A Smile in His Lifetime

by Joseph Hansen

Whit Miller was a struggling writer and a solidly married man. Then came success - and destruction. Of his marriage.And almost of himself. For Whit was gay and now there was nothing to repress who he was and what he a man to love, among so many men to love. And in an odyssey of desperate need and obsessive desire he journeyed to the heights and to the depths of the heart - and of the flesh...A Smile in His Lifetime"THE SEXUAL DRIVE OF A HUMAN BEING TREATED AS THE TORNADO IT REALLY RESEMBLES. YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO STOP READING...A NOVELTHAT SHOULDN'T BE MISSED." -The Reader, Los Angeles"A man confused, tormented and overwhelmed by his erotic disposition...essentially homosexual, though occasionally heterosexual, and sometimes just sexual... good, direct, penetrating...evokes the poignant peculiarities of L.A. in a way that compares well with Christopher Isherwood and Joan Didion." -Leonard Michaels, in New West"Courageous. Always on the mark in confronting even the darkest feelings." -New York Times Book Review"Impressive for its unrelenting honesty...often shattering." -Philadelphia Inquirer

Genres: Fiction, Gay, Gay Fiction, Mystery, LGBT

292 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Joseph Hansen (1923–2004) was an American author of mysteries. The son of a South Dakota shoemaker, he moved to a California citrus farm with his family in 1936. He began publishing poetry in the New Yorker in the 1950s, and joined the editorial teams of gay magazines ONE and Tangents in the 1960s. Using the pseudonyms Rose Brock and James Colton, Hansen published five novels and a collection of short stories before the appearance of Fadeout (1970), the first novel published under his own name.

The book introduced street-smart insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter, a complex, openly gay hero who grew and changed over the series’s twelve novels. By the time Hansen concluded the series with A Country of Old Men (1990), Brandstetter was older, melancholy, and ready for retirement. The 1992 recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Hansen published several more novels before his death in 2004.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought it in an antique store and was surprised by how good the writing is. Hansen has such a great sense of rhythm and pacing, both in terms of plotting and sentences. The details are great, too. Very vivid and engaging. I think it may be a product of the time it was written in - the last third of the book is brutal for our gay/bi protagonist. You spend 240 pages or so identifying with this wandering, unsatisfied soul, and in the end you watch him raked over the coals. The final image is curiously ambiguous, too. Is it heart-warming or is it ironic? Still, a quality read from a previously unknown author. Prepare yourself for some hollow, sad feelings and buckle in.

[Angel Pedroza · Rating 5 out of 5]

As one of the previous reviewers has stated I too found this book in a second hand shop and was delighted to find how very good this story was. I have read all of Joseph Hansen's detective series which is what drew to buying this one. I enjoyed this book very much.

[Tyler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why did Whit Miller marry? Author Joseph Hansen poses that in the first part of this book, a story in three parts for which Whit's life in the late 1960's forms the core. The tale has all the traces of the author's style: vivid prose, lots of people and dialog, steady pacing and well marked temporal shifts. Modern readers get a look at the plight of gay men coming to terms then with their sexuality.

The characters lack depth. Having become rich, Whit now wants a relationship. Though endowed with a healthy sex drive, he finds himself drawn only to the young and the beautiful. This alone counts for him as personality. That impulse repeats itself in one affair after another, and Whit never gains insight into his growing alienation.

"I wanted to belong to somebody," says one friend, and here lies another jinx. For Whit and the rest, dependence on others is an ideal they seek out. Emotions as such are a prime value. Oddly delirious acts and unlikely events tend to take readers out of the moment, as do one or two stylistic tics in the dialog. The characters' interests are limited largely to the vogue of an educated, academic West Coast elite.

The book has good and bad points. I liked the peek into the minds of gay men who lived through the terror of the mid-twentieth century. The rich detail takes in the vast expanse of Los Angeles right down to the working class areas and the nearby country, avoiding the bias of gay writers toward swank gay locales. Lovers of good prose will find the book a decent way to pass time.

[J.R. Tomlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always been really fond of this Hansen novel. It's certainly different from his well-known Brandstetter series. The protagonist has just about everything possible go wrong for him after finally, after years of struggle, achieving a much-deserved best seller. His wife, who has always known he was bisexual (although he considers himself at least primarily gay) decides to leave him because he no longer needs her, he becomes an alcoholic, falls in love with a young man with some serious problems, and then things get worse. Much worse. But you can't help cheering for him. I do wish the ending were a little less equivocal though.

[John]

This was a "find," a very well written and interesting journey of a gay writer traversing his first 35 or so years from the 50's through the early 80's. Life was different then, self acceptance was just becoming "a thing". Whit Miller traverses this in about as messy a fashion as he can possibly do, marrying and loving a woman but finding his passion is for men, mostly men who for one reason or another are broken themselves and cannot reliably reciprocate. Despite his intelligence (when did THAT ever help?) he cannot resist self-destructive relations with men (and two women) who are themselves struggling with how to love themselves and another.
Remarkably fine book.

[Virgowriter (Brad Windhauser) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Interesting relationship with Dell in the first part, but chaotic use of time in several places creates too much confusion about what’s a memory and what’s the character’s narrative present.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another forgotten-ish gay novel of the early 80’s. A little loosely constructed in a way that kept me from fully falling into the book, but really appreciated the sense of place and social position. Would have loved this with the plot redone a la Iris Murdoch.