February 1999 Cover
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A tale of three books
By
Mitzel
We now come to write about the following: three good-looking white guys with books coming out. No, this will not be completely Book-Chat. I want to take these
guys as a snapshot of what is out there in texts that tell us where we are and what we might aim for.
First up? Matthew Stadler. Stadler lives in Seattle. He has published three novels, all brilliantly conceived. His latest, due out in February, is
Allan Stein, a madly brilliant confection, much in the line of the previous three-- except no music, oddly, in this one. Poor Matthew was one of the gay and lesbian writers given the ax by
the Rupert Murdoch goons at HarperCollins a year or so back; many fine ones went, including Rebecca Brown. Harper has since seen a purge of titles by gay men
and lesbians-- excepting Armistead Maupin, who, happy for him, goes on and on. Stadler found a new home at Grove Press, and R. Brown at City Lights, publishers
who are interested in literary writers-- Harper will have its list of diet, excitement, and exotiaca. Mr. Murdoch could really do the world a favor by taking a powder.
The Hemlock Society has many recommendations-- and a toll-free number!
Allan Stein is the name of the lad who was Gertrude Stein's nephew-- not famous Leo Stein's boy but his brother Michael's (all the Stein siblings fled California
for Paris)-- and Allan may have been the actual lad who was painted by Picasso for his Blue Boy. This is one of the premises of the book. There are several others.
The protagonist of the story assumes a fake identity to get to Paris to investigate the snarky world of artistic provenance, and while in Paris starts an affair with a
15-year-old guy, and they run off... and, well, you have to read the book.
Next cute white gay guy up? Brad Gooch, an interesting man with a past. He published a book of short stories maybe 20 years back that was a great debut.
Brad Gooch was also one of the great beauties of gay life in New York at that time. He worked as a model, wrote books, got a graduate degree, wrote a tale with a great
title, Scary Kisses (sounds like a candy at the Bijou when you were a kid). Then something terrific happened to him. He got to write the bio of Frank O'Hara, a book
long needed, and Brad was the right vessel. He also-- suprisingly-- made OK money
on it. He told me that his project got caught in a bidding war and the price went through
the roof. Right on, Brother!
I see in the Simon and Schuster catalogue that Brother Brad has a new title in the lists:
Finding The Boyfriend Within: A Practical Guide For Tapping Into
The Source Of Love, Happiness, And Respect. It is a self-esteem book, a genre that lacks magic for me. But, like with his O'Hara book, which revealed Gooch's many
talents and gifts, I look forward to being surprised by a gifted writer in a genre I find a bit jejune. More interesting to me is the story of the great gay beauty as he matures in
a flesh-eating city like New York.
Next cute-gay-white-author stop? Also from Simon and Schuster comes the first book from the handsome Log Cabin front man, Rich Tafel. Rich is a cutie,
with great skin and a bright smile. He has now got published a book in which he tells all about his life as a openly gay Republican advocate, his trials, his travails, his
battles against, what in the catalogue copy is referred to as "the closed-minded views of the radical gay liberationists." Rich's book is called
Mr. Unpopular. Oh dear. It made me think of Myra Breckinridge's line: "Self-pity is not box-office!" Tafel is eager to let folks know he is a Baptist minister. When I read this in the catalogue, I had
a flash on the great Groucho Marx when he was host of the 50s hit TV show "You Bet Your Life." The show's bookers would recruit these weird-o folks, and
one afternoon, Groucho had before him a Baptist minister. Groucho said: "Sir, I see on your card that you're a Baptist minister." "Yes, Groucho, I am. And as a
Baptist minister, I'd like to congratulate you for all
the joy and laughter you've brought into the world." Groucho looked at the divine and said: "Since you're a Baptist minister, I'd
like to congratulate you on all the joy and laughter you've taken out of it!"
So here's our trinity, tri-play, triage, what you will. Stadler gives us breadth of imagination, intelligence, the risk of new
horizons. Gooch offers safety and some cleverness and predictability, now via therapy yak. Tafel offers the promise of the world which many seek
to escape-- crabbed, pinched, narrow, and conventional. Only Stadler understands the vastness of what must be the constellation of
the world of male homosexuality, one which includes the very active agency of the presence of pederasty, of a type in the tradition of
Gide, certainly, even more likely Whitman, and, yes, Pasolini, too. Absent the yeast of the pederastic impulse, gay life is flattened into
probably something in the vision of the Tafel element-- a bunch of old Aunties worrying about their 401K plans and will they even get the invite
to that party of the people who hate them. Yes, meet the Misses Weltschmerzes. I have always preferred the bright and the imaginative
to the dull and the predictable-- unlike, apparently the publishing world. It's a simple prejudice, and, sadly, one I don't get to indulge
in practice too often. **
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