Krista Humphrey | March/April 2015

NOTES

I. Prologue

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning (GLBTQ) characters have existed in mainstream fiction novels for many years. For a good deal of that time they were relegated to bit characters where they often fit a stereotype, or, in the rare novels where the protagonist was GLBTQ, the book was usually marketed to a niche audience. If it sold in the mainstream market at all it was usually due to the novelty of having a GLBTQ protagonist. So, what influences have enabled the reading public to accept GLBTQ protagonists? While some critics have argued the difference is that the successful books were marketed to mainstream readers rather than to a niche market, a close read of the successful novels finds several specific commonalities. Although most of the books that attempted to break into the market dealt in some way with the protagonist’s homosexuality, the novels that managed to succeed have shared three similar characteristics. The reader is allowed into the protagonist’s mind, the struggles with his or her orientation are not only present but accessible to the reader as an integral part of the story line, and those struggles have been tightly woven into a strong plot. In addition, the Stonewall Rebellion, when GLBTQ people fought back against the oppression that was the standard for the time, paved the way for readers to accept homosexual literature. The empowerment of GLBTQ people encouraged authors to openly feature a homosexual character as their protagonist in a way that came off as relatable to mainstream straight readers. Authors could write novels where a gay protagonist could be happy rather than the mere sufferer of the same tragic treatment he might have received in earlier literature.

II. Pre-Stonewall literature

In the beginning of the 20^th century, very little GLBTQ literature managed to make it into the mainstream literary consciousness, and the few that did were often censored, condemned, or resulted in legal problems for the authors. In the first few decades of the 20^th century, perhaps the most prominent GLBTQ author was lesbian writer Radclyffe Hall. Several of her works contained either clear or veiled lesbianism, and her book, The Well of Loneliness, had a lesbian protagonist. Similar to her modern contemporaries, her protagonist Stephen is open to the reader from the beginning, whether it is riding astride during a time when a colonel can say, “I never think girl children get the grip astride; they aren’t built for it, haven’t the necessary muscle,”¹ or later on when Stephen is teased because she is not very ladylike; she is in fact “as proud of her brains as her muscle,”² during a time when girls were expected to be neither strong nor smart. But in spite of Stephen’s strong character, the end of the book follows the conventions of the time, and there is no hope of happiness for her.

Despite the negative ending, the blatant sympathy and communication Stephen draws from the reader contributed to the censoring of The Well of Loneliness due to its lesbian content. “Hall’s effectiveness in engaging the reader’s sympathy and understanding alarmed the conservative moralists who succeeded in bringing the publisher before the Home Office in a highly publicized obscenity trial.”³ A critic said, “I would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel,” and the prosecuting attorney said, “‘a pure woman’ or a teenage boy reading about marriage between women would surrender to ‘libidinous thoughts.’”⁴ The trial did not lead to jail time for Hall, but resulted in a ban on the novel in England and all unsold copies were burned.⁵ After this, her American publisher also dropped Hall, although her “second (publisher) fought and eventually won an obscenity trial.”⁶

In the ’50s and ’60s, homosexual protagonists worked their way into a few works of fiction, among them novels by Jane Rule, James Baldwin, and Gore Vidal. But homosexuality was not portrayed as something positive or a fact of nature, and in fact  the psychiatric community classified it as a mental illness. The characters in these books almost never had a stable life, and it was never portrayed as something the protagonist could be proud of. An exception to this was Rule’s Desert of the Heart, at the end of which the two women choose to be together, come what may.

