Gary In Your Pocket: Stories and Notebooks of Gary Fisher

Series Q

by Gary Fisher, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (Editor)

The incandescent African American writer Gary Fisher was completely unpublished when he died of AIDS in 1994 at the age of 32. This volume, which includes all of Fisher’s stories and a generous selection from his journals, notebooks, and poems, will introduce readers to a tender, graphic, extravagant, and unswervingly incisive talent. In Fisher’s writings the razor-sharp rage is equalled only by the enveloping sweetness; the raw eroticism by a dazzling writerly elegance. Evocations of a haunting and mobile childhood are mixed in Fisher’s stories with an X-ray view of the racialized sexual vernaculars of gay San Francisco; while the journals braid together the narratives of sexual exploration and discovery, a joyous and deepening vocation as a writer, a growing intimacy with death, and an engagement with racial problematics that becomes ever more gravely and probingly imaginative.

A uniquely intimate, unflinching testimony of the experience of a young, African American gay man in the AIDS emergency, Gary in Your Pocket includes an introduction by Don Belton that describes Fisher’s achievement in the context of other work by Black gay men such as Marlon Riggs and Essex Hemphill, and a biographical afterword by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.

Genres: Poetry, LGBT, Nonfiction, Memoir, Disability

364 pages, Paperback

First published July 18, 1996

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been searching shelves for Gary Fisher since 2008 when a friend mentioned this was one of his favorites. Posting this to encourage more people to check it out. Gary was unpublished when he died of AIDS in 1993 at the age of 32. This collection starts with a sampling of short stories and poems (some unfinished) and then selected journal entries from 1977-1993.

Yes, you’re getting Gary through the eyes of an editor. But Eve Sedgwick’s afterword addresses how Gary wanted both the stories and journals in front of readers. I also appreciate some of her other disclaimers about their relationship and even the title (which Eve and Gary agreed on before he died). Great introduction from Don Belton as well that sets the stage and time period before his sweet love letter of an intro to Gary.

Gary is an intense read. My spirit feels heavy. Somehow a little energized at the same time. I prefer nonfiction and journal entries to short stories and poetry any day, but you can tell his work is so much rooted in truth. His short stories are infused with electricity and tension. And, as Eve would say, the “princeliness of that sentence structure."

Out of the short stories and poetry, my favorite is “After the Box” – I feel like this must be pulled from an actual night out. You're right there with Gary at a corner store where he has decided to stand up for himself after a straight woman, possessively hanging on to “her man," hurls a bullying line at him. The whole interaction is charged, but a little excerpt:

“But I said as they reached the beer cooler: ‘Honey, did that make you feel like more of a woman?’ Gesture and pitch took lives of their own—sharp, nervy and all angles like giant fruit bats—but I was flying with it.”

The journals. Sex. Is. On. The. Brain. But, come on, isn’t it? Going from 16 years old, closeted and aware, to no-holds-barred sexual exploration. Pick another book if you’ve got hang ups about joining Gary on this journey in full detail. This is some of the least guarded and vulnerable content I’ve ever read. Thank you for being game to share your work and thoughts with us, Gary. It’s powerful stuff.

[Boka]

I connected with some parts more than with others. But overall, this book deeply touched me. fascinating, heart-warming, heart-wrenching, simple, joyous, thoughtful, painful, horny, difficult; incommensurable

[Damon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am still pondering this book and its contents. I am always happy that Black Male Gay writers are being published and read. However, Gary in your Pocket left me disturbed and troubled. Look, I cannot deny Gary Fisher's life experiences. They are as valid as anyone else's. I just wish that they did not represent a Black man so absorbed with his own negative self loathing as a Black and Gay male. I have had my own struggles in accepting my own sexuality and race but Gary Fisher's struggles are so extreme that I just did not enjoy this book regardless of the hype from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and the late Don Belmont.

[Mendi]

I finally read this book after hearing about it for years. I found myself reading the fragments, trying to see a life (after it was over) through the eyes of editors who were mentors and friends.

[Cynthia Kane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary - and what's tragic is that this young man may have become a major America writer if he had not been struck down by AIDS.

But a must-read... I was deeply moved, shocked, humored, angered - a realm of visceral emotions. More than anything else, I am in love with his use of language.

[sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book really shook me up. i wish that i knew gary in real life. his life, his poetry and prose, his courage to write and speak are really inspirational.

themes of isolation, multiple selves, internalized prejudice, sickness, all come up in this read.