A Gathering of Angels
by Larry Dean Hamilton
Sigma Logo Books, 205 pages, $19.95
A GATHERING OF ANGELS, by gay Texas poet Larry Dean Hamilton, relates a remarkable life story through a lyrical, sometimes dreamlike prose style. Although the work spans several decades, the focus is on the author’s coming of age and coming out experiences, largely in the underground gay world of Austin during the 1960’s. Essentially a personal memoir, the book is an impressionistic retelling of events that acquired their particular significance for the author from the vantage point of later life.
Some of the book’s most poignant scenes arise out of the author’s experiences growing up on the Texas Gulf Coast in the 1950’s. He was subjected to abuse and social isolation by his peers, which left him at a disadvantage in forging the human connections he would later regard as life’s ultimate end. Like gay youths before and since, he struggled to develop a healthy sense of self-love. It was only when he entered the University of Texas in 1962 that he began real self-discovery and growth. In one powerful scene, he recounts a suicide attempt with surreal, dreamlike imagery. Out of that trauma, with the support of his colorful array of friends, he was able to find his life’s path.
Through communion with friends and lovers, Hamilton approached his own understanding of what salvation is. He came to see a Whitmanesque sort of fraternal love, the love of comrades, as the furthest reach of human potential. But after surveying the relationships that shaped his life as a younger man, a wistful Hamilton intimates that few have survived the passage of time. Again and again he tells with evident regret of connections being severed in one way or another. Still he maintains a compassionate outlook and faith in the possibilities of human interconnection.
A challenge for the reader is a lack of narrative flow in the book, which doesn’t follow a chronological sequence. It’s more a meditation on acquiring wisdom and understanding through experience than an episodic account of the author’s life. As a result, the reader must wrestle with considerable discontinuity: transitions can be abrupt and there are frequent digressions. Sometimes we jump from one time period to another and back again. The profusion of male names, some of which are mentioned only in passing, can be confusing. Still, it’s easy to pick out the major influences in his life, which do help to unify the story.
The most compelling passages describe intense associations formed during young adulthood. While in college he developed a brief but significant attachment to a young hustler on the streets of Austin named Slade. While Slade had little in this world, he gave freely of himself to the author. He was most generous in giving his uncomplicated approval. Slade’s enthusiasm rubbed off on Hamilton and buoyed his self-esteem at a crucial juncture. Sadly, though, the young man disappeared suddenly, and Hamilton was left with the impression that he’d come to some harm.
More painful still was the author’s love for a teen a year or so younger than himself. After his first year away at college, he returned to his hometown and spent an idyllic summer building a boat with Ronnie. They were inseparable for that summer, and their intimacy tested the bounds of platonic love, though they were unable to acknowledge this. After a drunken romp in bed one Christmas Eve, Hamilton tried coming out to Ronnie only to discover that the latter could not accept the idea of one man loving another in this way. Like so many gay men who have fallen in love with men determined to live as heterosexuals, Hamilton was left feeling rejected and diminished.
Somewhat disappointing is how lightly the author touches on his time in New York in the late 60’s and 70’s. He and a friend happened to be walking through Sheridan Square on the night of June 28, 1969, when they passed a large crowd gathering outside the Stonewall Inn. Hamilton disliked the Inn because it was “dark and confining under Mafia and Syndicate control,” so they walked right past what became the Stonewall Riots. This episode symbolizes the way in which Hamilton’s perspective is experiential and ahistorical: he mentions the Riots only in passing.
Hamilton moves and inspires with his resilient optimism and compassion. He takes from the sum total of his experiences a quasi-religious devotion to the ideal of spiritual love and connection. With a clear-eyed understanding of homophobia and hate, he’s able to articulate and hold to a vision of the transformative power of gay pride. Despite his experience with the impermanence of human relationships, he espouses a core belief that through it all none of us is really alone.