(Ann) “I’ll only draw it if I can live it.”
(Evelyn) “In a house by the river with me and your five photographs of children?’
“Anywhere.”
“For the while then,” Evelyn said, “For an indefinite period of time.”⁷

While Desert of the Heart positively portrays lesbianism between two women and had a happy ending,⁸ this was a very rare exception in the mainstream market. Most homosexual portrayals during this time featured a protagonist whose desires led to sadness, self-loathing, and condemnation from both within and from the public, and often ended in death, violence, or both.⁹

In Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar, the protagonist Jim falls in love with a childhood friend, Bob, after a weekend of lovemaking and friendship. They are separated, and Jim moves through life unable to find satisfaction or happiness with anyone, as he considers Bob to be his true love. Vidal’s original ending to the book had a tragic ending when “Jim strangles Bob after an unsuccessful (sexual) encounter.”¹⁰ Criticized as melodramatic and unrealistic, in 1968 Vidal was able to publish a revised version of the novel with a more realistic,¹¹ and darker ending, as Jim rapes Bob after Bob rejects Jim’s advances. Both of the versions of the violent ending echoed the current societal opinions of homosexuality of the time, that homosexuals were second-class, depraved, and in many ways sub-human.

Similar to the violence in The City and the Pillar, in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room the protagonist David is unable to reconcile his love for Giovanni with his feelings of what he “should” do—marry his girlfriend Hella and have babies. He tells Giovanni, “What kind of life can we have in this room?—this filthy little room. What kind of life can two men have together, anyway?”¹² After David rejects him, Giovanni spirals downward, accidentally kills a man, and is sentenced to death, while David loses his fiancée and is unable to come to terms with his sexuality. The ruling school of thought during this time held that homosexuals were not supposed to be able to be happy with themselves, to have a happy life, or be able to have a healthy relationship with another member of the same sex, and the literature of the time reflected that way of thinking. Michael N. Stanton writes in “Novel: Gay Male” in 2008: “A gay reader might take up Vidal or Baldwin glad that a major fact of his being could now be discussed in fiction, and put them down angered and saddened by their portrayals of inevitable misery.”¹³

One thing that must be noted about this pre-Stonewall literature, is that many of the traits that exist in successful modern novels do also exist in these novels. The quality, characterization, plots, and pacing of the books were sometimes critically praised. The fact that many of these books are still noted not only for their groundbreaking content, but also as works of literature, testifies to their value. Because of public attitudes of the time however, the way was not open for them to become commercially viable based on their own merits. In order for that to happen, the Stonewall riots had to pave the way for the turning point in both the public’s and the authors’ views of homosexuality.

Prior to 1969, psychiatrists believed that “homosexuality was diseased, pathological behavior that—this was supposed to be the good news—could be cured.”¹⁴ In a 1963 article in The New York Times, the closing quote from a well-known psychiatrist stated, “The homosexual is ill, and anything that tends to hide that fact reduces his chances of seeking and obtaining treatment.”¹⁵ With such diagnoses offered by the “experts,” and public opinion echoing those ideas, it is not surprising that GLBTQ people were used to being abused and treated like second-class citizens. Police raids on gay bars were common occurrences, and often patrons were dragged off to jail, particularly if they were dressed in clothing of the “opposite” gender, or dancing with someone of the same sex. For the most part, the clientele just took it meekly and then went back to drinking when the bar reopened, often the same night.¹⁶

The Stonewall riots in 1969 marked a turning point in GLBTQ rights, in both the public’s perception of homosexuals and within GLBTQ people themselves. The riots were set off by a police raid on the Stonewall Inn bar in New York City, when the patrons of the bar rebelled against the discrimination. Normally, a few officers could handle each raid, but this time the GLBTQ people fought back. This set off a series of riots and random confrontations that went on for six nights. The immediate results were scores of arrests, many wounded by police brutality, and the destruction of the Stonewall Inn. The long-term effects on the GLBTQ culture were far reaching, as GLBTQ people had a major shift in self-perception from the myth of the victim to activist, and the effect on the authors cannot be understated. “The ensuing twenty years have seen a general restructuring of the gay ethos by a growing army of writers.”¹⁷ GLBTQ people began to take pride in themselves, and the number of GLBTQ publications shot up.¹⁸ However, there was an equally important impact on the public’s perceptions. The topic of homosexuality was thrust into the forefront of many people’s minds and into open discussion. This opened the way for novels with GLBTQ protagonists to succeed in the market place.

