“If art is to confront AIDS more honestly… Edmund White, “Esthetics and Loss,” Artforum, January 1987; reprinted in Bergman, ed., The Burning Library, 216. White compares the surprisingly tough An Early Frost to Love Story. Did he ever see Love Story? For that matter, did he ever see Frost?
“pure twaddle” Ed Sikov, New York Native, March 2, 1987, 14. Sikov had a lot of fun at the expense of White’s pomposity. When White cryptically says the prevailing mood in the gay community is one of “evanescence… just like the Middle Ages,” Sikov imagines a scene outside the Chelsea gym: “How ya doin’, Butch?” “I’m feeling evanescent today, Larry—you know, kinda like Chartres in 1348.”
his appearances were often unpredictable. Patrick Merla, interview with the author, October 2009. Baldwin was represented by the Jay Acton agency, where Merla worked. Merla tells a story about going down to Washington, D.C., in 1979 or 1980 with a contract for Baldwin to sign so they could pay him. Merla had to ambush Baldwin at a black church where Baldwin was speaking. There, too, Baldwin was late.
“Whatever the fuck your uncle was… James Baldwin, Just Above My Head (New York: Dial, 1979), 27.
“They walked in the light of each other’s eyes… Ibid., 183.
“There were no X-rated movies then… James Baldwin, “Freaks and the Ideal of American Masculinity,” in Collected Essays, 819.
“I quickly learned that my existence was the punchline… Ibid., 819.
CHAPTER 18. LAUGHTER IN THE DARK
“Laugh and you are free.” Charles Ludlam, “Confessions of a Farceur,” Ridiculous Theater: Scourge of Human Folly, ed. Steven Samuels (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1992), 50.
“It’s got great ghosts… Ibid., 89.
“I think that I am the Camille of our era… Ibid., 43.
“No faggots in the house?” Charles Ludlam, Camille, in The Complete Plays of Charles Ludlam (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 246. The speech continues: “Open the window, Nanine. See if there are any in the street.”
“that golden hysteria of taking the situations in old movies to a logical extreme… Pauline Kael, When the Lights Go Down (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980), 504–505.
“We decided we gays have been through enough… Quoted in David Kaufman, Ridiculous! The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam (New York: Applause Books, 2002), 405.
McCauley’s tale of friendship between a gay man and straight woman found a huge audience among straight women… I witnessed this firsthand when another novelist, Jesse Green, and I read with McCauley at Scribner’s Bookstore in New York in 1988. After we all read, the audience was told to line up in front of each author for his autograph. Green and I got short lines of four or five readers apiece. McCauley’s line ran the length of the store all the way to the street and was almost entirely female—with a scattering of gay men. Green and I were more amused than envious.
37,000 cases of AIDS in the United States… Patrick Merla, “A Normal Heart,” in We Must Love One Another or Die, 50.
“At the rate we are going, you could be dead in less than five years… Larry Kramer, Reports from the Holocaust, 128.
Michael Petrelis of Lavender Hill was in the audience that night… Michael Petrelis, interview by Sarah Schulman, “Interview #020,” ACT UP Oral History Project, http://www.actuporalhistory.org/interviews/index.html.
“We have to go after the FDA—fast… Merla, “A Normal Heart,” 50.
He decided ACT UP was too ad hoc, too democratic. He wanted more structure… Larry Kramer, interview by Sarah Schulman, “Interview #035,” ACT UP Oral History Project. (The Oral History Project is an invaluable resource.)
“Larry Kramer forms an organization… David Feinberg, Spontaneous Combustion (New York: Viking, 1991), 225.
“White Jew Georgetown Faggot… Larry Kramer, Just Say No: A Play about a Farce (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 10.
“having written the script and articulated his hostilities… Mel Gussow, “Skewers for the Political in Kramer’s ‘Just Say No,’ ” New York Times, October 21, 1988. http://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/21/theater/reviews-theater-skewers-for-the-political-in-kramer-s-just-say-no.html?scp=1&sq=just%20say%20no%20by%20larry%20kramer&st=cse.
“Molly, that’s the man… Quoted by Calvin Trillin, “Three Friends,” in We Must Love One Another or Die, 310.
