Gaywyck

Gaywyck Trilogy #1

by Vincent Virga

Sensitive, blond, emerald-eyed Robert Whyte is seventeen, living in a small town where his father is schoolmaster and his mother quite mad. When the local parish Father arranges an introduction to Donough Gaylord, the young, gorgeous, sophisticated (and fabulously wealthy) lord of the manor of Gaywyck, a Long Island estate, a deal is Robert will become the librarian and move into Gaywyck forthwith.

Donough's eye-popping New York digs at Gramercy Park, with displays of Van Goghs, Cézannes and Monets, pales in comparison to the riches found at Gaywyck. Donough's part-time mentoring leaves Robert much time to explore the estate, its secrets and physicalities (a waterfall, gardens, beaches, riding trails, a cave of paintings, hidden closets), and the dark past shared by the inhabitants. His coming of age is bombarded by sexual desires, lies, betrayal, journals full of secrets everyone reads, suicide and murders, erotic encounters, and the sea, always the sea, tranquil or agitated ....

Robert, smitten from first meeting, yearns for Donough as lover. The older man, haunted by guilt from childhood secrets, fights his intense, growing passion even as hidden evil rushes to destroy them both.

A cherished classic for almost 50 years. This new edition features a foreword by Damon Suede and an afterword by the author.

“Gaywyck is the very definition of classic. Using gothic romance to explore the love that once “dared not speak its name,” Gaywyck proves compelling fiction and love are truly timeless.” – Rick R. Reed

“A fascinating mixture of Wilde, the gothic, and, above all, the souls laid to rest in New York.” – Angus Wilson

“A groundbreaking romance classic by a trailblazing author, Gaywyck blew open the doors of romance, proving what Vincent Virga has said for Genre has no gender. Merging the lushness of the best gothics with the big emotions of modern historicals, this is a story that transforms the way you think of the romance novel.” – Sarah MacLean

“An extraordinary tour de force that merits special praise.” – The Advocate

“As of 2024, Mr. Virga is one of the only surviving members of a pantheon of gay novelists who changed the way queer stories got told, forever. Suckled on pulps, they wrote books that escaped the camp gulag by sheer force of will via humor and hubris, poesy and porn … entire subgenres of pop-culture redefined by brilliant queers writing against the grain.” – Damon Suede

Genres: Romance, Gothic, Queer, Historical, Historical Fiction, LGBT, Historical Romance

581 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Vincent Virga has been called "America's foremost picture editor." He has researched, edited, and designed picture sections for more than 150 books, including Eyes of the Nation: A Visual History of the United States and the full-length photo essay The Eighties: Images of America. He is also the author of A Comfortable Corner. He is working on a third novel, Theatricals.

Reviews

[Lois Bujold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aha, there is the cover I remember from the early 80s...

This was a very interesting reread on a number of levels, 30 years on. I was first handed this book (in its original paperback edition) by the same female friend who had introduced me to slashfic, back when it was all on (gasp) paper, in tiny editions, before the internet had been invented. Thus primed, I assumed the author's name was a pseudonym for a female author writing a (very well written and closely observed) historical novel and send-up of Gothic romance. Right on 4 out of 5 counts, the modern Kindle edition enlightens me.

(The biter bit; I still encounter a couple of fans a year confused about my own writerly gender, possibly due to cover and genre cues.)

I've had this experience of misapplied reading protocols before. Back about age 14, I read a very strange British book about the first trip to Mars. Primed by Heinlein juveniles, I naturally assumed the heroes were the dudes who'd built the spaceship, and this odd fellow Ransom was the antagonist, some kind of traitor. I attributed the weirdness to the book's being British. Hitting the same book again at age 28, with the assumed and necessary cultural/religious education now in place, I was well into Out of the Silent Planet before I realized I'd actually read it before -- upside down, at least with respect to its intended moral compass.

Anyway, Gaywyck is still well written, wonderfully weird, and a send-up of Gothic romance tropes, though obviously a loving one. That sincerity, I think, is what gives it its legs. It is also still a very funny book, but all the humor is meta -- our earnest young protagonist/narrator, Robert White, doesn't have a snarky fiber in his being.

I was reflecting sorrowfully the other day that I had been a faithful friend and (eventually) given the book back to its rightful owner, and it was now presumably gone forever, when I bethought myself of the flourishing Kindle e-reprints and checked. I was delighted to see Mr. Virga had also discovered the venue, and I hope he's getting proper e-royalties now.

http://www.amazon.com/Gaywyck-First-p...

Another thing I was missing, 3 decades ago, was much clue about modern gay culture; a whole lot of in-jokes in the novel that whooshed over my head back then at least dealt glancing blows this read. One useful book I read subsequently was Gay New York, a trade paperback social history, but that was so long ago I can't offer a review. I have a dim memory of its being enlightening at the time. Doesn't seem to be on Kindle, though.

Anyway, recommended if you like the kind of cognitive torsion about genres that I do.

[nemo ☠️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There are secrets in this house to bring down the stars, secrets to make Lucifer weep for having brought light to the likes of us."

words cannot DESCRIBE how much i A D O R E D this book so i don't think i can write a review tbh

why is one of the main threads of this book literally my twin brother fucked me so hard that i was overwhelmed by my orgasm and was impotent for 13 years until my long-lost cousin came along and seduced me itS SO FUCKED UP???? BUT I LOVE IT???

WHY AM I LIKE THIS???

(also that spoiler is literally a MEGA spoiler so don't click it unless you've read it.)

in summary: it's absolutely fucking insane, manages to be fucking deviant as hell without even having any explicit sex scenes, and has lots of surprisingly beautiful writing. and it may be one of my new favourites, because "gothic historical gay novel that's fucking insane and fucking deviant as hell with purple prose" is literally just ME summed up

me after reading this book:

[Victoria (Eve's Alexandria)]

Huh. For the first half of this I was hopeful of (finally!) enjoying a book in the Romance history project that Leigh, Hannah, Charlotte and I are working on together. We had atmosphere and backstory. We had two MCs who seemed to actually like each other and had somethings in common - they even had *conversations*! We had secondary characters who were intriguing, including a happy, committed gay couple, one of whom was Black. The gothic elements of the story weren’t exactly subtle but they were deliciously tropey - twins who can’t be told apart, mysterious deaths, objects appearing and disappearing, secret passages.

And then - pardon my language - it all went straight to shit. The second half of the story embraces chaos; gothic but on speed, and not in a delicious way. The book begins to revolve around the emotional, physical and sexual (including incestuous) abuse of children, both in the past and present. Virga treats the sexual abuse in particular in what I can only describe as an unresolved and ambivalent kind of way. While the characters appear to recognise, through subtle cues, the suffering of the child and the traumatic impacts on their adult selves, our narrator and other characters never repudiate sex with children. Instead the sexualisation and adultification of young boys blurs into a wider exploration of homoerotic and homosexual desire. Children are often treated as agents and provocateurs, while their abusers are seen as infatuated or in love, powerless in the face of their own weakness. The two serially abused children - one in the present of the novel’s timeline, one in the past - are consistently painted as cunning, vindictive, and cruel, almost monstrous.

Now, it is possible to see this as a function of gay culture of the late nineteenth century setting, when the romanticisation of classical pederasty was common - except that the story is being told, apparently, from the hindsight of 1969 as the narrator looks back on his youth. This was still relatively early days in terms of the public acknowledgement of child sexual abuse, particularly of boys, but understandings of children’s sexuality, their agency and the laws of consent certainly had shifted in those 70 years. The fact the narrator doesn’t reflect at all on the gap between his perceptions of events as a very young man in 1899/1900 - only in his late teens himself - and those of his older self is striking. By the time Virga was writing Gaywyck in the late 1970s, the conflation of homosexuality and pedophilia in the media was widespread - in part fuelled by the cooption of the gay rights movement by a small number of ‘pedophile activists’ claiming that the adoration of the young boy figure was an integral and essential part of homosexual desire. It’s impossible not to read this book through that lens, as the expression of uncertainties and undigested ideas about child sexuality, homosexuality and romantic relationships swirling around in the 1970s. The fact that Virga cites Lolita as an inspiration in the afterword, suggesting he wanted to write a book like that about a boy, tells us a great deal about Gaywyck’s underlying logics of abuse and power in relationships.

