Lewis DeSimone's Blog, page 2

Playing Chicken

 I was recently asked in an interview my feelings about living in a so-called post-gay world, and my answer was clear:  I’m not at all interested in living in a post-gay world.  What I want is to live in a post-homophobic world.
From recent events, I would say there’s both good and bad news on that score.  Clearly, the fact that the president of a popular company feels comfortable spreading his hateful rhetoric and donating money to suppress my civil rights suggests that this is still a homophobic world.  However, the degree to which his behavior has been denounced—not only by gay people but by a large swath of the larger community—says something very profound about hopes for the ultimate demise of homophobia.
The times, as Dylan said, they are a-changin’.  While the gay marriage at the center of The Heart’s History becomes a lightning rod for disagreement among the older characters (some of whom see it as progress, while others believe it only ties an otherwise progressive movement to an outdated institution), the younger ones don’t bat an eyelash.  To them, same-sex marriage is an inevitability, a fact of life.  They are living in a post-homophobic world—or will be when their generation is at the seat of power.
We live in a country where freedom of religion has been perverted into license to discriminate, oppress, and hate.  Bigots like Dan Cathy of Chick-fil-A (its own name a perversion of the word filet, which I suppose was too “un-American”—or at least too hard to spell) hide behind their religion or, more precisely, those aspects of their religion that they choose to follow.  The same Bible they cite to excuse their homophobia also forbids the eating of pork products, but they still put bacon in their chicken club.
Despite the bacon, though, this place is all about chicken.  It’s about being so chicken that someone else’s happiness threatens your own.  It’s about being so chicken that you can’t face life without the fantasy of Pearly Gates at the end of it.  It’s about being too chicken to come up with your own morality, instead relying on a book written thousands of years ago but never updating it to account for tiny little things like science and the Enlightenment.
The homophobes continue to justify their views by calling sexual orientation a choice.  But it’s not.  Religion is a choice.  One chooses to believe in God.  One chooses to follow the instructions in an ancient book.  One chooses to discriminate and spew hatred.
And the rest of us choose to boycott the people who do.

Publishers Weekly Review

The Heart’s History was recently reviewed in Publishers Weekly—a first for me!  PW is a major resource for bookstores in selecting the books to put on their shelves.  (I’m sure that would mean more if half the bookstores in the world hadn’t vanished in recent years!)  It must mean something, because my publisher is reissuing the book to include the review on the cover.  Here’s a sneak peek for you:
DeSimone's second novel (after Chemistry) is a thoughtful and engaging examination of contemporary gay life and love. When Edward, a 35-year-old Boston architect, introduces his new boyfriend, Robert, to his tight-knit circle of longtime friends, none of Edward's cohort expects the relationship to last--Edward has an abysmal romantic track record, and the generational differences between the two (Robert is 10 years Edward's junior) manifest in the ways each man navigates their relationship; Edward remembers "the romance of secrecy" when homosexuality was still a taboo, whereas Robert and his generation "openly proclaimed their right[s]." Soon, Edward tests positive for AIDS, and his body fails to respond to treatment. Set against the backdrop of Edward's illness, the next four years sees various friends and former lovers embrace their individual connections to Edward while discussing the opportunities and challenges of monogamy, polyandry, safe sex, gay/straight relationships, and sexual politics. DeSimone's facility with the minutiae of everyday life and the rhythms of friendship brings depth to this timely story of ordinary individuals struggling to bulwark their ideas of love against shifting personal and cultural tides.

