The Age of Cities

by Brett Josef Grubisic

Equal parts bildungsroman and purported literary artifact, The Age of Cities is really about the age of innocence. A manuscript is discovered inside a hollowed-out home economics textbook: it is the story of a young man from a small town who comes to the big city at the height of the Cold War. His accidental discovery of a gay-subculture—culminating in a feverish, dreamlike initiation—pushes him irrevocably toward crisis.

The Age of Cities is about discovery, loss, and the contemporary “closet” where stories lie hidden from view.

224 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2006

About the author

Brett Josef Grubisic teaches contemporary literature at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He is the author of Understanding Beryl Bainbridge as well as the novel The Age of Cities. He is the co-author (with David L. Chapman) of American Hunks: The Muscular Male Body in Popular Culture, 1860–1970 and co-editor (with Andrea Cabajsky) of National Plots: Historical Fiction and Changing Ideas of Canada (WLU Press, 2010).

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Equal parts bildungsroman and purported literary artifact, The Age of Cities is really about the age of innocence. A manuscript is discovered inside a hollowed-out home economics textbook: it is the story of a young man from a small town who comes to the big city at the height of the Cold War in 1959.
At first he is giddy with the discovery of an urban paradise, allowing him to reinvent himself at the same time as the city. But his accidental discovery of a gay-subculture—culminating in a feverish, dreamlike initiation—pushes him irrevocably toward crisis.

"Written in the dialect of the time and framed by contemporary analysis by "editor" A.X. Palios, The Age of Cities is an an imaginary artifact that is about the past and present all at once: a novel of ambiguous boundaries and invasive dichotomies. It is also about discovery, loss, and the ages-old “closet” where stories lie hidden from view." From the back cover of the 2006 Arsenal Pulp Press paperback edition.

Although I enjoyed this novel I also felt deeply ambivalent about it. I didn't think it was half-as-clever as it was said to be. I found no 'ambiguous boundaries and invasive dichotomies' and found the 'framing' device of the lost/hidden manuscript rather silly and the 'analysis' verging on the risible. It is almost as if the main part of the novel is only worth reading when perceived as a historic artifact. But then maybe that is the point of this literary gamesmanship.

The problem is while I liked and enjoyed the tale of Winston Wilson I couldn't quite believe it because it was so clearly written by someone attempting to work within the societal restrictions of the 1950s as they are understood now. For me it did not read like how Winston Wilson would have written in the 1950s. Of course how Winston would have written depends on whether he is writing with the hope of publication in the 1950s or simply for himself. Although we are very aware of the restrictions on what could or could not be said in the immediate post war years and how much self-censorship there was we tend to forget that these were years when things were changing. After all the 'City and the Pillar' by Gore Vidal was published in 1948. A legend has been created around 'Maurice' by E.M. Forster that the novel couldn't be published but in fact he chose not to publish. There are complications of course with different locales, it might not have been possible to publish a work like 'The Age of Cities' in Canada but any potential author could not be unaware of the possibilities of US or even UK publication. After all when James Purdy could find no American publisher for '63 Dream Place' he was published in the UK.

For me 'The Age of Cities' reads like what someone now imagines a gay man in the 1950s would have written. The reality is that the evasions, elisions, etc. that obfuscate the storyline don't read as of their time. It is surprising, when you actually get hold of unmediated writing from this period, or even earlier, how frank and honest it can be. An example of this would be the frank 'love letters' sent back by Ralph Hall, a serving soldier in the UK army in WWII to his older lover Montgomery Glover (see: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...). If you read most histories of gay life in this period you would imagine that with censorship such letters were impossible.

The past is complex and to write something set in the past is difficult to write something as if it was written in the past is even more challenging. I don't think this novel succeeds in what it sets out to do. I see not even a good fake of the past but a 21st century construct of the past. It is a forgery and like most forgeries it reflects its time. Perhaps that is clearer now nearly twenty years later then when it was written.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really unique novella that focuses on a queer experience in Vancouver in the 1950s. My main critique is that the writing style and vocabulary leans VERY academic and flowery at times, and I don’t care about any of the characters by the end

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Queer Canadian fiction: rare but cool.

This is more of a novella than a great big "book," but it's a well-written and engulfing look at someone else's life. It has very little of the heavy-hand that historical fiction about gays in the 50s sometimes wields; it is generally an nonjudgmental book.

The basic plot, such as it is, is that a high school librarian discovers a sub-culture that is gay on a visit to Vancouver. And he makes friends, leading up to a moment of self-discovery. And then has to make a choice.

That is a pretty bad description cause it makes this sound all after-school-specialy which this novel is decidedly not. If anything, it's instructive in chronicling the way people don't actually think about what they are doing or experiencing as they do it. A reminder if how many people live their lives below their own consciousness.

I could have done without the whole fake author/discovery of this book in manuscript form ending (think William Goldman and the Princess Bride). This was well written enough to stand on its own without little tricks like that.

[Annika · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Flowers will cure what ails us, my dear,” she said warmly.

[Redfern Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely fascinating and utterly human examination of 1950s Canada. The novel follows Winston, who drifts from the conservative, rural heterosexual environment in which he's spent his entire life, toward the city and its underground, urbane gay culture. I found myself completely engrossed in Winston's unwitting explorations, both fascinated by the protagonist's own journey and the vivid portrayal of the vastly different cultures which form the novel's primary settings. Not only is The Age of Cities a good tale, it also forms an important part of Canada's gay history.