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Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet: Same-Sex Couples in Mississippi
In Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet: Same-Sex Couples in Mississippi, John F. Marszalek III shares conversations with same-sex couples living in small-town and rural Mississippi. In the first book of its kind to focus on Mississippi, couples tell their stories of how they met and fell in love, their decisions on whether or not to marry, and their experiences as sexual minorities with their neighbors, families, and churches. Their stories illuminate a complicated relationship between many same-sex couples and their communities, influenced by southern culture, religion, and family norms.
As Marszalek guides readers into the homes of diverse same-sex couples, he weaves in his own story of meeting his husband and living as a married gay man in Mississippi. Both the couples and he explain why they remain in one of the most conservative states in the country rather than moving to a place with a large, vibrant gay community.
In addition to sharing his own experiences, Marszalek reviews the literature on the topic, including writings from southern and rural queer studies, history, sociology, and psychology, to explain how the couples' relationships and experiences compare to those of same-sex couples in other areas and times. Consequently, Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet is written for both the scholar of southern and queer studies and for anyone interested in learning about the experiences of same-sex couples.
As Marszalek guides readers into the homes of diverse same-sex couples, he weaves in his own story of meeting his husband and living as a married gay man in Mississippi. Both the couples and he explain why they remain in one of the most conservative states in the country rather than moving to a place with a large, vibrant gay community.
In addition to sharing his own experiences, Marszalek reviews the literature on the topic, including writings from southern and rural queer studies, history, sociology, and psychology, to explain how the couples' relationships and experiences compare to those of same-sex couples in other areas and times. Consequently, Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet is written for both the scholar of southern and queer studies and for anyone interested in learning about the experiences of same-sex couples.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published May 15, 2020
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May 26, 2020
Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet: Same-Sex Couples in Mississippi
By John F. Marszalek III
University Press of Mississippi, 2020
Five stars
How do I even begin this review? I loved this book, written with both clinical professionalism and great human warmth. It is an academic book about a very specific place (Mississippi), and yet I was overwhelmed by the way in which all John Marszalek’s research and insight resonated with the dramatically different world in which my husband and I have lived for the last forty years – suburban New Jersey, twenty miles west of Manhattan.
My personal connection to Mississippi dates back a dozen years, when, as a board member of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, I approved the Association’s move to the library at Mississippi State University in Starkville. Soon after that I met the Association’s new executive director – John F. Marszalek, who happens to be the father of this book’s author. Just a few years ago, the Association hosted the grand opening of the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library, across the very state in which a key Civil War battle – at Vicksburg – changed the course of the Civil War and the life of the Union’s most successful general. Mississippi is the perfect place for my ancestor’s presidential library.
Until I met John Marszalek III and his husband Larry during a house tour on one of my Association visits to Starkville, I had walked on eggshells during my Mississippi visits – the Yankee with the notorious name, whose Jewish husband and non-white children were never present and almost never mentioned. My own fears and presuppositions kept me quiet, lest I breach the compact of silence I knew kept me safe in the South. Meeting John and Larry transformed my relationship with John’s parents and bound me forever to the Magnolia State in a way that would otherwise have been purely academic. Mississippi became a part of my life, simply because of John and Larry’s existence.
And therein lies the magic of Marszalek’s book: for all that he follows scholarly protocols and explains both process and parameters at the start of the book, this is ultimately a story about people who are not all that different from me. Dr. Marszalek introduces us to a wide range of same-sex couples who have deep ties to Mississippi and have chosen to make their lives there for a host of reasons, some of them conflicting. There is a gentle rhythm of exposition, interview, and explanation throughout the book – but Marszalek also weaves his personal story deftly and candidly through the narrative. It is not just a study of “those people” living in “that place,” but a personal look at the lives of some of “my people” in “my country.”
As a born, raised and educated Yankee, I have inherited plenty of attitudes about the South, especially because of my peculiar relationship with Ulysses and Julia Grant. While Dr. Marszalek neither sidesteps nor minimizes the real challenges facing same-sex couples in Mississippi, he also brings to the story his own deep love of the place – where he grew up, after all – and the profoundly human ties that bind all of the couples interviewed in the book to whatever part of the Magnolia State they occupy.
Not everything on those pages pleased me. Not all of those couples would become my friends. This, however, is a truth I learned on my own about the vast gay world in the Northeast and across the entire nation. Just because we’re all gay, we don’t all like each other automatically (or know each other, for that matter). What John does in this gentle hymn to his home state is to allow us to see beyond our own prejudices and presuppositions. We don’t have to agree with these couples; but we do have to make an effort to understand them and their lives.
“Coming out in the Magnolia State” is a richly textured gift for anyone who wants to understand the complexities of our country, at a time when that task seems ever more difficult.
By John F. Marszalek III
University Press of Mississippi, 2020
Five stars
How do I even begin this review? I loved this book, written with both clinical professionalism and great human warmth. It is an academic book about a very specific place (Mississippi), and yet I was overwhelmed by the way in which all John Marszalek’s research and insight resonated with the dramatically different world in which my husband and I have lived for the last forty years – suburban New Jersey, twenty miles west of Manhattan.