All of this make Gaywyck a fascinating historical artefact, set in its particular context. But for me it is no longer legible as a romance novel, to a contemporary 21st century readership. This is true of a lot of the books that we’ve read for this project - these stories idealise and romanticise abuses of power, often through sexual violence, in ways that are antithetical to a happily ever after.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually...I'm not sure how to rate this. It's absolutely koo-koo, but...there's something about it. And God knows it's proved influential to this genre (even if no one wants to admit it ;-) ) The idea is intriguing, the execution is uneven, the writing is largely overwrought -- but that sort of works, given the subject matter and attempt at gothic period piece.

It's the sort of book I used to find inspirational in that it made me want to take some of the ideas and rewrite them from start to finish.

[Mel Bossa · Rating 5 out of 5]

After deciding on not to pursue the career his father had planned for him, innocent Robert--too beautiful to be alive--is sent to work at Gaywyck, a large Long Island estate built in the fashion of an Antebellum southern mansion. The house is on a cliff looking down at the sea.

Robert is to catalogue all of the master's books in the vast library.

Now folks how's that for a setting?

The master is a young, gorgeous, sophisticated, cultivated, brooding and mysterious man named Donough Gaylord.

The moment the two young men meet, Robert is captivated by his boss, his sensitive seventeen year old heart barely able to handle the flood of emotions and physical sensations that Donough stirs in him.

Robert is such a wonderful and deeply caring man and his introverted nature, his attention to detail and curiosity was a delight for me. I loved that he described every nook of the mansion, rambled on about what they ate at almost every meal, lingered over paintings and dwelled on book passages. To me, all of those long descriptions were the heart of this story.

It's a gothic book so there is all of the elements needed such as repressed sexual desires, lies, betrayal, ghosts, journals full of secrets everyone reads, suicide and murders, erotic encounters, and the sea, always the sea, tranquil or agitated, a reflection of Robert's turmoil or peace.

This book is highly enjoyable, so addictive and I was seduced by the main characters from the start.

I was expecting a tragic and punitive ending because that was basically the only endings one could find in fiction or movies during that period, but to my surprise, our two beautiful lovers live and grow old together.

After much suffering of course!

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book and wonder how I'd overlooked it for so long. It's a gothic romance taking placing in NYC and Long Island during Edward VII's reign and reads somewhat like a Victorian novel. A good bit of its language comes from that period. Plan on googling words and phrases. It has technical problems— see Erastes Review for further information. I agree with her complaints.

Gaywyck is a serious gothic romance and not your typical m/m sex romp. Very little is explicit. It's also a mystery. It became obvious to me about 2/3rds into the book that the solution would take one of two paths. The denouement surprised my by being a combination of those two paths. I liked the characters, though the protagonist was a bit wimpy and over-emotional. Still his background was not completely inconsistent with his personality. This took some thinking. The other characters were strange and flawed—fascinating types.

Recommended - 8 of 10 stars

[Leigh Kramer · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. A naive main character, an isolated, possibly cursed mansion, mysterious things appearing and disappearing, famous artwork, twins, generational trauma, murder…this gothic has everything. Published in 1980, this is widely considered to be the first gay gothic romance, making it a great addition to our Romance History Project.

Virga was inspired to write this after reading some of the gothic romances his mother loved. In the 1960s and 70s, gothics had taken a turn where the secret of the wife stashed in the attic turned into the secret of the dastardly husband being gay. Virga wanted to write a gay gothic and prove that “gender has no genre”, something he frequently states in his interviews. However, Gaywyck proved to be gender essentialist and even transphobic in places. Gender swaps are not always as revolutionary or subversive as they may seem. It’s worth noting one of Virga’s inspirations was Lolita. Many of his inspirations appear in the pages with literary references and quotes from books and movies galore.

17 year old Robert comes to the remote Gaywyck as the new librarian, thanks to the generous offer of Donough Gaylord. Robert is instantly enamored with his new home and employer. When Donough returns to the mainland to tend to his business, Robert is left with Gaywyck’s inhabitants and its secrets. When inexplicable things begin to happen, things that would cause most people to flee the premises never to return, Robert doesn’t think too hard about it. In addition to being extremely naive, he idealizes Gaywyck and ignores what doesn’t fit into that idealized vision.

On the one hand, this makes sense: he’s only 17! On the other hand, this novel contains an epistolary structure. Robert begins the book writing to us, the readers, in 1969. But he doesn’t contextualize the events from his present day perspective, outside of a few vague “if I’d only known what was going to happen” or “instrument of my doom” kind of statements. If that was only in regards to the actual danger and mystery, that would be fine. It’s an effective tool to close out a chapter and get readers to immediately start the next. However, this is a gothic and as such it is concerned with generational trauma. And boy howdy does that Gaylord family and servants have that in spades.

This is important to address but it is both triggering and spoilery so I’m going to hide it. The Gaylord family has a history of child sexual abuse and incest. The father and his lover sexually abused Cormack to “keep him in line.” Cormack in turn had sex with Donough, who became impotent for 13 years until he had sex with Robert. Robert, whom everyone thinks looks like Donough. And that’s because Donough and Robert’s mothers were twin sisters! Robert’s mother was kidnapped as a child and never recovered. The Gaylords eventually found out about her but Donough’s mother was already institutionalized so they decided to just silently help the family. Donough didn’t know why there were instructions to help Robert’s family but he took it seriously, which is why Robert was ultimately invited to come to Gaywyck. So yes, Donough and Robert are cousins. That wasn’t uncommon at the turn of the century but Robert doesn’t ever comment on it from his present day vantage point either.

Something else he doesn’t comment on: Seth, a 13 year old boy who comes to live at the estate, is sexually abused by Keyes and Denvers, both of whom are much older men. The book, and Robert by extension, doesn’t treat this as abuse. Keyes and Denvers make much of how in love they are with Seth and Seth treats this as a way for him to get power in the house and ultimately money. The adultification and sexualization of Seth made me very uncomfortable. What happened to him was in no way okay. This plays into harmful conflations of queerness and pedophilia.

Contrast this with Robert’s rhapsodies about the “classic ideal of perfect friendship” in his initial ideas of homosexual relationship. He romanticizes his love (based on very little) of Donough but it doesn’t seem to have a sexual nature to it at first. His first sexual experiences come out of nowhere and are in fact sexual assault: he thinks he’s been having sex with Donough the whole time but it turns out it was Cormack. And once he realizes it was Cormack, he’s not angry. Instead he thinks that Donough + Cormack embody the perfect man for him. He’s in love with both men. Despite the fact that Cormack has physically abused him, in addition to the sexual assault. And again: Robert is writing about this from 1969 and never tells the reader what he makes of this now, compared to his teen self. (It’s unclear how old he was when he had sex with 30 year old Cormack/Donough but the age of consent didn’t yet exist.)

Seth is characterized as vulgar and manipulative. He’s from a lower class. He’s abused and mistreated by the men in charge at Gaywyck. And Robert hates him and cannot see how wrong things are at the house because he’s so focused on how he no longer gets to have the food he likes at dinner. It’s not until Seth is killed that he starts to realize Seth’s vulnerability. But even then, adult Robert never condemns Keyes and Denvers. I’m left not knowing what Virga thought about this behavior.

By making almost every male character gay, Virga has room to explore the Queer Villain without falling into a harmful trope. And yet more commentary on certain traumas would not have been amiss. Robert barely pays attention to anything that isn’t a painting or special edition. Not even when he finds decapitated bees or family portraits mysteriously appearing in his room. His unwillingness to open his eyes to the danger he was in boggled the mind. And again, I can’t understate how puzzled I was that he never contextualized what he learned about Donough and the Gaylords from his current understanding. It really made me question his intelligence.