“He is very fat… Larry Kramer, “Interview with Gore Vidal,” QW magazine, 1992; reprinted in Conversations with Gore Vidal (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005), 156.
“There has been talk in gay historical circles… Ibid., 167. One could write a book on gay Lincoln, and people have. The facts are simple: Lincoln shared a room and a bed in his twenties with another man, Joshua Speed, for four years when he was starting out as a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois. Shared beds were not uncommon in the nineteenth century (and well into the twentieth century, before affluence, sexual awareness, and central heating changed people’s sleeping arrangements). There were sometimes other men sleeping in the same room as Lincoln and Speed. Lincoln often shared beds with still other men when he traveled the rural court circuit. He and Speed each married women and they drifted apart until Lincoln became president and they resumed their correspondence. The later letters are mostly about slavery, which Speed supported. (He appears not to have voted for his former bedmate in the 1860 election.) Speed’s older brother became a member of Lincoln’s cabinet.
Neither Lincoln nor Speed was secretive about their friendship or the shared bed. In fact, our prime source is Speed himself, who saved Lincoln’s letters and wrote an account of their friendship for Lincoln’s law partner and early biographer, William Herndon. There’s an intelligent telling of the tale by Jonathan Ned Katz in his book, Love Stories (which is more ambiguous than Kramer claims), and a silly one in The Intimate Abraham Lincoln by C. A. Tripp (which argues, among other things, that Lincoln was not just bisexual but predominantly gay and clearly a “top,” and that Speed must’ve been impotent with his wife since he includes fine descriptions of clouds and landscapes in a letter to her).
Kramer seems to believe two men can’t share a bed without having sex, and they can’t have sex without falling in love. I think he’s wrong on both counts, but especially the second. Nothing I’ve read by or about Lincoln convinces me that he fell in love with men. Politicians are wired differently than other people—and Lincoln lived for politics—but I find no place in his biographical puzzle to put this missing piece. It does not give me new understanding of him. Nor do I see what gay people gain from claiming him as a secret brother. What do we win with an Honest Abe who spent his life lying to himself and to others? It’s hardly a home run for our team.
A gay-related sidenote: Joshua Speed’s younger brother, Philip, married Emma Keats, the niece of poet John Keats. Keats’s brother George had emigrated to Louisville; many of the poet’s famous letters were written to him there. Years later, in 1882, when Oscar Wilde toured America, Emma Keats Speed heard him speak in Louisville. Wilde praised Keats in his talk—the doomed boy poet was an early gay icon—and the niece, who was in her sixties, invited Wilde home and showed him her uncle’s letters and manuscripts. Wilde was so appreciative that she later sent him one of the manuscripts. (Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, 203; Ellmann knows nothing about Emma’s brother-in-law or the Lincoln connection.)
CHAPTER 19. ANGELS
He was born in New York in 1956… Most of the biographical material is from John Lahr, “Tony Kushner: After Angels,” in Honky Tonk Parade: New Yorker Profiles of Show People (Woodstock: Overlook Press, 2005). This is easily the single best portrait of Kushner as both an artist and a man.
“I wouldn’t want to be the father of Tchaikovsky… William Kushner, quoted in Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner, documentary, directed by Frieda Lee Mock (2006). Produced by American Film Foundation, available on DVD from Balcony Releasing.
He wanted to write but was afraid he wasn’t good enough… Tony Kushner, videotaped convers
ation, Dallas Museum, Dallas, TX, June 10, 2009. http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Tony+Kushner&view=detail&mid=3D6628A98D1F6B1A96203D6628A98D1F6B1A9620&first=0&FORM=LKVR.
“my former lover, my forever friend… Tony Kushner, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes; Part One: Millennium Approaches (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1993), x.
a long list of favorite writers… Charlotte Stroudt, “The Proust Questionnaire” originally published in a study guide for the 1995 Baltimore Center production of Slavs!; reprinted in Robert Vorlicky, ed., Tony Kushner in Conversation, 126.
“You, or/the loss of you… Tony Kushner, “The Second Month of Mourning,” in Thinking about the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995), 213.
“The problem is we have a standard of what evil is… Tony Kushner, A Bright Room Called Day; reprinted in Plays by Tony Kushner (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1992), 50–51.
