Tom’s Comments (group member since Feb 18, 2009)

Tom’s comments from the LGBTQA Group Books group.

Good idea. If there is interest in reading an LGBT classic, rather than something newly published, I'd recommend James Baldwin's "Giovanni's Room." Maybe younger readers will consider it dated and too closeted, but I think it's still relevant to many of today's gay and bi men and the women who try to love them.

A very powerful story. Although the prose style at times annoyed me, with its frequent gushing tone, I came to realize this book was probably the author's way of releasing long pent-up emotions. I lived in Buffalo for a few years in the early 70s, and could relate to the anecdotes of factory life. But the day to day risks facing the gender-bender, especially back in that era, were an eye-opener for me. I wonder if today's young butch lesbians face the same level of violence and police brutality. Jess turned out to be a complicated character -- seemingly tough on the outside yet given to frequent tears when alone with a girlfriend. The chapters on her move to New York were the most moving part of the narrative, I thought. And her decision to become a union organizer represented a tremendous personal triumph. Given all the hardship she faced, she could have ended up self-destructing through drugs, alcohol or suicide, as some of her friends did. I hope this tale of survival some day becomes movie material when Hollywood gets brave enough to tackle a transgender story.

From the www.iol.ie website cited by RDM, here is an excerpt from a 2002 "Advocate" piece on O'Neill. Deals with his coming-out travails and eventual reconciliation with his own family:

"In 1988, O’Neill was hounded by the press after the death of his partner, BBC talk show host Russell Harty. O’Neill’s picture was splashed across every newspaper as Harty’s lover – that’s the unimaginably awkward way he came out to his family – and callous reporters offered him 50,000 pounds for an interview. Worse still, O’Neill says he was treated horrendously by Harty’s relatives, who immediately threw him out of the home the couple had shared for years. “I was actually living on the streets of London,” says O’Neill. “I had nothing. They burnt my clothes. They stole my car. They even wanted my dog.”

"O’Neill sank into depression for years. To his credit, he resisted all the dirty money tossed at him, and when his novel hit, he hoped the link to his tabloid past would never come up. He worried people would think he wanted to capitalize on his celebrity connection. He even allowed a couple of mistaken impressions. Although the press widely reported that “At Swim, Two Boys” is O’Neill’s debut, the fact is that Harty, an older mentor figure, had encouraged him to write two earlier, far less successful novels. “I don’t consider them to be mine,” says O’Neill. “They’re from what I would consider a previous incarnation.”

"But “At Swim” is a book he proudly claims. And its success has changed one person in particular. O’Neill’s mum, who didn’t post a picture of her son among the family photos for many years for fear of being asked when he’d be marrying a woman.

O’Neill’s current partner, a French dancer-turned-masseur named Julien Joly, tried to mend the situation after their first visit. “When we got home, he sent a picture of me,” says O’Neill. “The next time we went there, still no picture of me. Then when all this (the fanfare over the book) happened, my mother started showing the newspaper clippings to the neighbors.”

O’Neill laughs. “They all said, ‘God, she’s got Alzheimer’s. She’s inventing this new son,’ because they had never heard of me before.”

This was my second time reading this novel, and some parts are still a puzzle to me, especially the character of Anthony MacMurrough. Are we to embrace him as the "pedophile with a heart of gold?" O'Neill seems to be suggesting MacMurrough is experiencing some form of Easter season redemption as he rescues Doyler, counsels the 2 boys like an old-auntie matchmaker, and then vaguely heads off to war to prove his manhood and defend the family name. It struck me as a hard-to-believe transformation for a person who in the early chapters was a cynical devotee of Oscar Wilde, thumbing his nose at middle-class morality.
The dual death at the conclusion -- one immediate, the other foreshadowed for a few years into the future -- still affected me deeply, a final gritty end to a book that depicts vividly a harsh time and place in history. I would love to see a film version of this book if handled with subtlety. The visual imagery could be overwhelming.

Thanks for the link to the website, which has several interesting articles by and about O'Neill, plus images.

This is my second time through the novel, and this time it seemed easier to get the hang of the dialect and peculiar word order. But I do find I have to read the text slowly, and reread some of the quotes twice, to get the full meaning. O'Neill feeds the reader just snippets of dialogue, so it takes a while to catch the drift. To help picture the seawall, and the Forty Foot, it may be useful to do a Google image search of Dublin Bay. So far I haven't located anything showing Glasthule streets leading down to the bay, but I'll keep looking. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone.

Re lesbian-themed books, I'd be glad to try one or two of the classics in that category if our women members care to nominate them.

The early chapters of this novel irritated me -- Nathan's first-person voice seemed shallow and judgmental, and the slang filled with cliches -- but the book grew on me as I plowed on. A vacation or party get-together of diverse characters has been a situation used in a lot of gay novels and plays -- decades ago in the Gordon Merrick novels, for example, and then the infamous birthday party of "Boys in the Band." A lot of the acidic dialogue in this book reminded me of the dishing in the "Boy in the Band" but at a dumbed-down "Valley Girls" level. Gradually, though, I developed an interest in the characters, especially Simon and Tommy, even though Nathan's rantings seemed to be obscuring them, rather than revealing them. At its core, I would say this book is about Nathan's love/hate relationship with both his father and with his brother. Not sure I could buy the ending as realistic. For hundreds of pages, Tommy is presented (through his brother's eyes) as a self-centered wanton, and then, all of sudden at the end, becomes the guilt-ridden hero who opts for suicide. We also are left hanging with the question of what happened to Simon. It's a great plot for a film treatment; let's see what some directer might make of it.

In case you'd like to try something Irish to observe St. Patrick's Day, I'd nominate "At Swim Two Boys" by Jamie O'Neill. Lengthy but packed with a lot of rich historical detail, and the nude swimming scenes cry out for an intelligent film treatment along the lines of "Billy Elliot."

Stephen wrote: "Just thought I'd drop a note to remind all that-- in spite of what *they* would have you think-- Amazon is not the only bookstore in the world! LOL!! I invite and encourage you to use Lambda Risi..."

R Jay wrote: "Thanks Troy for getting the book group started. I joined last night and ordered a copy of the book from Amazon. I look forward to participating."

Amen, Stephen. There are thousands of independent booksellers out there beyond the Amazon orbit (I'm one of them.) You can find them listed at Abebooks.com, Biblio.com, iobabooks.com, alibris.com, bookfinder.com, addall.com, etc., not to mention the ubiquitous eBay. Also, don't forget your local library, which may have periodic Friends of the Library book sales. My neighborhood library has a gay-friendly volunteer who puts aside LGBT-themed books for me that I buy for a dollar or less.

Just discovered this group -- nice to know there is some "family" out there. Looking forward to sifting thru your comments and joining in after I find a copy of "The Boys Bishop." -- Tom aka BeachcomberT at KingChamp Books, Daytona Beach.