While we read this for a romance project, it’s worth discussing what genre this actually is. Is it a gothic romance in the genre romance sense or is it a romantic gothic? The story is more centered on Robert’s coming of age than any love story. Robert and Donough might have an HEA of sorts but this was more of a romantic gothic to me. Robert and Donough spend large swathes of the book apart and some of the times Robert thinks he’s with Donough, he’s actually with Cormack. Bless his heart for not being able to tell them apart and then for deciding he’s in love with them both shortly before Cormack dies. No twin throuple for Robert alas.. For the romance purists: we get a very short epilogue in 1969 which reveals Donough died. He and Robert had several good decades together, which was nice to know after that abrupt ending. Many romance die-hards do not want to ever know a MC died, no matter how far into the future it might be and for that reason alone would not view this as an HEA. Because of the abruptness of the ending and lack of page time with Robert and Donough, I saw it as a very tenuous HFN.

By far the best part of this was Cael the cat. I lived for every scene he was in. Truly the smartest being who did his level best to clue everyone in to what was going on in that house, no matter how much they resisted it.



Further reading:
New York Public Library: A Brief History of Gothic Romance (October 2018)

Elisa Rolle Live Journal: Real Life Romance: Vincent Virga (November 2011)

Review in PALS (Positive Alternative Lifestyles) Newsletter, vol. 3, no. 4 (April 1981)

Reformed Rakes Episode 14: Gaywyck (September 11, 2023)

The Last Bohemians: An interview with the novelist and legendary photo editor Vincent Virga, October 1, 2019 (April 2020)



Characters: Robert is a 17 year old white librarian. Donough is a 30 year old white businessman. Cael the cat technically belongs to Donough but adopts Robert as his owner and is the star of this book. This is set in 1969 and 1899 Long Island, NY.

Content notes: epilogue reveals Donough died in 1969 and he and Robert had 69 good years together, sexual assault Robert thinks he’s been having sex with Donough the whole time but it turns out it was Cormack, incest (MCs find out they are cousins [mothers are twin sisters], past twincest, Cormack and his father and father’s lover to “keep him in line”), child sexual, physical, and emotional abuse; past abuse by nanny (includes religious abuse and requiring 4 year olds to wear chastity belts), intimate partner violence Cormack (posing as Donough) is physically abusive, victim-blaming, impotency (Donough for past 13 years), death of father (heart attack), past suicide attempt (MMC and MMC's mother), institutionalization of mothers (depression and likely postpartum depression), paternal infidelity (Donough’s father and male employees), homophobia, internalized homophobia, ableism, nightmares, drug assault, attempted drowning, murder, immolation (secondary character), physical assault, arson, past death of Donough’s father and twin brother (in a fire; later we’re told the father and his lover died by suicide but it turns out they were poisoned by Keyes. Cormack did not die in the fire but was maliciously told he needed to flee so his father’s death wouldn’t be pinned on him.), past death of Donough’s mother (lung illness; later it’s revealed she was actually institutionalized), past child abduction (Robert’s mother as a young child), employer-employee sexual relationships (past and present), missing cat (returned), wasp attack, animal death, animal abuse, Romani and racial slurs, anti-Indigenous stereotypes (“Indian curse”), racism, fatphobia, sexism, past castration (secondary character), disabled secondary characters due to past physical abuse (mute, limp, missing fingers), mentally ill secondary character, childhood illness (asthma, etc), pregnancy and childbirth (Donough’s mother), Gaywyck’s acreage was stolen from Natives, Donough’s ancestors were enslavers, past death of grandfather (thrown by horse), sedatives, pornographic images, voyeurism (nonconsensual), off page/fade to black sex, mention of painful sex, alcohol, inebriation, hangover, casual transphobia, gender essentialism, ableist language, use of “Indian summer” (somewhat acknowledged that this term is off), love equated to addiction


*Buddy read with Charlotte, Hannah, and Vicky.



RHP ranking, so far:
Maurice (4 stars)
Loyal in All (3.5 stars)
The Moon-Spinners (3 stars)
Gaywyck (2.5 stars)
Loving Her (2 stars)
No Quarter Asked (1 star)
Regency Buck (1 star)
The Sheik (1 star)
The Flame and the Flower (1 star)
The Lord Won’t Mind (1 star)

[Chels · Rating 4 out of 5]

This from The Villians, an essay I wrote for The Loose Cravat:

In the late 1970s, Vincent Virga was inspired to write Gaywyck after reading a gothic romance that he purchased for his mom. He was surprised to find that the conflict hinged not on a woman in the attic, à la Jane Eyre, but on a neglectful gay husband who would conveniently expire to make way for the true hero, some paragon of masculinity. As a gay man himself, he wondered, “What if genre has no gender?” and after completing the manuscript of Gaywyck he pitched it to Gwen Edelman at Avon. After some convincing, (“Gay men don’t want romance.” Virga recalls her initial reticence in his author’s note. “If they did, there would be books to satisfy the need.”) she showed Gaywyck to Avon’s then Editor-in-Chief Robert Wyatt, who loved it.

It’s difficult to describe Gaywyck in a piece that isn’t solely dedicated to describing Gaywyck— As Virga notes on his website, the film references alone couldn’t be contained to one scholar’s Master’s thesis— but as a gothic romance there’s a clear pitch: the happily ever after for two gay men in a time where it wasn't commonplace.

Gaywyck begins with Robert Whyte, a seventeen-year-old in the final years of the 19th century. Robbie describes himself by saying “I was menaced by every other human being. I saw everyone’s capacity to inflict pain and expected every intimacy to bring disaster, shattering my inner balance irrevocably. I knew myself capable of such horrors. Terrified of myself, I become terrified of others.”

Robbie is hired as the librarian at the Gaywyck estate in Long Island, helmed by a mysterious proprietor named Donough Gaylord. Donough is older than Robbie — shy, accommodating, and devastatingly handsome. Robbie quickly fancies himself in love with his employer, but that love, that juvenile yearning, is complicated by decades of family secrets. The Gaylord family’s dynastic wealth is on par with the Astors or Vanderbilts, but in the devastating early chapters Virga dashes any potential aspirational yearning — the Gaylord family prospered from profiteering off of the Civil War — and they’ve been suffering, perhaps karmically, ever since.

Thirteen years prior to the events of the novel, Donough’s violent twin Cormack met his untimely end, and Robbie is fascinated by what he uncovers about the man. Robbie meets with victims of Cormack’s appetite for destruction, finds his cruel and barbaric trophies, and loses himself in fantasies. “I read books on the subject of twins” Robbie writes in his memoir, “I was possessed by Cormack and Donough Gaylord on my treks up the beach. I imagined perfection as they merged into one flesh. Where my Donough feared to tread, Cormack would rashly charge and carry me away.”

The happily ever after is, of course, for Donough and Robbie. But when genre has no gender, Robbie treads where countless gothic heroines have before: into the hateful forbidden. Cormack — the sadist, the manipulator, the spectre— is the true seducer.

[Angela Bee Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Building to a complicated messy ending, this story is beautiful. The MC is so lost in romance, it's hard to tell what is real or imagined.
If your a literary type, you'll love the constant references to classics, almost telling the story through other stories. Wuthering Heights was my first favorite book as a teen, and along with the opera and botanical references, I felt as if I was reading a poem of all my favorites combined.

Being a mom of twins also struck my heart;
"They trespass on each other's souls in the womb. "

I was as enamoured with Donough as I am with my modern heros with wisps of hair in their eyes, and my Robert was a very hot sweet Zac Effron. The sex is only alluded to in romantic dreamy prose, but my imagination filled the void with the endless sex scenes I've read recently.

