In Search of Elizabeth Bishop
I REMEMBER it vividly. On October 7, 1979, having walked from a poetry workshop in Harvard Square to Sanders Theater for a reading by Elizabeth Bishop—a benefit for the journal…More
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The Sloth of Sadness
NEAR THE BEGINNING of A Single Man, the novel by Christopher Isherwood on which Tom Ford’s new movie [in 2009] is based, a college English professor named George tells…More
That Scene in The City and the Pillar
AT A TIME in the 1970s when talk at the playground was of the sex scene on page 36 of The Godfather, I was perpetually reading page 47 of…More
Why We Wished at The Well of Loneliness
I FIRST DISCOVERED The Well of Loneliness when I was growing up in my academic parents’ house full of books. I became aware that this book had been banned…More
Forster’s Maurice and the Birth of a Genre
IN MY YOUTH, I had a strong gaydar when it came to literature, reveling in the homosexual undertones of the classics. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe that…More
The Man Who Was Dorian Gray
WAS THERE a real-life model for Dorian Gray? Opinion among Wilde scholars is divided, but Jerusha Hull McCormack, who has written a book titled The Man Who Was Dorian Gray…More
Saints and Sinners Do New Orleans
IT’S EXHAUSTING being nice. I don’t even want to speak to the woman with neuropathy from Long Island that I sit beside on a bench outside the New Orleans airport…More
A 1967 Novel Brought an Old Love to Light
BRITISH PUBLIC SCHOOLS—an educational institution roughly the equivalent of the elite private male boarding school in the United States, but far more influential in the formation of social identity…More
On the Poetry of Unrequited Love
WHEN I WAS in the grip of despair about a situation of unrequited love, I decided to make a list of the benefits of that state. Alas, I cannot…More
The Poster That ‘Normalized’ Gay Sex
“FRIENDS and acquaintances were going to the hospital in droves,” recalled Robert Gray in a recent interview, reflecting upon the situation for gay men in 1984. “I remember men…More