or thepasticheconstructionof that play’s score (“the tweepolka
of ‘WhyCan’t the English?,’ the soft-shoe ease of ‘I’manOr-
dinary Man,’ which suggests an old music-hall song and
dance”).
Deftly organizing a potentially overwhelming amount of
factual information into awitty and smooth-flowing narrative,
Morddenmentors his reader as generously and as gladly as he
himselfwasmentoreddecades earlier by those onetime chorus
boys and stagemanagerswho revealed to himthe tricks of the
great stagemagicians.
T
HEROLEof thementor in the evolutionof gay
culture is a theme that reverberates through
Mordden’s fiction. Bud, the narrator of Mord-
den’s quintet of novels, repeatedly asserts that
gay life is “an essentially civilizing force, like
prep school or Peggy Lee albums.” He takes a
particular pleasure “to introduce someone to something in-
structive or delightful that might—who knows?—change his
life.”More importantly, he argues, the gaymenwho havemi-
grated topost-StonewallManhattan are “cut off fromour fam-
ilies of origin and the social system they champion or simply
stooge for unthinkingly.Wemakeour own families, invent
our
system. You need smarts to do that. So—education. The older
amongus kindof take care of the fledglings.”
Theneed“tohelp thenewcomers”becomes almost a battle
cry through the five books.And, much in the samemanner as
landladyAnnaMadrigal selects renterswhograduallycoalesce
into an alternative family inArmisteadMaupin’s
Tales of the
City
,Budandhisbest friendDennisSavagecreateonWest 53rd
Street a capacious household that shelters, among others, two
naïfs newly arrived inManhattan and in danger of being swal-
lowed up by life on the street; a stud savant who occasionally
sleepsonBud’s living roomsofaandbrings a remarkably fresh
moral perspective to the group’s affairs; a handsome publisher
who leaves the closet in hismid-thirties andmust learn to ne-
gotiate gay life at the height of theAIDS epidemic; and—as
Bud finally passes into his forties—a clique of twenty-some-
thingChelseaBoys towhomBud serves as denmother andde-
fault soundingboard.
Morddenoffers, ineffect, amodern takeon theclassical ed-
ucational institutionof
pederastia
, andone that hasas far-reach-
ing personal and social consequences as the ancient Greek
model. Across the five books, onetime enemies bond in the
kitchenas themoreexperiencedDennisSavage takesCosgrove
“stage by stage through some of his dishes” and the former
street hustler learns thesecretsof averydifferent “trade.”Aban-
donedmonths earlier byhis own lover,DennisSavageprotests
no longer “havingsomecuteguydosomemystifyingand trou-
bling thing, then suddenly turn tome with that Peter Pan be-
wilderment where they hold on for dear life.”Attempting to
explain a difficult encounter that Dennis Savage has had at a
college reunion, Budobserves that “the truest friends are those
who teach us something that matters greatly, even something
withhard feelings in it: and those friends stayessential tous for
life, not only part of our past but of our future as well. Our
teachers are alwayswith us.”
AlthoughMordden concluded his quintet with
How’s Your
Romance?
in2005, the last storyofhisnewcollection,
ThePas-
sionate Attention of an InterestingMan
, reunites Bud, Dennis
Savage,Cosgroveand the final volume’sChelseaBoys inaplot
situation that seems contemporaneouswith the action of
Some
Men Are Lookers
(1997), the fourth volume in the series. No
matter that the storymaybe a chapter excised from
Lookers
or
Romance
by an editor concerned about the book’s length: it is
good to hear friends’ familiar voices again. In “The Food of
Love,”Bud follows theprogressof handsome, forty-something
actor friendAlex’s affairwithhis female roommate’s emotion-
ally domineering and presumptively straight boyfriend.Mean-
while, anactingclass takenbyCosgrove and theChelseaBoys
allowsMordden toexplorehowgaysgenerallyaddresspersonal
problems through role-playing, andmore specificallyhowAlex
can only learn his own sexual character through improvisation
bothon stage andoff.
For Mordden, gaymen only discover their true selves by
first rejectingoutright the roles imposedbystraight societyand
then by improvising newones. In his fictionMordden contin-
ues to be fascinated by the creativeways inwhich gay society
fashionsandconstantlyrefashions itself—that is, by theways in
whichgaymenareeducated (by theater, bysex) and in turned-
ucate“thenewcomers.” InMordden’sworld, the samedynamic
that governs the transfer of professional knowledge fromstage
manager tochorusboy tostarry-eyednewcomer just off thebus
from thewilds of Pennsylvania operates as well to protect the
most vulnerable amongus ingay society.As oneofMordden’s
characters says, “Everyone teaches andeveryone learns.That’s
friendship, ace.”
May–June 2014
15
A
VAILABLE ON
WWW
.
BARNESANDNOBLE
.
COM
&
WWW
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AMAZON
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COM
T
HE TWELVE STORIES
in this collection trace
the lives of gay men
and the evolution of
the military establish-
ment’s view of homo-
sexuality from World
War II, when homo-
sexuality was punish-
able by imprisonment
and hospitalization, to
the present day’s bor-
derless war on terror
and the repeal ofDon't
AskDon't Tell.
The issues become per-
sonalwhenwemeet the
men who served their
country with honor.
Men like Chip and Kanoah in 1943, fighter pilots who have each
other’sbackeveryday.OrBrazieDeschinny,whoservedduring the
firstGulfWar.Or the twoJorges, asniper teampar excellence, serv-
ing in theKoreanDMZ.
PETERMELILLO’S
GAYWARSTORIES