And the greatest magic here is that I share this with my dad. He trusted me with his tattered, treasured paperback, with handwritten definitions as a bookmark. (Then I proceeeded to read the Kindle version because paperbacks just don't work for me anymore.) The Kindle version also has an afterward worthy of a literature class composition.

There is something here I've been longing for in more current m/m books. An intelligence, a respectable honor, complicated thoughts and plots, and a romanticism I just dont see. Perhaps it's considered too 'cheesy' or not what people are looking for, or maybe I need to seek out books of this type?

I don't know, but I loved it.

[ʚ Aileen ɞ · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a mess.
I don't know how else I should describe it.

Actual rating: ➽ 2.5 stars

[Erastes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considered the “grandaddy of gay historical fiction” “Gaywyck” is certainly one of the first of its kind, and although not the most literary or beautifully written of the genre, it is essential reading and deserves more than a little respect that, despite being out of print, it is still being read and sought out after more than 20 years.

On the surface, it’s a familiar story: Robert Whyte does not want to conform to his father’s plans for him and through the good graces of a friend he obtains a post at Gaywyck, a mansion on Long Island in early 20th Century America owned by the mysterious Donough Gaylord. There’s everything you expect in a Gothic Romance: faithful retainers, an animal who is almost human, mysteries of long-dead fathers and twin brothers, locked rooms, instant attraction between the protagonists and plenty of misunderstandings and conflict to keep them apart.

But it does have flaws; the language is over-blown at times and there’s a tendency to info-dump with information on architecture, flowers, paintings, decorations, furniture that I often found myself skipping forward to get to the next section that moved the story along. Robert Whyte did not endear himself to me until the end, and even then I wouldn’t have been too unhappy if Gaylord (oh Lord…) had stuck the boy’s head in a bucket and put his foot on it. I know I’ve written a physically frail protagonist but sheesh – he does improve. Robert – when he’s not weeping, fainting, angsting or trembling in fear is getting himself into dangerous situations that Catherine Moreland would have paid good guineas to be in and then has to be rescued by all and sundry.

It has to be said that he doesn’t exactly do much work, either, for all that he’s being paid quite a decent sum to do so.

There are some excellent secondary characters, although everyone appears to be gay (friends and servants) which is always an irritant, but I particularly enjoyed Gaylord’s New York friends who were some light relief from all the brooding and fainting. Despite all that, I did like the way the love affair progressed and the internal conflicts the characters had to overcome to get close to each other.

The solving of the mystery was actually a surprise to me, and a really good one, so stick with it because there’s a good twist at the end. Oh – and the epilogue broke me into tiny tiny pieces and I cried my eyes out, but then I’m a big soppy.

There’s a sequel of sorts in Vadrial Vail, where Whyte and Gaylord make a cameo appearance but I haven’t read that yet – review when I have.

All in all, a decent Gothic romance. It is showing its age a little, in my opinion. “Master of Seacliff” is similar to this but superior in many ways, but as one of the forerunners of the genre, it is worth a spin.

I would have given it 3 stars as it didn’t light any fires under me or do anything I hadn’t seen before, but due to its age and durability, and the fact that it made me cry, I’m adding an extra star.

It is out of print at the moment, but you can get hold of copies here and there for a reasonable price with a little searching.

[Charlotte (Romansdegare)]

This book was an addition to our romance history reading list, due to its consensus status as the first modern gay gothic romance. Published in 1980, Gaywyck, is positioned by various critics in an interesting genre filiation: from "the man of the creepy manor is hiding a wife in the attic" (Jane Eyre) to "the man of the creepy manor is hiding a gay lover in the attic" (pulp gothics of the 1970s) to "the man of the creepy manor is gay and he's the narrator's love interest" (Gaywyck). I think this book had interesting things to say about the role of past trauma in the lives of its characters, as well as the role of the genre's past in constructing its queer futures. That being said, what exactly was going on in the present- both in terms of who the characters were and what the novel wanted to be - felt more muddled to me. 

Briefly (though it is hard to be brief with a novel this expansive), Gaywyck, tells the tale of young Robert Whyte, a sensitive, sickly, and overstimulated youth whose mother has just been institutionalized, and whose father is trying to ship him off to Harvard Law. Instead, he takes a job as the librarian at the mysterious Gaywyck mansion, on Long Island, owned by the mysterious and brooding Donough Gaylord. In the tradition of many great gothic heroines before him, Robert shows up to Gaywyck and is immediately taken by its captivating owner, and also mildly perturbed (though not nearly as alarmed I personally would have been) by a Series of Sinister Events involving decapitated bees, things appearing in and disappearing from his room, and increasing menaces to his physical safety. Over the course of the novel, we learn more about the dark past of the house and its inhabitants: all of them either gay men or "mad" women, nearly all of them victims and/or perpetrators of some degree of assault, rape, incest, mutilation, or other types of violence. CWs abound, mainly for depictions of childhood sexual assault and incest.
 
In terms of structure and style, I found that the novel somewhat lost its own genre-grounding in a sea of referentiality. There were so many times that the author seemed to be poking fun at, or doing a gleeful parody of, gothic novels that I found it very hard to switch my brain over from the "fun, campy romp" mode (which, to be clear, I deeply enjoyed while it was happening) to the "actual sense of gothic menace" mode, much less to the "oh gosh there's a lot of horrific abuse going on here" mode. Gothic romance is a genre extremely open to parody, but at the same time, it seems like one of those genres that is hard to parody while still doing the thing itself that the genre sets out to do? For a novel that really sells itself on its innovative relationship to the genre's past, it sometimes felt bogged down, tonally, by that very same genre.

And to be honest, I think something similar can be said about the characters themselves. Many of these characters come from horrific pasts, and I do think the novel is intentional in portraying all kinds of cycles of violence - from war profiteering and land-stealing, to sexual assault, to abuse of children -  as part of the gothic "evil" that surrounds the house of Gaywyck. What I had a harder time coming to grips with was the way a lot of these types of abuse and violence blurred their way into the main characters' understandings of their own sexualities, and indeed into the novel's exploration of sexual desire on the whole and in the abstract. 

As I've done some extracurricular reading around the reception of this book, something that struck me was a shift in the cultural understanding of the novel as - to use a very loaded word - representation? In various interviews, the author speaks of this novel as a victory for positive representation of his own queer community: he talks of getting calls and letters from other gay men overjoyed to finally read a book that ended in a committed, loving, and monogamous relationship, as Donough and Robert's story does. He also talks about the book as a target of publisher rejection, bookseller hesitancy, and homophobic attacks. I found this all the more fascinating to think about in light of a couple of recent takes asking what it might mean to also read Gaywyck, today, as a victory for "negative" representation: of letting queer villains be villains without needing to perform respectability politics and moral perfection to placate an assumed straight audience. I don't think I'm the person - nor is GR necessarily the venue - for thinking through what might have changed in our expectations for representation, what representation means and what it does, or indeed what other avenues of critique get shut down when "representation" is what we demand of fiction. And in the case of Gaywyck, the darkness of the subject matter makes this discussion all the more complicated, as do the craft issues (where I feel on more solid discussion ground) that made me feel the book didn't really know what it was or what it was doing besides "being in dialogue with a dark past." Nonetheless, this book sure did provide a LOT to think about, well beyond the "campy romp through a gothic past" that it initially set itself up as. 