III. Post-Stonewall Writing

After Stonewall, GLBTQ writing began to take on a vastly different tone. The protagonists in these novels still had problems and still struggled with their orientation, but any shame was generally now induced by society. The GLBTQ characters functioned and interacted with the world in the same way that straight characters did, and loved and lost without it requiring a traumatic event to do so. Characters could be happy, and even when bad things happened to the protagonist, it wasn’t seen as punishment being meted out in retaliation for his or her homosexuality; rather, they were brought on by the protagonist’s own actions, or the actions of the people around him or her. The first wave of this literature in the ’70s brought several bestsellers to the marketplace, including The Front Runner by Patricia O’Neal, the Tales of the City chronicles by Armistead Maupin, and Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig, all of which were made into movies. The GLBTQ protagonists in each novel is very different, and in very different situations, but in all three the protagonist is a strong, real person, there is no divine retribution, and the protagonists interact with the world as anyone else might.

In the 1980s, literature with GLBTQ protagonists expanded even further into the mainstream consciousness, with books such as The Color Purple by Alice Walker, which won a Pulitzer Prize, and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. Even though these books were ground breaking, censorship still existed. In both of the movies made from The Color Purple and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, the lesbian content was so toned down as to be almost invisible, and The Color Purple remains one of the most challenged books in schools and libraries, due in part to its lesbian content. However, the ’80s also saw great strides in mainstream novels that portrayed GLBTQ protagonists in a positive light succeeding on the bestseller lists.

From the ’90s into the beginning of the 21^st century, GLBTQ novels moved more and more into the mainstream consciousness, and authors began to have repeat successes with novels featuring GLBTQ characters. E. Lynn Harris, whose first novel Invisible Life featured bisexuality and “brothers on the down low” (black “straight” men who have sex with other men secretly), started as a self-published author whose book was picked up by Doubleday and went on to become a trilogy. Two authors who both published several books featuring GLBTQ protagonists won Pulitzers, Michael Chabon for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and Michael Cunningham for The Hours. Sarah Waters, author of the best-selling Tipping the Velvet, has written several novels with GLBTQ protagonists, and Tipping the Velvet went on to become a British television series.

Like its predecessors, all of this post-Stonewall literature features characters in very diverse situations, and at first glance there seems to be little in common between them, other than the sexual orientation of the characters. However, a critical reading and comparison finds several striking commonalities, which seem to be related to the successes of each work.

IV. Introducing the Protagonist

Some of the components that make these post-Stonewall books successful are the same things that make any well-written book succeed. There is a well-developed plot that carries the reader through the story and keeps them caring what happens to the protagonist. The interactions between all of the characters are realistic, detailed and complex, dialogue is strong, and the setting is real and easily visualized. But, perhaps most importantly, the protagonist is always a strong and well-rounded character, someone the reader is solidly able to identify and empathize with. This is extremely important with a GLBTQ protagonist, as for some readers, connecting with such a protagonist might be difficult. In The Color Purple, the protagonist Celie is crystal clear and sympathetic to the reader. In the beginning of the book, when she is a child suffering abuse at the hands of the man she thinks is her father, she says,

Dear God,
He act like he can’t stand me no more. Says I’m evil and always up to no good. He took my other little baby, a boy this time. But I don’t think he kilt it. I think he sold it to a man an his wife over in Monticello. I got breasts full of milk running down myself.¹⁹

Through her use of dialogue, Walker immediately draws the reader into the mind of the protagonist, Celie, allowing the reader to empathize and root for her through all of the struggles that are to come, including her struggles with her orientation.

Authors also use description in order to give their readers that same access to their GLBTQ protagonists. In Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, the hobo Smokey describes the two lesbian protagonists in detail. Idgie is “a tall, good-looking blonde with freckles and curly hair…wearing a clean white shirt and men’s trousers...” Of her partner Ruth, Smokey “hadn’t seen such a neat and clean woman in months… she was wearing a dotted swiss organdy dress, and had her auburn hair pulled back with a red ribbon.”²⁰ Again, the goal is to immediately connect the readers with the protagonist, so that the reader won’t even want to consider turning away when the character’s orientation is revealed.

