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Music I Never Dreamed Of
Milton Berle prances around in a dress on coast-to-coast television. From his headquarters in Washington, D. C., Senator Joe McCarthy looks for Communists under every bed. It's the 1950s in America and Stevie Riley is wrestling with his sexual identity. But in the South End of Boston it's not easy to stand apart from the crowd. And Stevie must fight his way out of the closet, just as America must break away from the decade of suffocation.
- GenresLGBTFictionGay Fiction
145 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
25 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 24, 2013
I was curious when I grabbed a vintaged copy at Booksale. Only 40 Php...bought it. Seen the cover? Anyone should be curious.
I began reading it the night after I bought it and I couldn't stop. I had this pending book to finish but to hell with it. John Gilgun pinned me in his book. Oh yeah, it's about faggotry and the author is so honest.
The story of a guy named John Riley and his search for sexual identity...in the 50's America. Whoa! Seemed I was catapulted way back. I love the way Gilgun wrote the book...so easy to understand. I remember my book, Effem. Gilgun is a poet too...maybe that's why.
Meet Joe McCarthy, the Reds, the Rosenbergs, and the others. Know about Studebakers and H-bombs and the others. So entertaining and educating. But the highlight is about homosexuality of course, when fags in the US try to open their closets for the world. No Gay Pride that time perhaps.
Steve Riley is such a real person. Ya know...he grows up with a guy as a best friend and they would masturbate together. And then enter the adolescence and the discrimination heightens. Adulthood...when parents want their children to have families of their own and Steve just can't. Until he settles for California.
Anyone interested to read about Steve Riley...you're welcome to borrow the book.
I began reading it the night after I bought it and I couldn't stop. I had this pending book to finish but to hell with it. John Gilgun pinned me in his book. Oh yeah, it's about faggotry and the author is so honest.
The story of a guy named John Riley and his search for sexual identity...in the 50's America. Whoa! Seemed I was catapulted way back. I love the way Gilgun wrote the book...so easy to understand. I remember my book, Effem. Gilgun is a poet too...maybe that's why.
Meet Joe McCarthy, the Reds, the Rosenbergs, and the others. Know about Studebakers and H-bombs and the others. So entertaining and educating. But the highlight is about homosexuality of course, when fags in the US try to open their closets for the world. No Gay Pride that time perhaps.
Steve Riley is such a real person. Ya know...he grows up with a guy as a best friend and they would masturbate together. And then enter the adolescence and the discrimination heightens. Adulthood...when parents want their children to have families of their own and Steve just can't. Until he settles for California.
Anyone interested to read about Steve Riley...you're welcome to borrow the book.
April 14, 2022
QUEER IN THE 1950S
I often find fabulous treasures of gay literature in the used books section of Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni’s Room in Philadelphia. Something made me pick up a thin paperback volume, a novel titled Music I Never Dreamed Of, a novel I had never heard of. The author was John Gilgun, the publisher was Amethyst Press, and the publication date was 1989.
The cover of Music I Never Dreamed Of is an attention-grabbing full color photograph of a nude young man. He is lying on his stomach and is wearing sunglasses. He sports a mustache and a 1980s haircut. His pretty ass straddles the spine of the book. I took the book to the register and bought it.
After I brought Music I Never Dreamed Of home, I went online to LibraryThing, where I catalog all my books. I found that I owned several other Amethyst Press titles, including Patrick Moore’s This Every Night (1990) and Discontents: New Queer Writers (1992). Amethyst Press was a small gay publishing company that was founded by writer/editor Stan Leventhal, who died of AIDS in 1995, and is now defunct.
After only a few pages into Music I Never Dreamed Of, I realized that I was reading a gay classic. I’ve read it several times. I love this novel.
Stevie Riley is the wonderfully engaging, observant, and, I can’t stress this enough, honest, narrator of Music I Never Dreamed Of. The year is 1954, when, early in the novel, Stevie says, “Joe McCarthy was doing his little dance in Washington.” Nineteen years old, Stevie describes himself as a skinny redheaded kid who wears glasses. He has been washed out of a Catholic seminary and is back home in working-class South Boston looking for a job. He eventually finds work in a paper box factory. His father is an alcoholic who goes in and out of rehab and from one job to another, usually driving a taxi or a delivery truck. Stevie’s mother is a waitress who works the night shift in a hotel. Stevie has an older brother, Brian, who is still living at home.