[Iryna K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Історія така: 1899 рік, головний герой, 18річний юнак, відмовляється втілювати мрію батька і вступати у Гарвард, і друг родини поспіхом знаходить йому інше кар'єрне рішення - впорядкувати бібліотеку у маєтку ексцентричного багатія. Герой знайомиться із новим роботодавцем і миттєво захоплюється ним, їде у той маєток, де співмешкає з фігурами із дитинства цього багатія (двома його вчителями, старим слугою, юним покаліченим кухарем тощо), проходить стадії від романтичної байронівської дружби до прийняття своїх справжніх почуттів, і десь в процесі у маєтку починає твориться стрьомна дичина. Загадкові люди у вікнах, яких видно тільки на фото, картини, які щоранку з'являються у кімнаті героя, марення (в яких його романтичний інтерес приходить до нього в ліжко, а у реально життя поводиться так, ніби цього не сталося). Герой розуміє, що родинна історія його роботодавця ховає якісь ужасні тайни (у тому числі злого мертвого брата-близнюка), про які всі знають, але говорять тільки натяками і недомовками. І разом із розгортанням стосунків між героями ці таємниці і стрьомна дичина набирають обертів, і закінчується все епічних масштабів драмою з купою трупів, але - шо саме главне - happily ever after!!!
Жанрово це імєнно роменс, але від дуже-дуже мрачний (що, власне, готичним роменсам властиво). Досвід, який пережив коханий головного героя та інші персонажі не те що травматичний - це просто список тригер ворнінгів довжиною з мою руку, на чолі з інцестом і педофілією, і вони не романтизуються, але й не описуються так, як це зараз прийняти, як патологічний горор, тобто це жахливий травматичний досвід, але якось на рівні з іншими жахливими травматичними досвідами дитинства типу безумної матері чи няньки-садистки, і герої є суб'єктами, а, не жертвами, а деякі лиходії майже всю книжку нам зображуються як інтересні прикольні люди у хороших стосунках з героями. Це для мене був один з найбільш проблематичних моментів - що ці ужасні речі в центрі книжки, але книжка не про них, не про травму як таку, а про кохання і стосунки).
Його описують як перший гей роменс, і є купа суперечок навколо того, наскільки це коректно (врешті, книжки, що описували MM стосунки і навівть із хепі ендом, з початку ХХ ст існують, але вони, мабуть, у жанрові рамки роменсу не вкладаються). Але як мінімум це спроба вписати гомосексуальні почуття і стосунки у світ сестер Бронте. Це така готика в дусі Джейн Ейр і Wuthering heights, зі страшними таємницями в центрі оповідями, безумними членами родини, захованими у секретних кімнатах, опять же, інцестуальними мотивами, і прозрінням головного героя, чию мертву душу будить невинний, але самодостатній і wholesome інший герой). Крім того, автор у післямові пояснює, що його дістали популярні у другій половині ХХ ст сюжети роменсів, де жахливою таємницею, навколо якої обертається роменс, є гомосексуальність чоловіка головної героїні, а готичний злодій - це підступний мєрзкий спокусник - гей. Тому він вирішив створити альтернативу, де гомосексуальність не є прблемою, де вона приймається як щось непроблематичне, натомість страшна таємниця - це самообман ака closetedness, експлуатація і жорстокість.
Інший плюс - один з головних героїв описаний як інтровертна книжкова дитина, і взагалі тут дуже багато про книжки, мільйон цитат із Шекспіра, відсилок до античної літератури і великих романів ХІХ. Я максимально довольна таким і дуже емпатувала цьому хлопчині завдяки його bookishness.
Також герої досить добре розвиваються (особливо головний, йому 18, логічно, що він розвивається), там норм інтроспекція і цікаві персонажі поза головно парою.
З мінусів найперше - це дуже проблематична книжка для сучасного читача, і не тільки через інцест і педофілію (які так якось некритично сприймаються персонажами, ну типу "було і було", і здається, що автору важливіше підсвітити персонажів чи створити їм мотивацію, ніж сказати "егегей, їбати дітей не можна, це пиздець і зло), а й через нерівноправні стосунки (героям 18 і 31, різниця в статусі і фінансах величезна).
Крім того, майже усі персонажі в книжці геї) це місцями виправдано сюжетом, але загалом виглядає як перебір (як і вибір імені одного з героїв, серйозно, Gaylord??!!!)))))
Загалом я отримала від цієї книжки те, що хотіла і очікувала - прочитала текст-майлстоун у цьому специфічному жанрі, і приклад інтерпретації готичної літературної традиції. Але крім цього і поза тим, що вона досить довга і вимагає певного зусилля (і через словник, і через досить детальні описи), читати було захопливо - там хороші плоті твісти, і мені було прям дуже цікаво, як же ж там далі повернеться.

[Hannah B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bro why am I sobbing

[Hot Mess Sommelière ~ Caro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED IT!!

When I saw "first gay gothic" in the descriptions, I knew this books was for me.

And I was right, I absolutely loved it!

What I loved the most:

* there was a cat, his name was Cael, and he was my favorite character. his personality and antics were described in great detail. I was reminded of my own cats.
*the atmosphere, scenery, and the *living, breathing* manor, Gaywyck: so mysterious!
*the cast of characters. Pretty much all the men were gay (good for them), and fabulous
*the twisty mystery: I really wish this was a movie or miniseries. That would be great.
*the drama: it was so melodramatic I cried! Also thank god for the HEA, because who wants a dreary, despressing ending in a gay gothic novel? yeah not me that's who

In short, the book was absolutely FABULOUS and I cannot wait for book 2 of the Gaywyck trilogy, which is apparently Vadriel Veil. Fingers crossed for it to come soon!


PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

I wrote to Vincent Virga, and he very graciously replied. The pandemic apparently put a damper on his sequel publication plans, but he will move forward with them again.

If you love Gaywyck, go send him some encouragement via mail!!


____________________________________________


This is the first gay gothic novel. *1980



The agent loved the manuscript at first sight but 30 pu lishers rejected it ("gay men don't want romance. If they did, there would be gay romance books").

The fact that this book is so little known today is a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.

Gay Rebecca?? Give it to me!!

Even better, Gaywyck goes against all gothic and gay tropes by delivering a HEA to readers. This strikes me as important because to this day, tragic stories dominate when it comes to LGBT bestsellers in the literary scene.


No one wants the queer couple to die in the end!!! The world is a crappy place for LGBT+ people. The last thing we need is Nicolas Sparks storylines putting queer people through the wringer.

Also it's on Kindle Unlimited. What are you waiting for?!

[Mizuki]

Pre-review: the first gay gothic romance!????? I'm in!

[Celia T · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh, dear.

Gothic? Yes. Gay? Most certainly. The first gay gothic? Arguably, I suppose. But "groundbreaking" doesn't always mean “worth one’s time,” especially when the writer made such an absolute mess of the ground as he broke it.

Beyond its supposed cult classic status, Gaywyck comes with a reasonably respectable pedigree: Mr. Virga was apparently friends with Susan Sontag and James Schuyler, and this book was favourably reviewed by Armistead Maupin and Angus Wilson. So, is it literature masquerading as pulp? Or pulp with ideas above its station? Reader, it is neither. It is not good enough to be literature, and it is not fun enough to be pulp. And notwithstanding the cover of the 2000 reissue (visible bulge!), it is also not sexy enough to be smut. Which leaves the unfortunate Gaywyck with very little to recommend it as a way to spend a pleasant afternoon.

Mr. Virga wants you take away a few things from this novel. One is the obvious message about the beauty of queer love and the importance of queer acceptance, which is, yes, a little ham-fisted in its delivery, but I’m a lesbian living in a cushy world of privilege that generations before me fought for so I’m not going to fault him for that. The other thing he wants you take away is that he, Vincent Virga, has read a lot of books. Boy howdy, has he read a lot of books! Gaywyck’s narrator doesn’t so much name-drop as name-bludgeon his favourite authors, and the quotations and cutesy little references come thick and fast on every page. I read a blog post Mr. Virga wrote about the book recently, in which he remarked upon the fact that the text and dialogue is replete with quotations from his favourite novels and movies, adding smugly, “A British scholar wrote his Master’s thesis in the early 90s on this aspect of the book; he caught a lot of them but not all.” Listen: I also hesitate to fault him for this. Lord knows I enjoy a little self-conscious intertextuality, in moderation. And I can’t, without being a hypocrite, dunk on this man for being just a weeny bit show-offy and pretentious about the breadth of his literary knowledge. But it would have been nice if, in addition to parroting back the words they already wrote so well, Mr. Virga had taken a few lessons from his friends Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte and Joris-Karl Huysmans about how to write good words of his own.