BTYBNBKKDTBP

Post-partum Anxiety

Now comes the hard part.  The Heart’s Historyis officially out there—no more edits, no more opportunities to stuff it back into a drawer while I rethink the whole thing.  All I can do now is sit back and hope people like it.
I don’t remember if I felt this way the first time, when Chemistry came out.  Maybe publishing a book is like childbirth: if you could remember the pain, you'd never do it again.  And so I just keep my fingers crossed as my baby takes its first steps without me, praying my parenting was sufficient to prepare it for the world.
Rumor has it that even Madonna has stage fright.  So I’m in good company when my stomach churns at the thought of publicity, or opening a Website where a review of the book might be lurking.  It’s ironic, really:  the very word publish means “to make public.”  If I’m so worried about what people are going to think, then what am I doing in this situation in the first place?  It’s not as if somebody held me at gunpoint and forced me to publish my work.
Madonna, of course, makes millions from her work:  with that kind of motivation, stage fright should be an easy opponent.  Most writers, however, don’t really do it for the money.  Okay, maybe we do it for the dream of money, but all the people I know who’ve struck it rich from their writing could fit comfortably into my coat closet. 
In the end, the cliché is true:  writing, like every art, is ultimately about self-expression.  Sure, I could keep everything in that overstuffed drawer, but once in a while, it’s nice to let some of it out.  And sometimes there are unexpected benefits:  The most gratifying thing about publishing Chemistry was hearing from readers who had loved ones suffering from mental illness; reading the book allowed them to open up about their own experiences. 
And so the latest one has left the nest.  I’ll just sit here and resist the urge to rush over whenever he stumbles and hope he doesn’t spit up on anyone.

Any Friend of Jack Holmes ...

It is not a stretch—in fact, it may be a cliché—to call Edmund White one of the founding fathers of gay literature.  When I came out of the closet, one of the first books I was advised to read was A Boy’s Own Story.  I’m willing to bet that half the gay men my age can say the same thing.  Reading that novel was, for young men just emerging from the closet, what Lord of the Flies was for 13-year-old boys, or Little House on the Prairie for their sisters.  In a very crucial way, I found myself in that book.Decades later, White remains on the cutting edge of gay fiction, as he proves with his latest novel, Jack Holmes and His Friend.  The coy title is part of the book’s brilliance—it’s not just a double entendre; it’s a triple, perhaps even a quadruple entendre.  Yes, the eponymous protagonist does have a friend—but, as Harvey Fierstein once so cleverly wrote, is he “a friend-friend or a euphemism-friend?”  (Answer:  Jack wants him to be a euphemism, but he’s just a friend.)  And, of course, friend is in itself also an erstwhile euphemism for penis—as in, “my little friend.”  Or, in Jack’s case, not so little.The novel begins in what, for wedding-planning homosexuals, constitutes the distant past—the 1960s, pre-Stonewall—with Jack struggling against his sexual urges in a world that seems to offer no alternative.  Even his psychotherapists tell him that his sexual behavior is only an “acting out” of neurosis.  These days, a therapist who said that would be laughed out of practice—or go to work for Marcus Bachmann.In such an unwelcoming culture, it’s no coincidence that Jack’s first object of affection would be an unattainable straight man named Will.  (One of my favorite things about this book is the way it plays with names—Will and Jack conjure up images of their respectively straight-acting and fey counterparts on TV’s Will and Grace, while Jack’s full name—and endowment—suggest the porn star John Holmes.)  Theirs is an odd friendship, which in due course becomes illustrative of both the similarities and the differences between the gay and straight demi-mondes.As Jack becomes more comfortable with his sexuality, his confidence and social skills grow.  Sexual liberation opens him up to life.  In contrast, Will—whose sexuality is stifled by a cold wife and the expectations of heteronormativity—finds himself living an increasingly constricted existence.  Until, that is, Jack sets the wheels in motion for Will’s own sexual awakening—even if, given the circumstances and Will’s character, it can be only a short-lived transformation.What strikes me most about this book is its lack of a moralistic tone.  It isn’t just because White is writing about the pre-AIDS era; even in the 70s we had our share of novels condemning the supposed superficiality of casual sex.  But White never judges Jack for being … well, a slut.  Neither does he judge Will for returning to the fold of monogamy after his dalliance with promiscuity.  In fact, one of the strengths of the novel is that Will—in all his naivete and knee-jerk homophobia—is presented as a real person, whose worldview is the product of his upbringing, and his time.  Will, in fact, is the only character granted a first-person narration, which suggests something about White’s desire to understand the point of view—literally—of a straight man.There’s a fearlessness in this book that I quite admire.  White makes no apologies for gayness, never succumbing to the politically correct notion that we’re just like straight people except for what we do in bed.  Some of us are.  Some of us, like Jack Holmes, are not.  That, coincidentally, is one of the key themes of my new novel, The Heart’s History:  Which is the greater goal for the gay community’s coming of age—to be accepted into the fabric of the straight world, or to add a new color to it?  Despite the advances of recent years—indeed, perhaps because of them—the question is more crucial now than ever.

Out in Print

The Heart's History just received a wonderful review from Out in Print. Please check it out here.

My Television Debut

You can now catch my interview with David Perry on the Comcast series 10 Percent .  We taped the segment a couple of weeks ago, and it aired the week of May 21.  It’s now available on youtube.
My television debut was a really interesting experience, but surprisingly easy.  I arrived at the studio a few minutes early and went directly to make-up.  (I haven’t done that since Halloween 1997!)  Then, it was onto the set, where I draped a microphone cord under my shirt and waited for the cameras to roll.  From that point on, though, it was pretty much like an ordinary conversation.  David put me at ease immediately and asked several very thoughtful questions.  For the most part, it felt like a natural conversation—so much so that, after a minute or two, I was no longer aware of the cameras. 
It all went by so quickly, I can hardly remember all that we talked about, so you’ll find no spoilers here.  I did apparently survive without stumbling over my words—and that has to count for something!  

Excerpt from "The Heart's History"

An excerpt from The Heart's History appears in the current issue of A&U Magazine.
A&U is dedicated to promoting understanding about AIDS and offers a forum for education as well as artistic response to the HIV pandemic. I'm flattered that the editors chose to publish a scene from the book.                          

Lambda Literary Review

The Heart’s History just received a great review in the current Lambda Literary Review.  This one is by Trebor Healey, award-winning author of Through It Came Bright Colors.
“a big-hearted, earnest novel that does what novels should do”

If you're in New York, please stop by Bluestockings Books...

If you're in New York, please stop by Bluestockings Books on Sunday, May 6, at 7 p.m. I'd love to see you!

Michael Montlack on The Heart’s History

Poet Michael Montlack and I met a few years ago, when we were both Fellows at the inaugural Lambda Writers Retreat. Sometime later, Michael edited a wonderful anthology entitled My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them, in which my essay on the indomitable Auntie Mame stood beside the work of such illustrious writers as Mark Doty, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Mark Wunderlich. Michael recently published a sequel, Divining Divas, which explores similar relationships through poetry rather than prose. Somewhere in his busy schedule, he found time to share some lovely words on The Heart’s History:

"Yes, times are changing and for the better. But even with the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts, the circle of friends at the center of The Heart's History finds that 'nothing was easy anymore. Everything had something attached to it. There was history behind it all.' Edward has finally found love in a younger man just before realizing he contracted HIV from a previous lover. Harlan dodges his pals' meddling matchmaking, unsure if he even wants to settle down. And Kyle treats his best girlfriend like a partner because Edward will never be more than his friend. Even the giddy newlyweds Greg and Victor have to navigate a future with no precedents, no former generations to act as guides. In a crisp panoramic prose, with each chapter smoothly changing point of view, Lewis DeSimone shows this circle stumbling and dancing toward middle age with more and more questions about everything from politics, marriage, and parenting, to suburbia, open relationships, and grief. There are no answers, though DeSimone offers plenty of sharp humor and insight, as well as the consolation that friends have each other to lean on, their own history to write and remember. The Heart's History invites you to become part of this circle, and in it you will see (and probably better understand) your own circle too."