Here is how we meet a character in The Hours: “There are still the flowers to buy. Clarissa feigns exasperation (though she loves doing errands like this), leaves Sally cleaning the bathroom, and runs out, promising to be back in half an hour.”²¹ The interiority of this character gives the reader immediate access to the protagonist, and enables the reader to know her as a person right away.

The immediacy in which the reader connects to the protagonist is critical for an author who is writing about a GLBTQ character.

V. Common Themes

While the accessibility of the protagonist plays a major role in making the book accessible to the mainstream audience, it is only the lead-in component. Throughout the novels that succeed on the bestseller lists, there are several common themes. They are the following:

* Access to the interiority of the character about his or her orientation.

 The protagonist’s orientation is never a secret to be sprung upon the reader. Rather, it is an integral part of the character, revealed wherever is natural in the story. If the character is not yet aware of his or her orientation, clues are provided to the reader ahead of time, so when the character figures it out, the reader understands. In addition, any struggles the character might have over his or her orientation are written in a way that the reader can understand and identify with based on their own life experiences.

* The author never treats the orientation of the character as negative or unnatural.

There can be negative opinions from the world and people around the protagonist, and there can be internal negative feelings within the protagonist brought on by the world around him or her, but his or her actual sexual orientation is never treated as unnatural or a bad thing by the author. It is presented as a part of the character, which enables the reader to accept it unquestioningly as fact.

* There is always a strong nonsexual plotline as well as an orientation plotline.

A strong plotline always drives the character, just as with any good novel. There is also always some kind of conflict within the character related to his or her orientation, whether brought on by outside sources, previous life experiences, or insecurities, and this gives the reader understand why the protagonist acts the way he or she does. The two plotlines are always tied together; they cannot be separated. The story itself could not be told with a straight character and remain the same story.

These characteristics are consistent in all successful post-Stonewall mainstream novels. The question now becomes, then, is it these specific components that help those books appeal to the public? If success were based just on great writing, there would be many novels with GLBTQ protagonists succeeding in the mainstream literary market.

VI. Access to the Character’s Orientation

The character’s orientation is never deliberately hidden from the reader, nor popped into the narrative at a random point as a “plot twist.” When the character of Mouse is first introduced in Tales of the City, a conversation he has with his boyfriend Robert and another protagonist alludes to his orientation. The two men have an obvious familiarity as Mouse says to Robert, “‘Can’t leave you alone for a minute,’” and Robert replies, “‘Michael’s the master chef in the house. That entitles him to make life miserable for me.’”²² When Mouse makes another appearance some chapters later, he refers to Robert saying, “‘Well, we parted amiably enough. He was terribly civilized about it, and I sat in Lafayette Park and cried all morning. Yeah… I got the shaft… He panicked, I guess. We were buying furniture together and stuff.’”²³ Because of the earlier scene, the reader is not surprised that Mouse and Robert were lovers. His orientation is addressed in a clear forward way, without making an announcement. This is important, because giving the reader information that doesn’t gel with the rest of the story can easily throw the reader out of the narrative.

In Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, Idgie follows Ruth around like a puppy when she is young, has a breakdown when Ruth announces she is getting married, and goes ballistic when she finds out that Ruth is being abused by her husband. So when Ruth finally leaves her husband and comes to Idgie, and Idgie’s father tells “her that now that she was going to be responsible for Ruth and a baby, she’d better figure out what she wanted to do,”²⁴ the reader is totally comfortable with the concept that they are a couple, raising a baby together. This works because the reader has been with Idgie, felt her pain when Ruth left, felt her anger when Ruth is abused, and finally feels the happiness that they have together. Idgie’s orientation is such a part of her that the reader can’t imagine her in any other way.