“Perhaps if the world were not actually on the brink of war… Frank Rich, “Making History Repeat, Even Against Its Will,” New York Times, January 8, 1991. http://theater.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9D0CE0DB103AF93BA35752C0A967958260&scp=3&sq=bright%20room%20called%20day&st=cse.
A few years earlier Kushner had had a dream about a sick friend… Boris Kachka, “How I Made It: Tony Kushner on ‘Angels in America,’ ” New York, April 7, 2008. http://nymag.com/anniversary/40th/culture/45774/.
“For the first-rate artist, there’s a moment… Quoted in Lahr, “Tony Kushner: After Angels,” 284.
“He sees how ridiculous the world is… Tony Kushner, “A Fan’s Forward,” in Charles Ludlam, The Mystery of Irma Vep and Other Plays (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2001), vii.
“I never drink. And I never take drugs…. Kushner, Angels in America; Part One, 32.
“Homosexuals are not men who sleep with other men… Ibid., 45.
Kushner has said that Louis is the character most like himself. Lahr, “Tony Kushner: After Angels,” 285.
“You sonofabitch… Kushner, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes; Part Two: Perestroika (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1994), 126.
“the most thrilling American play in years… Frank Rich, “Embracing All Possibilities in Art and Life,” New York Times, May 5, 1993. http://theater.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9f0ce2dc1431f936a35756c0a965958260&scp=1&sq=angels%20in%20america&st=cse. The review of the Mark Taper production, also full of praise, was titled “Marching Out of the Closet, Into History.” The Times never tired of the closet metaphor.
“a dialectically shaped truth.” Quoted in Lahr, “Tony Kushner: After Angels,” 274.
“Greetings, Prophet;… Kushner, Angels in America; Part One, 119.
“Open me Prophet. I I I I am/The Book… Tony Kushner, Angls in America; Part Two, 47.
“I want more life. I can’t help myself… Ibid., 135–136.
“I had the most remarkable dream… Ibid., 140.
“the play advocates the extinction of moral restraints… Roger Shattuck, “Scandal and Stereotypes on Broadway,” in Salmagundi, Spring–Summer 1995; reprinted in Candor and Perversion, 388. Shattuck can’t even get the subtitle right, calling it “A Gay Fantasy on American Themes.”
“a second-rate play written by a second-rate playwright… Lee Siegel, New Republic, December 29, 2003. http://www.tnr.com/article/angles-america. He claims “the device of the angel is wonderfully campy, akin to the wild farces of Charles Ludlam.” No, it’s not. “The angel is also a woman—with eight vaginas, we are told: the vagina dialogues!—who, in some sense, is tempting Prior to reject his love of men and live a ‘normal’ life….” But she also has eight penises and the future she offers is hardly normal. And so on. One suspects that if Siegel hadn’t been bashing a popular gay writer the New Republic wouldn’t have run such an incoherent essay. But they also ran his equally incoherent essay praising Stanley Kubrick’s last movie, Eyes Wide Shut, as a masterpiece that was hated by Americans because we are all so stupid and corrupt.
“The enormous success of this muddled and pretentious play is a sign… Leo Bersani, Homos (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 69.
“Gay life—and gay death—surely awaits something grander and subtler than this…. never ascended… above a West Village version of Neil Simon… Andrew Sullivan, “Washington Diarist,”The New Republic, June 21, 1993, 46. A curious note: John Simon quoted Sullivan in his generally positive review of Angels in New York magazine. Identifying the naysayer as “the homosexual editor of the New Republic,” Simon could criticize a gay play without being accused again of being homophobic. (His chief criticism of the play was that despite it being well-written and full of good parts for actors, none of its characters come through its seven hours with their beliefs changed. But one could make the same complaint about the characters of two other American classics, A Long Day’s Journey Into Night and A Streetcar Named Desire.)
“I used to have a crush on Andrew… Tony Kushner, “A Socialism of the Skin (Liberation, Honey!),” Nation, July 4, 1994; reprinted in Thinking about the Longstanding Problems, 20.
“Bruce doesn’t like it when gay men get dishy… Ibid., 21–22.
All in all, it was a lively hour of television. Charlie Rose, PBS, June 24, 1994. The show can be seen on Google Video (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1121662526008590137); the transcript can be read in Vorlicky, ed., Tony Kushner in Conversation, 93–104.