Stevie’s mother steers the Riley household with her strict and stubborn Irish Catholic hand and is quick to slap when provoked. Since Stevie seems to have no interest in dating girls, his mother thinks he’s “introverted.” He mostly holds his own with her and doesn’t let her taunts defeat him. Stevie says he won’t be happy until he gets out. He has a secret that he can’t share with his family.
What hit me like a sledgehammer the first time I read Music I Never Dreamed Of was Stevie’s use of the word “queer.” In the 1950s, “queer” wasn’t the benign umbrella term used to designate GLBTQ folks that it is today. “Queer” was an ugly, cruel epithet. Stevie says, “Call someone queer and you could destroy them in an instant.” Although “queer” is a reprehensible term, Stevie knows it applies to him. He frequently mentions his attraction to other boys and candidly confesses, “That’s all I’d ever wanted—just to love men. I was queer.”
McCarthyism’s insidiousness pervades Stevie’s world. He describes McCarthy “as every schoolyard bully who had ever pushed me down, called me a sissy and kicked me in the ribs. He was Irish. He was one of us. My people loved him.” McCarthy’s message is unequivocal: “If you’re different, I’ll destroy you!” In spite of the hostility and danger in the world around him, Stevie Riley, queer, different, and brave, won’t give up his longing for a place where he can just be himself--and love men.
Stevie’s Republican uncle convinces him that the army could be his ticket out of South Boston. It’s a tribute to Gilgun’s artistry that he is able to build up almost unbearable suspense during the climax of the novel when Stevie goes for his pre-induction physical. He is given a form to fill out that includes the question, “Do you have homosexual tendencies?” The direction Stevie’s life will take depends on how he answers this question, on whether he “checks the box.”
Today, Music I Never Dreamed Of is still relevant, if not more so. When Stevie describes his people, he could be describing people in the America of 2022: “We were bigoted, hateful, anti-intellectual, conservative, stupid, brutal. We hated everybody, every race, every schism, every social group. We even hated ourselves. And we weren’t ashamed of it. We proclaimed it!”
Will some gay publisher, or any publisher, for that matter, please “rediscover” this superb novel and bring it back into print? Young queer people need to hear Stevie Riley’s honest and courageous voice. We all do.
John Gilgun passed away on April 30, 2021 at the age of 85.
I often find fabulous treasures of gay literature in the used books section of Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni’s Room in Philadelphia. Something made me pick up a thin paperback volume, a novel titled Music I Never Dreamed Of, a novel I had never heard of. The author was John Gilgun, the publisher was Amethyst Press, and the publication date was 1989.
The cover of Music I Never Dreamed Of is an attention-grabbing full color photograph of a nude young man. He is lying on his stomach and is wearing sunglasses. He sports a mustache and a 1980s haircut. His pretty ass straddles the spine of the book. I took the book to the register and bought it.
After I brought Music I Never Dreamed Of home, I went online to LibraryThing, where I catalog all my books. I found that I owned several other Amethyst Press titles, including Patrick Moore’s This Every Night (1990) and Discontents: New Queer Writers (1992). Amethyst Press was a small gay publishing company that was founded by writer/editor Stan Leventhal, who died of AIDS in 1995, and is now defunct.
After only a few pages into Music I Never Dreamed Of, I realized that I was reading a gay classic. I’ve read it several times. I love this novel.
Stevie Riley is the wonderfully engaging, observant, and, I can’t stress this enough, honest, narrator of Music I Never Dreamed Of. The year is 1954, when, early in the novel, Stevie says, “Joe McCarthy was doing his little dance in Washington.” Nineteen years old, Stevie describes himself as a skinny redheaded kid who wears glasses. He has been washed out of a Catholic seminary and is back home in working-class South Boston looking for a job. He eventually finds work in a paper box factory. His father is an alcoholic who goes in and out of rehab and from one job to another, usually driving a taxi or a delivery truck. Stevie’s mother is a waitress who works the night shift in a hotel. Stevie has an older brother, Brian, who is still living at home.
Stevie’s mother steers the Riley household with her strict and stubborn Irish Catholic hand and is quick to slap when provoked. Since Stevie seems to have no interest in dating girls, his mother thinks he’s “introverted.” He mostly holds his own with her and doesn’t let her taunts defeat him. Stevie says he won’t be happy until he gets out. He has a secret that he can’t share with his family.