Ladies and theydies, this book was bad. I’m really sorry. It was bad. Awkward, turgid prose. Under-drawn characters. A plot that was both predictable and nonsensical. Anachronisms that set my teeth on edge. (Why specify that your characters were eating chocolate chip cookies when we know the exact year that chocolate chip cookies were invented?) I don’t really want to wade into what I might call the Yuck Factors: that is, the things that are making some of the other Goodreads reviewers clutch their pearls about this book being “bad representation.” (I won’t include spoilers in this review, although the Bad Representation plot twists are obvious from a mile off. Hint: in the afterword of my edition, Mr. Virga talks about he was inspired to write the book after reading both Lolita and Death in Venice.) But the Yuck Factors were certainly Yucky; incongruously so for a book that tied things into such a tidy, fluffy, cheerful bow.

Some obscure out-of-print books deserve to be painstakingly hunted down, ordered from small bookstores in other countries, eagerly anticipated and joyfully devoured. This one didn’t. It’s just barely worth a read as an artefact of its own time. But if you’re looking for a book that will amuse, or elevate, or accurately depict what baked goods were commonly consumed in turn of the century New York, I’m afraid I can’t recommend it.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for science, and in this case science was...weird. We added this to our romance history reading project because it is pointed to as the first queer gothic romance. And it is a romance if your criteria is people fall in love and get an HEA. But after a promising, even fun! start, Gaywyck's impending identity crisis took hold at the halfway point and created absolute chaos.

This book was a let down on a lot of levels, but part of what ultimately is making it sit so poorly with me is that I'm not sure what it's supposed to be doing. At the outset, it seems to be engaging with classic gothics in a playful, affectionate way that's also very aware of the problems inherent in the genre. ("'Wuthering Heights. I love that book. Poor Catherine and Heathcliff!' [in response] He shook his head vehemently, anger in his eyes...Grimacing, he pointed to Healthcliff. Placing the book on the bed facedown, he raised his hands to form horns on his forehead.") I love the idea of taking these classic tropes and even quotes in the cultural zeitgeist and queering them. But to be honest, I don't know how successful Virga is on this point. He apparently wrote the first half of the book a couple of years before the second half, and it very much reads as though he came back to a book he forgot what he was doing with it. The second half is a smorgasbord of drama and tropes without the deftness that the first half promised.

I also found many of Virga's choices quite...unnerving...given that he has said Gaywyck was his attempt to show that gothics have no gender. The book is quite gender essentialist and even outright transphobic at times. There's quite a bit of child sexual abuse that is at times framed as love between men, adultifies and sexualizes pubescent boys, and still seems to be trying to acknowledge the trauma that the victims of the abuse experience. Considering homophobes love to accuse gay men of being pedophiles, I find Virga's treatment of CSA to be potentially quite dangerous. And it's not that he's not aware of how to depict a healthy relationship: my favorite human* characters are an adult interracial couple that are openly affectionate, compassionate, and genuinely lovely to have on page. So why is everyone else in the story wanting to have sex with underage boys?

There are many other concerns that I don't currently feel I have the capacity to confront, but I'd point people to Vicky's and Charlotte's reviews for some additional perspective.

*the objectively best character in the book is Cael, the angelic cat who deserves all the love and praise and treats

Overall rating: 2.5
Hannah Angst Scale rating: pass
Content notes: physical, sexual, and emotional abuse of children, physical assault, murder and attempted murder, gender essentialism and transphobia, death of family members, racism and racist slurs (particularly towards Romani, East Asian, and Indigenous people), character is drugged and sexually assaulted, institutionalization due to mental illness, alcohol use and intoxication

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, the whole world of "gay" fiction, wherein the lead characters were two men in love, began with Gaywyck. To give you an idea of its importance in my life, I have gone through at least three paperback copies of the novel, and still don't have a viable extant version outside of my new e-book edition. So, for those guys of a certain age (like myself) who remember it, and wonder whether it's worth rereading, and for an entire couple of generations who may have never heard of it, here's Gaywyck.

This is a book so unlike any I've read recently, that I was actually going to semi-pan it as being WAY too overwrought and gothic. If it was useful for anything, it was only as something causing a smile when remembering it. Then I finished the damn thing. I still love it!

The story, which takes place at the turn-of-the-twentieth-century, revolves around Robert Whyte, a Jane Eyre-ish young man (much given to tears and swooning) who is transported from his up-state New York home (his mother has gone mad, and he needs to make his way in the world!) to the Long Island South Shore estate of Gaywyck, the summer home of the super-rich Gaylord family. The head of the family now is the impossibly good-looking, but oh-so-sad Donough Gaylord.

That's all the plot you need to know to take up this story and let the absolute insanity of Mr. Virga work his magic. You are going to either love or loathe this book; I really can't imagine anyone finding himself with a meh feeling.

Imagine Jane Eyre combined with Rebecca overlaid by shades of Hamlet. I can't warn you enough about the wild(e) ride that occurs when the impossibly romantic Robert (Robbie) Whyte meets the *almost* immovable force that is Donough Gaylord.

Mix up the love of Don Jose and Carmen; season with the overwrought and overwritten prose style of a Charlotte Brontë poseur jacked on caffeine and amphetamine; then toss with a soupcon of Titus Andronicus. Voila! Gaywyck.

Just a taste: In just one of the penultimate climaxes, picture an antebellum southern mansion afire, a yacht steaming toward a jetty upon which at least four of the main and secondary characters are attempting kidnapping, self-defense and murder; then add the fact that, in broad daylight, two of these characters are stark naked! It's so Gaywyck.

There are most likely passages (and pages and pages) that you might want to skim, or basically skip, but not to worry, the novel is so long that you will definitely get your money's worth in any case.

This is purportedly only Part One of a Gaywyck trilogy, but I've never read anything past the first novel. Trust me, it's enough. Should anyone want to read more, I would love to hear exactly where Mr. Virga took the story of the estate. It's gotta be a lulu.

ETA: In delivering what I now realize are a series of left-handed *and back-handed and rabbit punched and kidney punched and right-jabbed* compliments, I neglected the single paragraph that I had promised myself I was going to include. That is that, despite all my snickers, etc., this book endures because it has not just great, and I mean truly great, bones of a story, but also the basic sinews necessary to make the reader really care. One of the reasons I can be so ham-handed in the way I handle this remembrance is because I not only truly love this book, I very much love its characters and the story arc *and such an arc* itself. This is, genuinely, a piece of historically important gay fiction - as proven by the very great number of memories put forth in the quite lengthy author's afterword to the 2009 e-book edition of the novel. It, Gaywyck, really was a milestone......and it is so damn much fun.

It's *ta-da* Gaywyck.

[Vika · Rating 3 out of 5]

for a gay jane eyre retelling that doesn't shy away from the most fucked up tropes gothic literature has to offer this was disappointingly boring. the author succeeded in imitating the writing style of a 19th century novel too well for my liking - this excessive, overwritten manner of narration made me feel detached from the characters and their problems. and while i can't say the main couple had no chemistry, the expectations i get when i hear "jane eyre but gay" were unmet. in fact, this was not the vision vincent virga pursued while writing this novel in the late 70s, between the stonewall riots and the onset of aids: as he explains in the afterword, it was a time of hope and the book reflects that. so ig the joke's on me for expecting a dangerous tension-filled romance with intricate rituals or some such

[Siavahda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highlights

~a most excellent cat
~All The Artwork
~absolutely zero sex-shaming
~unreliable narrator
~Gothic so Gothic it’s camp

Gaywyck is not the kind of book I usually read – an honest-to-gods Gothic novel, with no magic at all. I no longer remember how I came across it, only that I was 18, newly moved-out, and diving into all the queer books I could get my hands on – and it instantly became a new favourite, a book I’ve read half a dozen times over since that first time.