My personal connection to Mississippi dates back a dozen years, when, as a board member of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, I approved the Association’s move to the library at Mississippi State University in Starkville. Soon after that I met the Association’s new executive director – John F. Marszalek, who happens to be the father of this book’s author. Just a few years ago, the Association hosted the grand opening of the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library, across the very state in which a key Civil War battle – at Vicksburg – changed the course of the Civil War and the life of the Union’s most successful general. Mississippi is the perfect place for my ancestor’s presidential library.
Until I met John Marszalek III and his husband Larry during a house tour on one of my Association visits to Starkville, I had walked on eggshells during my Mississippi visits – the Yankee with the notorious name, whose Jewish husband and non-white children were never present and almost never mentioned. My own fears and presuppositions kept me quiet, lest I breach the compact of silence I knew kept me safe in the South. Meeting John and Larry transformed my relationship with John’s parents and bound me forever to the Magnolia State in a way that would otherwise have been purely academic. Mississippi became a part of my life, simply because of John and Larry’s existence.
And therein lies the magic of Marszalek’s book: for all that he follows scholarly protocols and explains both process and parameters at the start of the book, this is ultimately a story about people who are not all that different from me. Dr. Marszalek introduces us to a wide range of same-sex couples who have deep ties to Mississippi and have chosen to make their lives there for a host of reasons, some of them conflicting. There is a gentle rhythm of exposition, interview, and explanation throughout the book – but Marszalek also weaves his personal story deftly and candidly through the narrative. It is not just a study of “those people” living in “that place,” but a personal look at the lives of some of “my people” in “my country.”
As a born, raised and educated Yankee, I have inherited plenty of attitudes about the South, especially because of my peculiar relationship with Ulysses and Julia Grant. While Dr. Marszalek neither sidesteps nor minimizes the real challenges facing same-sex couples in Mississippi, he also brings to the story his own deep love of the place – where he grew up, after all – and the profoundly human ties that bind all of the couples interviewed in the book to whatever part of the Magnolia State they occupy.
Not everything on those pages pleased me. Not all of those couples would become my friends. This, however, is a truth I learned on my own about the vast gay world in the Northeast and across the entire nation. Just because we’re all gay, we don’t all like each other automatically (or know each other, for that matter). What John does in this gentle hymn to his home state is to allow us to see beyond our own prejudices and presuppositions. We don’t have to agree with these couples; but we do have to make an effort to understand them and their lives.
“Coming out in the Magnolia State” is a richly textured gift for anyone who wants to understand the complexities of our country, at a time when that task seems ever more difficult.
Read
January 13, 2025Coming out of the Magnolia Closet was a fascinating, nostalgic look into the lives of same-sex couples in Mississippi. With a focus on their relationships with their community, their families, and their faith, this was a beautiful series of essays that dredged up some of my own complicated feelings with the deep red southern state.
The essays in this book, enhanced by wonderfully descriptive interviews with the numerous same-sex couples, were all poignant and thought provoking. As a Louisianian who went to college at Mississippi State University, I found much of this book to be both familiar and informative. I had first-hand experience with many of the locations discussed in this book, having frequently gone on jaunts to Columbus Mississippi to meet airmen and visit queer friends for meetups. I involved myself in the queer community around Starkville and confronted many of the perspectives shared in this book firsthand. It was so nostalgic, but also let me.. I guess mourn a future that I never had. I moved to New Jersey over a decade ago now and have never looked back. I always felt that the South abandoned me, made it clear that I wasn't welcome and that to be happy was to find the community that would have me.
This book both challenged and reinforced that idea. It emphasized that community is built, and gay people thrive wonderfully in their small town communities, despite politics, family acceptance, or religion. People have the resilience to move forward in communities that often try to reject them. They are on the front lines of challenging prejudicial attitudes, and successfully dismantle prejudice first hand. There is an unbelievable strength to that, which I find so admirable.
But at the same time, this book did a good job of highlighting how some pervasive, harmful attitudes around expression live within the gay community as well. Just about every couple interviewed had something to say about having pride in "not being like city gays. Not having those flags, and not prancing around without clothes on." as if there is pride in integration, or that gays must conform to the standards of what straight people deem acceptable in order to find community. This was challenged at times in the book which I appreciated, but it served as a reminder that, while many of these people exist on the front lines of acceptance, they themselves would likely try to distance themselves from the larger queer community. It did a good job in drawing attention to the nuance with identity and expression for many gay people in the south.
I loved how the book ended, by giving highlights of the perspectives of couples who plan to stay in Mississippi, those who plan to leave, and those who aren't sure what their future holds. There are some really powerful sentiments shared in these interviews that I found thought provoking.
Regarding staying:
"And it's gonna change. Mississippi cannot stop it. It is going to change. Mississippi is like no other place...I love the people here, especially in our LGBT community. I think the LGBT community in Mississippi are some of the strongest people and the bravest people I've ever met in my life, and that is inspiring. And that is the kind of people I want to surround myself with: brave and inspiring people."