What hit me like a sledgehammer the first time I read Music I Never Dreamed Of was Stevie’s use of the word “queer.” In the 1950s, “queer” wasn’t the benign umbrella term used to designate GLBTQ folks that it is today. “Queer” was an ugly, cruel epithet. Stevie says, “Call someone queer and you could destroy them in an instant.” Although “queer” is a reprehensible term, Stevie knows it applies to him. He frequently mentions his attraction to other boys and candidly confesses, “That’s all I’d ever wanted—just to love men. I was queer.”
McCarthyism’s insidiousness pervades Stevie’s world. He describes McCarthy “as every schoolyard bully who had ever pushed me down, called me a sissy and kicked me in the ribs. He was Irish. He was one of us. My people loved him.” McCarthy’s message is unequivocal: “If you’re different, I’ll destroy you!” In spite of the hostility and danger in the world around him, Stevie Riley, queer, different, and brave, won’t give up his longing for a place where he can just be himself--and love men.
Stevie’s Republican uncle convinces him that the army could be his ticket out of South Boston. It’s a tribute to Gilgun’s artistry that he is able to build up almost unbearable suspense during the climax of the novel when Stevie goes for his pre-induction physical. He is given a form to fill out that includes the question, “Do you have homosexual tendencies?” The direction Stevie’s life will take depends on how he answers this question, on whether he “checks the box.”
Today, Music I Never Dreamed Of is still relevant, if not more so. When Stevie describes his people, he could be describing people in the America of 2022: “We were bigoted, hateful, anti-intellectual, conservative, stupid, brutal. We hated everybody, every race, every schism, every social group. We even hated ourselves. And we weren’t ashamed of it. We proclaimed it!”
Will some gay publisher, or any publisher, for that matter, please “rediscover” this superb novel and bring it back into print? Young queer people need to hear Stevie Riley’s honest and courageous voice. We all do.
John Gilgun passed away on April 30, 2021 at the age of 85.
March 14, 2023
2.5 stars
Everyone in this book was more interesting than Steve. I don't know why the author chose to keep randomly brining up the fact that Steve is racist but like feels *really* bad about it :((((
also why is Luane the least accepting fag hag in existence
Everyone in this book was more interesting than Steve. I don't know why the author chose to keep randomly brining up the fact that Steve is racist but like feels *really* bad about it :((((
also why is Luane the least accepting fag hag in existence
June 13, 2025
This was a coming of age story in early 1950s Boston. Stevie Riley, the young man is not the most sympathetic of characters but the author gives him a good plot trajectory and the book does end with ahappy but unrealistic ending. This is a quick pleasant read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 26, 2013
Steven has been raised catholic on the south side of Boston and he's now washed out of seminary school for not having a calling. As he re-examines his life plan he realizes that the "get married, work as a waiter, raise some kids" model that his parents followed and that his older brother shows every sign of following is not right for him. Particularly after he realizes why his night with a willing girl was such a bust. But then there's a war on in Korea and McCarthy's hunting for reds in every corner. It's definitely NOT a time for being different than the herd.
I read this at the same time I was reading Absolutely Positively Not, a book about a gawky teen's (also named Steve) coming out in the naughty Oughts, and was continually struck by how far gay people, and people in general have come in 50 years. While this book is considerably more gloomy than the later work, the ending gives every indication of a happy ending when this Steven comes to terms with who he is and decides to live honestly and be his own man.
This is a read that (I'm guessing) will strike a chord with those who grew up in this era (before my time) and it's certainly not as gloomy as a few other books that I've read dealing with homosexuality in the era after WWII but don't expect rainbows and unicorns.
BTW... the naked man on the cover with the aviator sunglasses and the very 70's haircut seems to have no relationship to the story. Definitely NOT the Irish protagonist described within.
I read this at the same time I was reading Absolutely Positively Not, a book about a gawky teen's (also named Steve) coming out in the naughty Oughts, and was continually struck by how far gay people, and people in general have come in 50 years. While this book is considerably more gloomy than the later work, the ending gives every indication of a happy ending when this Steven comes to terms with who he is and decides to live honestly and be his own man.
This is a read that (I'm guessing) will strike a chord with those who grew up in this era (before my time) and it's certainly not as gloomy as a few other books that I've read dealing with homosexuality in the era after WWII but don't expect rainbows and unicorns.
BTW... the naked man on the cover with the aviator sunglasses and the very 70's haircut seems to have no relationship to the story. Definitely NOT the Irish protagonist described within.
November 21, 2013
A decent coming of age novel, set in the early 50's. It was a pretty short book. What I liked best was the insight into gay life for someone from Irish American Catholic families compared to other family histories and religions I've read about. Definitely seemed autobiographical and very personal in that regard.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews