Gay Fiction Speaks: Conversations with Gay Novelists

Toward the end of his interview here, David Leavitt abruptly states that asking if ""gay literature"" exists is the wrong question: ""[T]o me the important question is: `Is there such a thing as a gay reader?' That's infinitely more relevant. What's important is whether there are people who seek out books with gay content."" This shift in focus gives much of this volume a fresh sense of purpose and meaning. Canning, who teaches American and English literature at Britain's Sheffield University, has produced in-depth interviews with 12 noted gay American and British novelists (John Rechy, Dennis Cooper, Patrick Gale, James Purdy, Edmund White among them). Aside from placing themselves within a social and historical tradition of ""gay writing,"" the featured authors offer little evidence of an innate ""sensibility."" The pleasure of the interviews comes from Canning's ability to prompt quirky and ingenious responses from his subjects. Often, these include bluntly negative assessments of the works of others, though more commonly they are supportive and incisive, as when Dennis Cooper graciously underplays his enormous influence on other writers, or when Alan Gurganus discusses the place of homosexuality in the tradition of the Southern gothic. Each of the pieces clearly conveys the voice of the writer (James Purdy's idiosyncratic speech is captured beautifully), while as a whole, the book illustrates how these serious artists negotiate the cultural minefields of literary and identity politics in a marketplace that both values and devalues them as ""gay."" (Feb.)