James Baldwin's best books

Although he never won any major literary prizes, James Baldwin (who would be turning 100 on Aug. 2 were he still with us) has become and more influential since his death in 1987. His appearance in the most recent episode of Ryan Murphy's "Feud: Capote vs. The Swans" on FX, as portrayed by Chris Chalk, shows us why. If watching that piques your curiosity about his books, check out this New York Times article, "The Best of James Baldwin." As it happens, our merry band has read two of his novels (Giovanni's Room and Just Above My Head), but not the other selections the article recommends. Perhaps that is a gap we can begin to fill in next year's reading list?

Gay love in the 1950s

Lee Levine was kind enough to draw my attention to this review in The Guardian of The Gallopers, a brand-new novel by Jon Ransom. It tells the intertwined stories of three gay men in England from 1953 into the 1980s (roughly the same timespan that the recent TV adaptation of Thomas Mallon's Fellow Travelers depicted). John Self concludes his review thus: "At its best, The Gallopers offers a surprising and quietly devastating account of three men, and their troubled relationship with themselves and the world they live in." I'm sold!

"This Arab Is Queer"

I'm grateful to Octavio Roca for flagging a 2022 book, This Arab Is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers. It certainly sounds like a promising candidate for our next reading list!

Dorian Gray on stage

As we prepare for next week's discussion of Matthew Sturgis' monumental biography of Oscar Wilde,  I found this TheaterMania review of Sarah Snook's performance in a solo show based on The Picture of Dorian Gray timely indeed. With a flock of video screens floating above her, Snook (whom many of us know as Shiv Roy from "Succession") plays every single character in Wilde's text--from Dorian, to his hedonistic mentor Lord Henry Wotton, and tortured artist Basil Hallward. It sounds amazing; here's hoping it transfers from London to this side of the pond! (This just in: The Economist's reviewer is also wildly enthusiastic about the play.)

Sarah Snook in The Picture of Dorian Gray at the Theatre Royal Haymarket 
(© Marc Brenner)

Some not-so-secret gay D.C. history

Later this year, we'll discuss James Kirchick's Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington. On Dec. 26, Kirchick published an op-ed in the Washington Post that was ostensibly about an eight-second video showing two men (one a U.S. Senate staffer who was immediately fired) having anal sex in a Hart Building hearing room. But that tawdry story was just a convenient hook to market his book. That's his right, of course, but I found his article's thesis less than persuasive: 

"Aside from a handful of far-right outlets, Washington's chattering class has shrugged its shoulders at the scandal's gay aspect, and one gathers that the city would be just as titillated if the copulating couple were straight. Fortunately, the denizens of Gay Washington no longer live in secret, and our exhibitionist former Senate staffer is being judged not from whom he loved, but for how he behaved." Seriously? 

New Year's reading resolutions

If you're anything like me, each January you chide yourself for not reading more books (and better ones) last year, and aspire to do better. This YouGov article should make us BookMen members feel much better about our starting point: "Of 1,500 Americans surveyed, a less-than-ideal 46% finished zero books last year, and 5% read just one." Analyst David Montgomery goes on to parse the findings in terms of literary genres and other variables. (You may also be interested in this Washington Post "Department of Data" article about bookstores around the country; scroll down for that section.)

Reading a mere two books a year puts us in the top half of Americans, but it's still a pretty low bar, admittedly. So how can we up our game? This July 2022 Washington Post Book World article offers 14 tips for getting out of a reading slump, some more helpful than others: "Reread an old favorite. Switch genres. Change formats. Set goals. Start small. Browse the children's shelf. Let luck guide you. Seek professional help (not what you think!). Join a book club (done!). Abandon books that don't spark joy (see the next paragraph). Do something completely different. Think about what you want to get out of a book. Force it. Have faith."

James Joyce reportedly observed, "Life is too short to read bad books." So how do you decide when to cut your losses and move on to something better? This Jan. 2 Washington Post Book World article is all over the map in terms of strategies, ranging from giving a book 50 pages to wow you (or, if you're older than that, subtracting your age from 100 to set the limit) to this: "Whenever I get bored or annoyed by an authorial tic, I immediately stop." For what it's worth, I say: Whatever your own approach, own it. And remember: You can always return to a book later in life, when it might just be perfect for you.

Happy MLK Day!

On this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, which falls precisely on what would have been his 95th birthday, I want to share a few quotes connected to this great American that I find resonate particularly strongly with the LGBTQ community.

In his 1963 "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," Dr. King famously declared: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial 'outside agitator' idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."

From The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America, Eric Cervini's biography of Frank Kameny--which we'll begin discussing this Wednesday--comes this quote: In June 1963, "the men's magazine Nugget published an entire profile, "The Gay Crusader," on Randolfe Wicker and his crusade against the 'corporate image' of the homophile movement. 'All embattled minority groups must eventually have a spokesman; the Negroes have Martin Luther King. Now, at long last, the homosexuals have Randolfe Wicker.'"

Finally, as I noted in an October 2023 posting here, we read John D'Emilio's Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin back in 2006. I had not yet seen "Rustin," the biopic starring Colman Domingo in the title role, directed by George Wolfe, but I have since streamed it on Netflix and highly recommend it. Rustin's relationship with Dr. King (portrayed by Aml Ameen) is a highlight, which a Jan. 8 Washington Post op-ed explores in depth.

Rest in power, Martin.