I’m not much of a Gothic reader – I am that weird kind of nerd who has read plenty about the Gothic genre, without having read much of it – so I’m sure I’m missing a lot of the cleverness Virga worked into this story and its setting – especially because what I did catch is, to be blunt, extremely fucking brilliant. Gaywyck is famous for containing 100s of references to other Gothic novels, and many not-Gothic books and films that were important to the queer culture Virga came of age in – and I will freely admit that I’ve spotted very few of those Easter eggs, because I don’t know those other stories. There’s a whole other layer to this book that I can’t appreciate or access, only let you know that it exists!

But I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to have the Gothic genre memorised to have an IMMENSELY wonderful time with Gaywyck! You can be as ignorant as I am, as oblivious as I to every other work Gaywyck is in conversation with – and you will still put this book straight onto your Favourites shelf after you turn the final page.

Robert feels perfectly placed as a Gothic heroine; extremely well-read, maudlin, dreamy, full of enormous emotions he can scarcely deal with. (Honestly, his very existence as protagonist in a Gothic novel feels like Virga’s first stroke of genius, because drawing parallels between the template of Gothic heroine and gay twink is not something I would ever have thought of without this book, but once it’s pointed out, I can neither unsee it nor fail to be endlessly delighted by it.) After a childhood of being cossetted and home-schooled, he declines the life his father planned out for him to instead cross the country and become the librarian of the Long Island millionaire Donough Gaylord instead. Shenanigans ensue.

I am sceptical that the name ‘Donough Gaylord’ sounded any less bizarre in 1980, when Gaywyck was first published, than it does today in 2026. Growing up in the 90s (yes this book is older than me, hush) I remember ‘Gaylord’ as a playground slur. To then encounter the term in Gaywyck as a Word Of Power – a name that opens all doors, that unmakes all obstacles, that makes women swoon and men sigh with admiration – was an incredible head-spinner. It’s one of the more overt expressions of the queer subversion that threads through every sentence of this book, and while it might be tongue-in-cheek sometimes – there certainly seems to be an element of playfulness to Gaywyck that I think is a big part of why reading it brings me so much joy – it’s also the work of a master, someone who knows the conventions perfectly and is deliberately and powerfully remaking them. And not randomly, but into something that, in the opinion of this queer reader, massively outshines what was there before.

The remaining days passed too quickly. I scan my journal in an attempt to grasp them, but they fragment into bright moments like a handful of luminous stones flung wide.

It’s possible to read Gaywyck superficially, as a novel purely for the reader’s entertainment – and it’s possible to dig very deep indeed into every detail. The Gothic staples are all present and accounted for, and not merely as set-dressing; Gaywyck is immensely concerned with sins of the fathers, family blood-money, and condemning profiteering off the misery of others. Virga balances an immense amount of delightful wish-fulfilment, especially in the first half of the book, with deceptively casual horror, ranging from the source of the Gaylord fortunes (selling supplies et al to the Confederacy in the US Civil War) to the secrets buried in Donough’s childhood. This is very much an unreliable narrator book, the clearest example being how Robbie casts a particular character as the villain for much of the second half of the novel – a character who’s only fourteen, who is being disgustingly abused by characters Virga has set us up to like until that point. It took me a couple of reads to understand how this is all of a part with Virga’s themes of illusion and misdirection, the need for and failure of seeing-clearly. Gaywyck is never going to be a TikTok darling, and a big part of that is Virga’s refusal to preach at the reader – this is a book that requires readers to look past Robert’s narration, to not take the word of the narrator as the word of God; the sort of reader who takes the opinions of the narrator for the opinions of the author will be foaming at the mouth by the end of Gaywyck…and they’ll have completely missed the point.

Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!

[Cece · Rating 1 out of 5]

In which I have lots of conflicted thoughts & I find myself totally out of my depth

After listening to an episode of the romance podcast Whoa-mance that discusses this book, I thought I’d read it for entertainment or pleasure...

A few chapters in, I shifted my perspective and realized I’d be reading this as a groundbreaking text in the history of the romance genre, which is how I was able to finish it.

To be perfectly clear: my one star rating isn’t meant to represent the significance of Gaywyck as the first “gothic gay romance” from a mainstream and traditional publisher (it was originally published by Avon in 1980) – it only reflects my individual reading experience or emotional reaction, which was un-engaging, disorientating, and deeply uncomfortable. I wouldn’t recommend this book, unless (1) you study popular literature or (2) you’re willing to meet it in its historical context.

In all honesty, I don’t feel fully equipped to critically engage with this novel in any specificity. For starters, I’m not a gay man. Nor am I old enough to have lived through the worst of America’s oppressive and homicidal homophobia, nor did I live in New York City, either pre- or post-Stonewall, nor was I alive for the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s. And finally, I’ve never studied the history of gay rights in an academic or educational setting in any real depth, so like I said, reviewing this book in detail would be far, far outside of my own lane.

With all that said, I’d like to comment on two general phenomena: one in the reviews I’ve seen of Gaywyck on Goodreads and one in the text itself:

First, if you’ve read all or part of this book and you’re NOT a gay man and you’re thinking of writing a review detailing the instances of internalized homophobia in this text, I’d urge you to reconsider. Yes, Gaywyck perpetuates many harmful clichés that surround gay and bisexual men, although it is authored by an out gay man. Yes, that factor often made it a tough read for me, and I’d imagine it would be challenging or disturbing for many potential readers, LGBTQ+ or not. And of course, people should go into this book with their eyes open.

At the same time, I consistently felt as if I didn’t totally understand why it was written as it was...? For all its “faults” or triggering content, Virga’s approach is full of undeniable immediacy and impact, and it extends an unprecedented level of empathy to its cast of mostly gay and bisexual men (again, it’s important to remember that this is a m/m genre romance written by a gay man in the mid-1970s and finally published in 1980), so clearly there’s an important reclamation, rebuttal, or representation being claimed here, I just wasn’t sure I always grasped it in its entirety. Generally, I think it’s best not to critically engage with content I can’t fully parse. And it’s particularly important to avoid judgment of a specific marginalized experience, presented by an author with the same marginalization, which I don’t personally share or have any relevant knowledge of. Many of the complexities and nuances went over my head and if that mirrors your own experience with this book, I’d encourage you to consider that before you post a scathing review.

Finally, there was a part of this book that I felt particularly unprepared for and since I wish I’d known about it before reading Gaywyck, I’m going to include it here. I don’t want to spring it on anyone so I’m going to put it behind a spoiler tag. If you’d like to take a look, I will warn you that this note refers to child sexual abuse.

Please take care of yourself.

Gaywyck contains a shocking number of references to violent child abuse, but I felt the most disturbing scenes involve the ongoing sexual abuse of a 13-year-old boy. This explicit pedophilia is NOT framed appropriately: the child victim is thoroughly villianized, he’s blamed for the abuse inflicted on him, he is an antagonist to the 1st person narrating protagonist, and the two adult perpetrators repeatedly claim that their abuse is an expression of romantic/sexual love, which the text never refutes or interrogates. Additionally, there’s an implicit suggestion of father/son incest that is never problematized accordingly.

That’s it, I think. I hope this review has helped, if you were curious about this book or interested in its significance within the history of the genre. If you have any questions or disagree about anything I’ve written in this review, I’m more than happy to talk about it in the comments, although I’d like to remind everyone that I am a human being and I appreciate respectful debate.

[Sam (Hissing Potatoes) · Rating 1 out of 5]

CW: pedophilia, incest, child abuse

I've never read a book that went from perfection to horrendous so drastically. Seriously, during the first few chapters I thought I would rate it 5 stars: the main character was relatable, the writing beautiful, the Gothic tone developing well, the references to other literature both in the style and by the well-read characters themselves smart.

The plot started to drag after Robert arrived in New York, but I thought okay, the beginning was so strong, surely it'll recover.

NOPE.