Regarding going:
"Do I want to stay here and try to fight the battle? Or do I want to live somewhere where I can be who I am and love who I love? I think what Jerry saw in Vermont is that anything is possible. If you want to love who you love, that's fine. I mean, we literally had people stop us on Main Street in the capital city and say, 'We're so glad you're here.' We still don't know who these people were. And we could stay here and fight the battle and maybe be old men and still never have seen marriage recognized here. And what have you really accomplished? I think we're still a few generations in this state away from being where we wanna be."
Regarding not being sure:
"I contemplate what the next phase of our relationship will be...And I do think looking back on it, that we have made concession or or being willing to be happy with the fact that we were Mississippians by birth and by education and by coincidence. I look forward to not feeling bound to Mississippi...I looked forward to the prospect of deciding that Mississippi is our future or deciding that we have the freedom to move...wherever the next place would be. It is not out of habit that we will stay in Mississippi; it's out of choice that we will stay or we will move. And I have no urgency. I've only acceptance that it will be here, or that it will be somewhere else, but it will be fun."
The essays in this book, enhanced by wonderfully descriptive interviews with the numerous same-sex couples, were all poignant and thought provoking. As a Louisianian who went to college at Mississippi State University, I found much of this book to be both familiar and informative. I had first-hand experience with many of the locations discussed in this book, having frequently gone on jaunts to Columbus Mississippi to meet airmen and visit queer friends for meetups. I involved myself in the queer community around Starkville and confronted many of the perspectives shared in this book firsthand. It was so nostalgic, but also let me.. I guess mourn a future that I never had. I moved to New Jersey over a decade ago now and have never looked back. I always felt that the South abandoned me, made it clear that I wasn't welcome and that to be happy was to find the community that would have me.
This book both challenged and reinforced that idea. It emphasized that community is built, and gay people thrive wonderfully in their small town communities, despite politics, family acceptance, or religion. People have the resilience to move forward in communities that often try to reject them. They are on the front lines of challenging prejudicial attitudes, and successfully dismantle prejudice first hand. There is an unbelievable strength to that, which I find so admirable.
But at the same time, this book did a good job of highlighting how some pervasive, harmful attitudes around expression live within the gay community as well. Just about every couple interviewed had something to say about having pride in "not being like city gays. Not having those flags, and not prancing around without clothes on." as if there is pride in integration, or that gays must conform to the standards of what straight people deem acceptable in order to find community. This was challenged at times in the book which I appreciated, but it served as a reminder that, while many of these people exist on the front lines of acceptance, they themselves would likely try to distance themselves from the larger queer community. It did a good job in drawing attention to the nuance with identity and expression for many gay people in the south.
I loved how the book ended, by giving highlights of the perspectives of couples who plan to stay in Mississippi, those who plan to leave, and those who aren't sure what their future holds. There are some really powerful sentiments shared in these interviews that I found thought provoking.
Regarding staying:
"And it's gonna change. Mississippi cannot stop it. It is going to change. Mississippi is like no other place...I love the people here, especially in our LGBT community. I think the LGBT community in Mississippi are some of the strongest people and the bravest people I've ever met in my life, and that is inspiring. And that is the kind of people I want to surround myself with: brave and inspiring people."
Regarding going:
"Do I want to stay here and try to fight the battle? Or do I want to live somewhere where I can be who I am and love who I love? I think what Jerry saw in Vermont is that anything is possible. If you want to love who you love, that's fine. I mean, we literally had people stop us on Main Street in the capital city and say, 'We're so glad you're here.' We still don't know who these people were. And we could stay here and fight the battle and maybe be old men and still never have seen marriage recognized here. And what have you really accomplished? I think we're still a few generations in this state away from being where we wanna be."
Regarding not being sure:
"I contemplate what the next phase of our relationship will be...And I do think looking back on it, that we have made concession or or being willing to be happy with the fact that we were Mississippians by birth and by education and by coincidence. I look forward to not feeling bound to Mississippi...I looked forward to the prospect of deciding that Mississippi is our future or deciding that we have the freedom to move...wherever the next place would be. It is not out of habit that we will stay in Mississippi; it's out of choice that we will stay or we will move. And I have no urgency. I've only acceptance that it will be here, or that it will be somewhere else, but it will be fun."
May 15, 2020
This is a fascinating exploration of the LGBTQ residents of Mississippi. The author takes us through key aspects of existence in this very conservative state - from community to religion, families, dating and marriage - told in a very "real" and personal way from interviews with a diverse range of LGBTQ couples who call the Magnolia State home. There's a lot to learn here - much of it shatters the preconceptions one might have about surviving and even thriving in the state. Bravo, John!!!
August 4, 2020
The best part about reading local authors is feeling grounded to the places of which you're reading and gaining insight to your community. As a rural Midwestern individual who's now a Mississippi transplant, can attest that this book poignantly investigates the complex layers that shape connection to self, place, and community.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews