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Staircase
Charles Dyer’s novel. Staircase.
A sad gay story.
“Harry and Charlie were a grand couple, really. Warm and funny, comfortable, eager. They christened everyone dear: males, females, dogs, policeman. It sounded natural and most folks excepted them as fussy bachelors, nothing deeper. As for Henry and Charlie, they rarely analyzed the situation: simply got up and lived.”
But there was much more than that to Harry and Charlie. For one thing, they were destroying each other, slowly but surely….
A sad gay story.
“Harry and Charlie were a grand couple, really. Warm and funny, comfortable, eager. They christened everyone dear: males, females, dogs, policeman. It sounded natural and most folks excepted them as fussy bachelors, nothing deeper. As for Henry and Charlie, they rarely analyzed the situation: simply got up and lived.”
But there was much more than that to Harry and Charlie. For one thing, they were destroying each other, slowly but surely….
287 pages, Paperback
Published August 1, 1969
9 people want to read
About the author
Charles Dyer
8 booksLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Charles Dyer is a playwright, actor and screenwriter british, born in Shrewsbury, in England.
Charles Dyer is a playwright, actor and screenwriter british, born in Shrewsbury, in England.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 3, 2014
Subtitled "A Sad Gay Story", this book by Charles Dyer is a pretty complex piece of work. The story exists as a screenplay (indeed a film starring Rex Harrison and Richard Burton, whose photos are featured on the cover of my copy) and a stage play, though I have not been able to ascertain the order in which they were written/published.
The book,copyright 1969 and set in pretty much the same time, tells the story of London hairdresser and former actor Charles Dyer and his partner/punching bag Harry C Leeds. The two men live with Harry's mother in a flat over their salon, where they bicker and chat and Charlie monologues endlessly about his illustrious family of moneyed missionaries and his history on the stage. The action takes place in the ten days between Charlie's receipt of a summons to court for soliciting a police officer and the actual appearance before the magistrate. In that time, Charlie has ample opportunity for reflection on the family and the life that brought him to this point. He needs money for a lawyer, but when he seeks out his estranged sister at their family estate he finds out some truths he wishes he had left concealed.
The book is good, though sometimes tough to read. It's written third-person omniscient, but in the narrative style reflective of Charlie's past in the music halls and the constant flow of words and patter and banter and catchphrases takes a bit of getting used to, then a bit of putting up with "You what?! I should rub-a-dub!" was apparently his stock reply and is repeated approximately 974 times in 250 pages.
Harry, Charlie's partner and the smarter, more grounded of the two, is a bit of a victim, but ultimately reveals himself to be shrewd and competent, giving as good as he gets, letting us in on his strategies for coping with Charlie's ego and personality, a strategy based ultimately in genuine love.
The end, though, has quite a twist. At several points during the course of the book, Harry says to Charlie "What about me? What about my name? Have you thought of that?" and in the denoument, brings out a sheet of paper, a list of all the people Charlie has discussed from his past: his agent, his co-stars, various people who helped him or did him wrong. Harry points out to Charlie that all of these people, himself included, have names which are anagrams of Charles Dyer. "They aren't real, Charlie. Am I?" It's a strange moment, and one that is never resolved to any sort of satisfaction.
On the whole, though, the book is good. Not the typical Avon Classic, this one falls farther up the list from pulp towards 'real literature'. The love between the men is real (though Harry may not be?) and while there are no sexy scenes, the men reminisce and are certainly not sexless, which I always find refreshing. As always when the author's name is the name of the protagonist, I wonder just how much of this the man really lived, and where he is now and what the rest of his life contained.
Worth a look~ I'd be interested in anyone else's readings or experience.
The book,copyright 1969 and set in pretty much the same time, tells the story of London hairdresser and former actor Charles Dyer and his partner/punching bag Harry C Leeds. The two men live with Harry's mother in a flat over their salon, where they bicker and chat and Charlie monologues endlessly about his illustrious family of moneyed missionaries and his history on the stage. The action takes place in the ten days between Charlie's receipt of a summons to court for soliciting a police officer and the actual appearance before the magistrate. In that time, Charlie has ample opportunity for reflection on the family and the life that brought him to this point. He needs money for a lawyer, but when he seeks out his estranged sister at their family estate he finds out some truths he wishes he had left concealed.
The book is good, though sometimes tough to read. It's written third-person omniscient, but in the narrative style reflective of Charlie's past in the music halls and the constant flow of words and patter and banter and catchphrases takes a bit of getting used to, then a bit of putting up with "You what?! I should rub-a-dub!" was apparently his stock reply and is repeated approximately 974 times in 250 pages.
Harry, Charlie's partner and the smarter, more grounded of the two, is a bit of a victim, but ultimately reveals himself to be shrewd and competent, giving as good as he gets, letting us in on his strategies for coping with Charlie's ego and personality, a strategy based ultimately in genuine love.
The end, though, has quite a twist. At several points during the course of the book, Harry says to Charlie "What about me? What about my name? Have you thought of that?" and in the denoument, brings out a sheet of paper, a list of all the people Charlie has discussed from his past: his agent, his co-stars, various people who helped him or did him wrong. Harry points out to Charlie that all of these people, himself included, have names which are anagrams of Charles Dyer. "They aren't real, Charlie. Am I?" It's a strange moment, and one that is never resolved to any sort of satisfaction.
On the whole, though, the book is good. Not the typical Avon Classic, this one falls farther up the list from pulp towards 'real literature'. The love between the men is real (though Harry may not be?) and while there are no sexy scenes, the men reminisce and are certainly not sexless, which I always find refreshing. As always when the author's name is the name of the protagonist, I wonder just how much of this the man really lived, and where he is now and what the rest of his life contained.
Worth a look~ I'd be interested in anyone else's readings or experience.
December 19, 2022
Not too wild about this very short play about two gay men bitching at each other from the early 1960s.
Sad, depressing, bit of a window into the stress of living in a repressive time when it wasn't OK to be gay.
Sad, depressing, bit of a window into the stress of living in a repressive time when it wasn't OK to be gay.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews