pre-Stonewall (just) gay novel. Early reviews in 1965 were mostly homophobic even as they praised the writing. Peter Cameron’s essay in the NYRB edition quotes some of those reviews, sad evidence that dominant groups/majorities often get riled having to hear one or two stories that don’t revolve around them (echoes of right wing 2022 etc, much?).
The novel is striking, covering prepubescent, childhood, puberty years, then college and military service, giving an episodic gay Bildungsroman, a character’s search to understand his own desires, struggles to overcome messages of shame about sex itself and queerness specifically that the culture promotes. Polymorphous perversity a la Freud is present here in a way rare in fiction. Friedman looks honestly and forthrightly at all that can odd, weird, and compelling about sexual desire. Less central to Freidman’s arc but still strongly relevant is a secular Jewish American life and culture of the Depression/WW2 era.
Every chapter is compelling and does something slightly unexpected. For the mid 60s, the gay sex is strikingly direct, explicit (for the time), and unashamed (in the end). It’s not the great gay American novel (that would be Andrew Holleran’s The Dancer from the Dance, for me at least), but it’s definitely worth reading. A forgotten stepping stone. One of the primary reasons most contemporary reviews were negative is that the character’s journey doesn’t end in shame, suicide, or mental illness, as many readers and publishers expected (if not demanded, as with Vin Packer’s Spring Fire).
A solid and important novel is queer literary history.
The novel is striking, covering prepubescent, childhood, puberty years, then college and military service, giving an episodic gay Bildungsroman, a character’s search to understand his own desires, struggles to overcome messages of shame about sex itself and queerness specifically that the culture promotes. Polymorphous perversity a la Freud is present here in a way rare in fiction. Friedman looks honestly and forthrightly at all that can odd, weird, and compelling about sexual desire. Less central to Freidman’s arc but still strongly relevant is a secular Jewish American life and culture of the Depression/WW2 era.
Every chapter is compelling and does something slightly unexpected. For the mid 60s, the gay sex is strikingly direct, explicit (for the time), and unashamed (in the end). It’s not the great gay American novel (that would be Andrew Holleran’s The Dancer from the Dance, for me at least), but it’s definitely worth reading. A forgotten stepping stone. One of the primary reasons most contemporary reviews were negative is that the character’s journey doesn’t end in shame, suicide, or mental illness, as many readers and publishers expected (if not demanded, as with Vin Packer’s Spring Fire).
A solid and important novel is queer literary history.
April 8, 2025
Interesting read. Related to the passages about sexual repression, hating, wanting to tame, and ultimately overcome your body, its desires, and all that other weird shit. Maybe I'm too "woke," but while reading the last chapter of the book, "Rat"—where the main character falls in love with a POW during military service in Korea—I couldn't help but question the ethics of Stevie and the POW's relationship. The book does acknowledge the moral grey zone of their relationship and the very obvious power imbalance of their prisoner-and-guard dynamic. But, I don't know, while reading that whole chapter, I couldn't forget about the morality of the relationship and just fully immerse myself into the relationship itself, which I think took some enjoyment out of the book. Also, the way that Stevie describes the Koreans in the book gave me very "noble savage" vibes. I feel like, from Stevie's eyes, the Korean POWs were not intellectual but sexual and physical—somehow more "connected" to their bodies than Stevie could ever be; almost like children, who don't know "right from wrong." One aspect of this book that I appreciated is the fact that Stevie's sexuality is not clearly defined. It's clear from the beginning of the book that Stevie has homosexual desires or tendencies, but the book never clearly says he's gay or that he's not attracted to women. And, I feel like, because this book was released in the 1960s (I think?), and the modern vocabulary we have for sexuality—that draws clear lines between gay and straight—did not exist then, I think (just speculation) that now gay people are simultaneously more free to express their sexuality but at the same time are stifled by the concreteness of identity labels.
February 17, 2023
A revolutionary coming-of-age epic, Totempole contains visceral, appalling depictions of youth in dense but straightforward prose. Its final portions, however, are tonally and thematically different from the rest of the novel and thus resulted in a jarring, confused work that never truly grasped its potential genius.
February 6, 2021
This is an important book for anyone interested in US LGBT literature and history. Originally released in 1965 it was way ahead of its time. The parts set during the Koran War parallel my own experiences in Vietnam.
Read
June 1, 2023gave up at page 78
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