In scenarios where the protagonist is unaware of his or her orientation in the beginning, it is critical for the author to let the readers in on the potential for discovery. Readers develop a rapport with the characters in a story, and form a picture in their mind of who a character is. For the first half of the book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Sam Clay appears to be unconscious about his orientation. However, the reader is given clues that hint to his homosexuality throughout the novel. Near the beginning of the book, Sam introduces his cousin Joe Kavalier to a friend, Julie.

‘This?’ Sammy said. He took ahold of the kid’s elbow and tugged him forward… he reached up to grab a handful of the kid’s hair and gave it a tug, just kind of rocking his head from side to side while holding on to his hair, grinning at him. Had Joe been a young woman, Julie Glovsky might almost have been inclined to think Sammy was sweet on her.²⁵

The reader also finds out that Sam as a young man is still a virgin,²⁶ and later on he stumbles across two men kissing and is shaken by the sight. “What had so rattled Sammy about the scene he had witnessed? What was he so afraid of? Why was he running away?”²⁷ Later on Joe’s girlfriend asks Joe,

“Is he a fairy?”…
Joe was at first shocked by this suggestion, and then suddenly not. “Why would you say that?”
She shrugged. “He has the feel.”²⁸

Because of these hints the reader is prepared when Sam is kissed by his first boyfriend, and is “so taken by surprise that by the time his brain… began sending its harsh and condemnatory messages to the various relevant parts of his body, it was too late. He was already kissing Tracy Bacon back.”²⁹ In fact, by this time the reader has been urging him to figure out his orientation, as it seems to be obvious to everyone but Sam.

As with the character of Sam Clay, the characters in these books all have some sort of conflict somehow related to their orientation. This can be internal, as in Sam’s case, or it can be external. In Kiss of the Spider Woman, Molina is thrown in jail because of a homosexual relationship he had. In prison, his orientation affects the way that both his cellmate and the warden treat him. The warden speaks to him condescendingly, treating him as he might a child, saying things like “‘No need to be trembling like that, young man, nothing bad is going to happen to you here,’”³⁰ and “‘poor Molina!’”³¹ His cellmate Valentin also treats him with condescension.

(Molina)—Why couldn’t I have the luck to get the panther woman’s boyfriend to keep me company, instead of you?
(Valentin)—Oh, now that’s another story and I’m not interested… you like him because he smokes a pipe.
(Molina)—No, because he’s the gentle type, and understanding.
(Valentin)—His mother castrated him, plain and simple.³²

The condescending dialogue addressed to Molina makes the reader more sympathetic, and therefore when Molina is condescended to or treated as an inferior, an alliance between reader and character is formed. Regardless of how they feel about Molina’s orientation, he is “sympathetically complex”.³³

Sexual orientation is an integral part of the character, and while the reader might say the character “could” be written as heterosexual, it wouldn’t be possible to tell the same story. If Idgie didn’t love Ruth the way she did, Ruth wouldn’t have left an abusive marriage to start a safe and happy new life. If Sam wasn’t gay, his character wouldn’t later on be dragged in to testify before Congress. And if Molina wasn’t a homosexual he wouldn’t have been in prison in the first place. Their stories could not be retold in any other way.

VII. Orientation and the Surrounding World

The idea that the protagonist is homosexual is never treated as questionable by the author; rather, the character is accepted and dealt with in the narration as if he or she couldn’t be any other way. However, there can be questions and problems originating from other sources, such as society’s rules, the reactions and feelings of the people around the protagonist, and struggles and self-condemnation from within the protagonist. This is important, because the turmoil within the protagonist allows the reader a way into the character’s feelings about his or her orientation. When the character’s orientation is simply stated, without offering any sort of way to access the interior conflict of the character, a reader without any personal knowledge of homosexuality, or with a negative opinion of homosexuality, might be unable to identify with the protagonist and therefore stay outside of that character’s experiences. By being exposed to what is reality for many GLBTQ people, the reader understands and empathizes with the protagonist.