“a pretentious left-wing screed… Quoted, with many other Angel-related entries, in another man’s blog: The Sacred Moment, by Arthur Silber, January 3, 2004. http://thesacredmoment.blogspot.com/2004/01/angels-in-america-hymn-to-life.html. (These are no longer available on Sullivan’s own blog site, The Daily Dish, which does not include an archive.)
Kushner always strove to give Sullivan his due. He acknowledged the real pain in Sullivan’s essay, both in his own essay and on Charlie Rose. Later, in an interview in Salon, he said of Sullivan, “His homosexuality gave him a streak of decency.” To my knowledge, Sullivan has never had a word of praise for Kushner.
The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide… A chapter of the novel is published in Vorlicky, ed., Tony Kushner in Conversation.
“We won’t die secret deaths anymore… Kushner, Angels in America; Part Two, 148.
CHAPTER 20. RISING TIDE
a group of editors and writers… The first organizers of the Publishing Triangle were Michael Denneny of St. Martin’s Press, David Groff of Crown, Trent Duffy of Dutton, and Robert Riger of the Book of the Month Club. They were soon joined by others, including editor Carol DeSantis of Dutton and publicist Michelle Karlsberg.
The first two OutWrites… The panels and readings in San Francisco were organized by Jeffrey Escoffier, those in Boston by Michael Bronski.
“I don’t think being gay is a subject any more than being straight is a subject…. Quoted in Mel Gussow, Edward Albee: A Singular Journey, 350.
“Boo away… Quoted by Michael Bronski in conversation with the author, June 2010.
“Brothers and sisters!” From the author’s notes, April 1, 1992.
“I still don’t know if the rectum is a grave… Tony Kushner, “On Pretentiousness”; reprinted in Thinking about the Longstanding Problems, 73.
“Baking lasagna has long been my own personal paradigm… Ibid., 61–62.
“Oral support of Edmund White at the Academy Meeting… Ned Rorem, Lies: A Diary 1986–1999 (Washington: Counterpoint, 2000), 307–308.
“Two Deaths, Two Lives” This essay by J. D. McClatchy appears in Edmund White, ed., Loss within Loss (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000). McClatchy gives some of Merrill’s reasons for secrecy, and they aren’t pretty: “He didn’t want to become a spokesman, a hero, a case study. He didn’t want to run away with the AIDS circus, in the company of a menagerie of less than minor talents hoisting a banner” (225).
“not good enough… “Michael Cunnin
gham,” in Richard Canning, Hear Us Out: Conversations with Gay Novelists (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 91.
“I had my head in the oven… “Michael Cunningham,” in Philip Gambone, Something Inside: Conversations with Gay Fiction Writers, 143.
“She looked at me as if she were standing on a platform… Michael Cunningham, A Home at the End of the World (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1990), 76.
A few lesbian journalists even complained… One occasionally heard this in conversation, but critic Victoria Brownworth also made the charge in an article, “Someone Has to Say No,” in Lambda Book Report 2, no. 7 (November 1990).
There is no denying that gay male books did better than lesbian books, but other factors were involved. First there was the economics: anecdotally, gay men bought more hardcover books than lesbians did. Whether this was because gay men had more money or because lesbians were more frugal or because gay men outnumbered gay women is a topic for a different history. Whatever the cause, lesbian books were slower to turn a profit. Then there were the choices made by the editors. There were plenty of gay men and gay women in editorial staffs, but the men were in a better position—and were more willing—to stick their necks out for their own books. Carol DeSantis at Dutton took huge risks when she published novelist Sarah Schulman. Few of her peers at other mainstream houses did likewise. Finally, as several lesbian writers have pointed out, the women had fewer “out” elders. No major lesbian novelist spoke about her sexuality in the way that Christopher Isherwood or even Gore Vidal spoke about theirs. Adrienne Rich might talk of it in her poems and essays, but Susan Sontag remained coy about her sex life until she died. Gertrude Stein spent most of her life writing in modernist code. Alice Walker came out only late in her career.
“My own immorality didn’t trouble me… Edmund White, The Beautiful Room Is Empty (New York: Knopf, 1988), 50–51.
Now everyone is at work on him at once… Ibid., 78.
Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America Page 41