The plot for the remainder of the book was basically Robert pining by the sea and encountering ~*mysterious things*~ he doesn't question over and over again with no progression whatsoever. Halfway through the author introduces significant pedophilia and/or incest threads, because apparently pedophilia is the best way to show how much you love Ancient Greek culture? (?!?!?). These themes are discussed and/or engaged in as if they're no big deal by characters we're supposed to root for.

The great Gothic elements promised at the beginning just devolved into performative passages describing jealousy, murder, child abuse, and other gross things just for the sake of it. As a bonus, includes racism. I cannot begin to describe how ungrounded the narrative became. Do not recommend.

[Rafael Andrade · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the idea of turning the damsel in distress into a delicate 17-year-old boy who falls in love with the master of the house. The novel is filled with gay characters, including the main characters, servants, the father, and the friends. Even the name of the manor by the sea, Gaywyck, reflects this theme. The narrative is laced with a pinch of Mexican Telenovela drama; the crying, fainting, and purple prose are constant throughout, making it even more addictive. The plot is dark, sensual, and mysterious, with a deliciously evil villain that will make the hair on your neck stand on end. Simply perfect!"

[Frankie]

Review TBA

[Nut Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

In simplest terms, this can be summed up as a gay Rebecca. Though the author seems to have considered Jane Eyre his primary influence, the style feels far more reminiscent of du Maurier. Some aspects are so over the top it's difficult to tell whether this is intended as a loving homage, or a send-up of the genre, but either way it's impressive how little Virga deviates from the traditional Gothic character types despite the gender swapping of the lead. Robert comes to the estate a naive, beautiful youth, with a delicate constitution prone to fainting, and quickly falls for his broodingly handsome employer. The romance is a painfully slow burn that doesn't kick into gear until the last 100 pages, so patience is required. Fans of the classic gothics will probably enjoy this, but anyone who found Rebecca too dry probably won't care for it.

[Michalyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Think Jane Eyre, except with Jane as a troubled young man named Robert and you have Gaywyck. I bought this novel about three years ago and it is still one of my favorites. Like a true gothic romance, there is a brooding manor and its equally brooding master, a romance between the innocent protagonist and an older, tormented, love interest and of course, a dash of the supernatural.

Despite the truly engaging romance central to the genre, what I appreciate most about this is also a coming of age story. Robert begins the novel as a sensitive, timid young man who is attached to his mother. By the end, he is no less sensitive, but infintely stronger and wiser for learning some very important lessons at a difficult price.

[Elisa Rolle]

When I started reading Gay Romance and browsing the few available titles (yes, you have to believe me, no longer than 5 years ago, the availability of Gay Romance novels was sorely lacking), Gaywyck was one of those titles that more than once appeared in my search results. But as for many other titles of that same period, late ’70-beginning of the ’80, I was scared to read it since I was not sure the author was daring enough to give his characters an happily ever after. Truth, having a novel ending with “our love endures” is not necessary for it to be good, but isn’t it better? I’m a romantic and even if it’s not realistic, or maybe not such realistic, I want to be able to think the heroes of a novel I like, a novel I will maybe re-read in the future, will live happily ever after once I leave them at the end of their story.

So, yes, I confess, I didn’t pick up that novel sooner, justifying myself with the lame excuse that it was out of stock, that for me, living in Italy was not so easy to find a second-hand copy, that even if I found one, the shipping cost would have been to high, and on and on. Then Greg Herren listed Gaywyck as one of his favourite books, and I had the chance to exchange some emails with Vincent Virga, and from his own words I understood he had my same idea on romance, that he believed in romance, and so I was sure it was impossible for him to be bad with his heroes.

He wrote how he was tired to read about gay characters in gothic novel (“While working in publishing, I read some modern romantic gothic novel where the Jane-Eyre secret was not a crazy wife in the attic but--GASP!--a queer husband!! (There was actually a spate of these.)) and how he chose to write the story from his own perspective (“So, “Gaywyck” was born in 1977 as a way of proving that genres have no genders and romantic love is democratic realm not a het's kingdom”) and how he fought for this story to be published (“The book was rejected by over 30 publishers and the editor who eventually bought it had to be convinced that gay people wanted romance: "If they want romance why hasn't anyone ever written a gay romance?" she asked me”).

One thing that is clear in this romance is that nor Robert or Donough are afraid to love and being in love with another men (“My Robert Gaylord is exquisitely gorgeous but has NO crisis when he falls in love with Donough Gaylord whose secrets in the attic generate enough grief for anybody. Their love is not the issue for Robert. He is only concerned with their happiness, not easily won but lasting forever after...as in all fairy tales”); true Donough has his own issue to overcome, his private secret in the attic that by the way it has more facets you could imagine, and only to the very end of the novel you will be able to see in its wholeness. I read minor complaints about this novel such that everyone seems to be gay (something that is not true, for example Brian, one of my favourite character, and one that could easily being mistaken as gay for his prettiness and interest for “womanly” things related to the kitchen and the garden, is not gay). Another thing I read is that it was not so realistic for “public” men like Donough, or his friends Mortimer and Goodboy, to be openly gay at the beginning of the XX century (the story is set on the turn of the century, between 1899 and 1901), something that I soon discovered not only was possible, but even “allowed” in some cultural circles (see the lives of Glenway Wescott, Monroe Wheeler and George Platt-Lynes).

So not only Gaywyck is a romance, it’s even a right on the spot picture of an era, something that is even more clear if you pay attention to all the details Vincent Virga scattered here and there in the novel, misguided as background description. Again if you read a little about Vincent Virga’s curriculum vitae, you will understand that Gaywyck is also like an essay on custom and design of that era (Vincent Virga’s today occupation is a designer of picture sections, meaning that he not only searches for the right picture to be included as pictorial reference for essays, but he also plans the best way to present it).

If all of above was not enough to convince me to read the book, my never-ending love for the first ever gay romance I have ever read, Maurice by E.M. Forster, would have given the final match point; Vincent Virga and me share the same love for this novel, even if his story is better than mine (“Jimmy gave me this novel as a 7th anniversary gift, Memorial Day 1972. (I just showed the inscribed edition to him; he exclaimed: "How sweet! Now don't cry! Don't burst into tears!" Why do I write romantic novels?!) I love this book so much that its two central characters, Maurice Hall and the heavenly Alec Scudder are currently frequent guests at Gaywyck and are the greatest pals with Robert Gaylord in “Children of Paradise”. And why not? I love them! Forster thinks they "still roam the greenwood." He may have written one of favorite novels, “Howard's End”, but he can be very silly. They needed to "connect" with their brothers in this our life. So I've given them the community Forster never had while he was alive. "A happy ending was imperative," he writes in the novel's "Terminal Notes, even though Maurice says: "All the world's against us." Forster was right and helped inspire me to act accordingly with “Gaywyck”. (If I had a happy "ending" why couldn't they?) Meanwhile, my heart swells every time Alec says to Maurice: "And now we shan't be parted no more, and that's finished."”)

Of course Gaywyck is a gothic romance in all its glory, and so Robert is the fainting-heroine type so notorious in those novels, only that he is a boy; of course Donough is handsome and damned like many villain-heroes of those same novels. Gaywyck did want to be an "according to the gothic rule" novel, and it did manage wonderfully its target.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1439235554/?...

[Michael Ritchie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another gay romance novel I've had in my possession for some 40 years and finally got around to finishing. When I was younger, I was expecting it to be a campy comical satire of the gothic romance, but I read almost half of it and was disappointed how serious it was. All these years later, I can appreciate it as a novel that does indeed take the genre seriously but still manages to satirize some of its tropes. At some point near the end, all the awful secret gothic things that have happened to the two main characters are more or less summarized, and I laughed out loud. For a big (many pages) gay romance novel, there is very little sex but lots of rapturous romantic feelings.

[Alex Crozier · Rating 1 out of 5]

Woof. Might’ve been a generous 2 stars were it not for all the pedophilia and incest. Hard to get my head around the number of harmful stereotypes this book perpetuated. Can I give a 0 star rating? Putting this one straight in the bin.