In The Front Runner, the protagonist Harlan has been dismissed from his college-level coaching job at Penn State because of his sexuality. Reflecting about a boy he was in love with in high school, he says his father “had never told me such feelings could exist between two males. As far as I know, there was no name for what I felt. But instinctively I realized that these feelings were something to be hidden from everyone, even from Chris, even from myself.”³⁴ While there is no indication that what he is feeling is inherently unnatural, he feels shame brought on by his desire to be the man his father wants him to be, and to live up to both society’s and the running world’s expectations. Later on, he says, “it was in 1962… I finally had to confess to myself that my feelings had a name: homosexuality. It’s hard to convey the intensity of the suffering I felt. Everything in my upbringing had made me see myself in the worst possible light. Runners are men, my father had said.”³⁵ Harlan’s negative emotions over his orientation are brought on solely by the opinions of the world around him.

After Ray has his first sexual experience with another male in Invisible Life, he begins to panic. “What if Kevin had set me up and now everyone knew about last night’s escapade… I would have to drop out of school or transfer… I thought about the humiliation my parents and fraternity would feel… I quickly rushed to the toilet.”³⁶ These feelings of shame and condemnation follow him throughout the book, and even when he begins identifying as bisexual, he is unable to tell the woman he is dating about those feelings. “I felt like the most special man in New York. I was in love with Nicole. But did I love her enough to give up my secret life?”³⁷ When he finally does tell her, she explodes. “‘When were you going to tell me? Why not before I gave myself to you?’”³⁸ Because of this, the reader sees that because Ray kept his sexuality a secret and lied, he harmed both himself and Nicole. Of course his orientation is not wrong, but the deception is. This allows the reader to both feel anger at Ray for his deception, and also to sympathize with him for the reasons that he feels it is necessary to hide who he is, even from the woman he loves.

In Tipping the Velvet, Nan falls in love with Kitty, a showgirl who performs as a boy. Although they start performing together, Kitty is fearful of what will happen to her career if she is thought to be a “tom,” or a lesbian. When Nan meets two women who are a couple, she is thrilled to know there are other women like her, but Kitty is rude and refuses to talk to them. “‘Nan!’ she said, ‘They’re not like us… They’re toms… They make a—a career—out of kissing girls. We’re not like that!… You would have to give up the stage… and so would I… if people thought we were—like that.’” Nan doesn’t understand why they must hide their love and replies, “‘I know this ain’t wrong, what we do. Only that the world says it is.’ (Kitty) shook her head. ‘It’s the same thing.’”³⁹

While many GLBTQ readers enjoy reading books where the orientation of the protagonist is simply stated and then let go, this approach doesn’t work well for many mainstream readers, because he or she feels unable to identify with the character. The reader must be given the window into the character’s orientation that only a conflict within the character can provide. A bonus for GLBTQ readers of these mainstream novels is that they know those struggles all too well, and being able to read a book that verbalizes what he or she has experienced is a validating and rewarding experience.

VIII. Plot Lines

When discussing the plotlines of these books it is important to note that there are always two parts, the main plotline and the orientation plotline. The nonorientation plotline is similar to that of all books, some sort of conflict that the protagonist must overcome. The orientation plotline can be subtle or internal, but is always an integral part of the character. Both of the plotlines are always tightly woven together, and are always connected in some way so completely that the story could not be written with a straight protagonist.

In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, the main story is about how Joe and Sam enter the comic book business and build up successful careers. During the McCarthy era, the partners’ work comes under attack during Senate hearings, where several comic book creators are grilled about the immorality of their work, particularly the way that male heroes had boy sidekicks. Sam had written a number of comics that featured superheroes with boy sidekicks, so many in fact, that Dr. Fredric Wertham’s book on comics, The Seduction of the Innocent, featured a whole chapter devoted to Sam’s work, although Sam says, “‘It’s not about me personally. It doesn’t even identify me by name. It just talks about stories I wrote… It was all nom de plume.’”⁴⁰

When a member of the Senate grills Sam about his boy sidekicks, the senator references the comic book character Batman and asks, “‘Are you familiar with Dr. Fredric Wertham’s theory… that the relationship between Batman and his ward is actually a thinly veiled allegory of pedophilic inversion?’” and then turns the attack on Sam’s personal life, asking Sam if by drawing “‘muscular, strapping young fellows in tight trousers… you were in any way expressing or attempting to disseminate your own… psychological proclivities.’”⁴¹ The two storylines, the comic book business and Sam’s own orientation, mutually strengthen one another.

In The Front Runner, the orientation storyline of Harlan and the champion runners he coaches is mixed into the other main plotline, the reality of the running world, its stereotypes, and trying to succeed in that world when the odds are against success. The three boys he coaches have been kicked out of school and college running for being gay, and Harlan gives them a second chance at his new school. While he coaches them to success, they all face discrimination and ostracism from the running world. The running organization AAU (Amateur Athlete’s Union) actively hates one of the boys, Vince, because of his cocky attitude, and “After the Milrose, everybody must have decided that Vince had to go… (and) Vince was barred from all amateur competition.”⁴²

The best runner of the boys, Billy (whom Harlan marries after Billy graduates), is threatened with being barred from the Olympic trials when a committee questions his eligibility because he teaches a sociology class on gay studies at the college. Their position is that Billy “uses his running as a podium for homosexual politics, and his job (pays) ditto, and therefore his job is cashing in on this.”⁴³ Although Harlan and Billy are able to overcome that hurdle, in the 5,000-meter final at the Olympics Billy is shot and killed. The murderer is a man whose “latent, repressed homosexuality made him fear love, and hate Billy… he became obsessed with killing Billy on the track… (and) finally decided there was no better place to do it than the Olympics.”⁴⁴ This betrayal of one gay man by another because of society’s repression is so powerful that a reader can’t help but feel how strongly the restriction of love (and practically all healthy pursuits) based on sexuality (or gender identity) affects people.

In The Color Purple, Celie writes letters first to God, and then later her sister Nettie, talking about the many problems in her life, most of which have nothing to do with her orientation. She writes to God about the children her stepfather fathered and took away, saying, “I seen my baby girl. I knowed it was her. She look just like me and my daddy. Like more us than us is ourself.”⁴⁵ Celie sends away her sister Nettie for her own safety, and does not hear from her until years later when she finds letters from Nettie that Celie’s husband has been hiding. Later on, when Celie finds out that the man she thought was her father was really her step-father, she writes, “My daddy lynch. My mama crazy. All my little half-brothers and sisters no kin to me. My children not my sister and brother. Pa not pa.”⁴⁶ The compelling sorrows of Celie’s life weave the reader fully into her. Readers feel what Celie feels. But again, this story is not the same without Celie’s sexual orientation. Shug, Celie’s lover, gets Celie’s husband to stop beating Celie, and for the first time Celie sees by example that a woman does not need to be beaten by her man. She finds the letters from her sister with the help of Shug, and Shug also helps Celie to go on to create a good life for herself without her husband.

It works in these novels the same way that it works in life; all aspects of a character are wedded together, and they cannot be split apart and still remain the same person.

IX. Conclusion

It seems fairly safe to say that the authors of these novels did not sit down with the plan of including these three components in order to make the book a success. More than likely, the authors sat down to write a novel with a protagonist who happened to be GLBTQ, and the story grew organically from there, as do all of the best novels. Because these books are so rich, they succeed with the reader as a whole work, and while at first, straight readers might question the protagonist’s orientation, by the time that they are fully immersed in the character, his or her orientation is accepted as a part of the character’s identity. This allowed the books to be fully integrated with mainstream readers, people who were simply seeking a good book to read, rather than a book that specifically features a GLBTQ protagonist. Given the great progress that has been made in GLBTQ rights over the last few years, with the advancement of GLBTQ marriage, the overturning of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act, and the increase in legal protections for GLBTQ people, this type of book could present itself as less critically necessary than it was during the publication of these novels. However, it can also be argued that these books aided in changing public opinion in many ways, and as the fight for equality continues, the importance of books such as these remain. In particular, the areas of bisexual and transgender protagonists, there is still a need for more mainstream books that feature strong, open and accessible protagonists that straight readers can identify with and care about, thereby helping them to see GLBTQ people as relatable, rather than different.          

Krista Humphrey’s work has been printed in publications as diverse as BUST Magazine and Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer. A graduate of the Spalding MFA program, she is also editor-in-chief of Typehouse Literary Journal. She is currently at work on her second novel.

Notes

1. Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (New York: Random House, 1990), p.41.
2. Ibid., p.71.
3. Joanne Glasgow, “Hall, Radclyffe (1880-1943)” The Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture. glbtq inc.http://www.glbtq.com/literature/hall_r.html p.3.
4. John Weir, “10 most hated books—gay and lesbian literature censorship.” The Advocate, June 24, 1997. FindArticles.com. August 18 2008 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_n736/ai_20139053, p.1.
5. Joseph Cady, “Censorship.” The Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture. glbtq inc. http://www.glbtq.com/literature/censorship.html, p.4.
6. Ibid., p.1.
7. Jane Rule, Desert of the Heart (Tallahassee, FL: The Naiad Press, 1985), pp.221-22.
8. Margaret Soenser Breen. “Rule, Jane (1931-2007).” The Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture. glbtq inc. http://www.glbtq.com/literature/rule_j.html.
9. David Bergman, “Introduction,” The Violet Quill Reader. Ed. David Bergman (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), p.xiii.
10. Gore Vidal, The City and the Pillar (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), p.xvi.
11. Emmanuel S Nelson, “Baldwin, James Arthur (1924-1987).” The Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture. glbtq inc. http://www.glbtq.com/literature/baldwin_j.html, p.2.
12. James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 2000), p.142.
13. Michael N. Stanton, “Novel: Gay Male,” The Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture. glbtq inc. August 7, 2008 http://www.glbtq.com/literature/novel_gay.html, p.4.
14. Martin Duberman, Stonewall. (New York: Plume, 1994), p.48.
15. Ibid., p.97.
16. Ibid., pp.192-193.
17. Robert Ferro,. “Gay Literature Today,” The Violet Quill Reader. Ed. David Bergman. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), p.389.
18. Andrew Matzner, “Stonewall Riots.” The Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture. glbtq inc. http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/stonewall_riots.html, p.2.
19. Alice Walker, The Color Purple (New York: Hardcourt, Inc., 1982, p.3.
20. Fannie Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1988), p.20.
21. Michael Cunningham, The Hours (New York: Picador USA, 1998), p.9.
22. Armistead Maupin,. Tales of the City (New York: Harper Perennial, 1989), p.18.
23. Ibid., pp.70-71.
24. Flagg, pp.192-193.
25. Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (New York: Picador, 2000), p.97.
26. Ibid., p.151.
27. Ibid., p.255.
28. Ibid., p.255.
29. Ibid., p.552.
30. Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), p.149.
31. Ibid., p.152.
32. Ibid., p.17.
33. Francisco Soto, “Puig, Manuel (1932-1990).” The Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture. glbtq inc. http://www.glbtq.com/literature/puig_m.html.
34. Patricia Nell Warren, The Front Runner (New York: Penguin Books, 1974), p.14.
35. Ibid., p.18.
36. E. Lynn Harris, Invisible Life (New York: Random House, 1994), p.19.
37. Ibid., p.207.
38. Ibid., p.237.
39. Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet (New York: Riverhead Books, 2000), p.131.
40. Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (New York: Picador, 2000), pp.566-567.
41. Ibid., pp.615-616.
42. Warren, p.190.
43. Ibid., p.265.
44. Ibid., p.309.
45. Alice Walker, The Color Purple (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1982), p.13. 46. Ibid., p.177.