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Andrew Holleran
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 In
September, the Light Changes by Andrew
Holleran
"Who cares what straight people think about
us?" complains one of the characters in Andrew Holleran's
first collection of short stories. "I don't care if they
understand what I do in bed. I don't even understand what I
do in bed, I could care less what they think about
it." And just as many of the gay men in these 16 stories
(only three of which have been previously published) refuse--or
simply feel no need--to explain themselves, so too does Holleran
explore his characters' lives with no effort to justify them. His
witty, urbane characters who vacation in Key West or Fire Island
are not the only types of gay men, of course, just those Holleran
has chosen to write about. He writes on his own terms, and his
characters--even when they are struggling to navigate through
desire or loss--live on their own terms, not as stereotypes but as
people with complex emotional lives.
Holleran's stories are crafted with such
polished prose--slyly humorous and achingly poignant in turn--that
one is immediately struck by their beauty. Every story seems to
have its share of brilliant dialogue or descriptive passages, like
the storyteller in "The Hamburger Man" who "didn't
have the very best gossip--but ... belonged to that class of
people who know one or two people who do." And in the final
story, which gives the book its title, Holleran shows that he's
equally adept at capturing the fleeting beauty of nature, in a
setting "annealed by a delicate silver light, the most
beautiful light of the whole year, a light that was both warm (if
one lay in the sun, as he did now) and cool (if one stood in the
shade)." (Amazon.com)
"Andrew Holleran's first novel, Dancer
from the Dance, is recognized as a classic portrait of gay
life in New York in the 1970s. His subsequent works, from Nights
in Aruba and The Beauty of Men to the essays in Ground
Zero, established Holleran as the preeminent voice in the
contemporary gay literary canon. His fiction has earned
comparisons to that of Guy de Maupassant, Somerset Maugham, and F.
Scott Fitzgerald, and now Holleran returns with a collection of
sixteen powerful short stories. Exploring the lives and times of
those who have lived past the exuberance of youth, these tales
make for a moving journey across landscapes of regret and loss,
shame and pride, loneliness and love. With a surprising yet
sensitive comic touch, Andrew Holleran has written his most mature
work to date--a poignant, polished collection. Like John Cheever's
work, these stories are suffused with a sense of magic and the
possibility of grace." --San Francisco Chronicle Book
Review
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An interview by Bill Goldstein, Books Editor of The
New York Times on the Web, June 3, 1999
Excerpt:
"There's a desire for gay history and gay
culture . . . We had a culture, we came out and now we want to
furnish it with a past . . . When you go into a bookstore now,
you're overwhelmed with the number of titles and before you didn't
have to sift through. . . . In the space of 20 years American
culture basically assimilated, took into itself, this new subject
matter and community. I think it's really admirable. I don't think
homophobia is gone. I think Matthew Shepards will still be killed
probably somewhere every year or something, but there's been an
extraordinary cultural acceptance. What we're doing right now is
part of it..."
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By Andrew Holleran, hosted by The New York
Times on the Web
Excerpt:
Leaving Mexico City for Oaxaca we got
lost—circling, for over an hour, a neighborhood near the airport
because we were confusing, we realized after stopping to ask
directions for the fifth time, the word derecho (straight
ahead) with derecha (to the right). "You see the
importance of vowels," said Mister O'Connell. Finally a
beautiful woman, seeing us go by her window yet again, like
clothes in a dryer, took pity on us, ran out to our car, and told
us to look for the sign that said "Puebla, Cuota." And,
after giving her the carnations we'd bought outside a church, we
found the highway to Oaxaca while Mister O'Connell sat in the
backseat crying, "That was an angel! Literally an
angel! An angel of God!"
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By Jeffrey Canton, eye.net
Excerpt:
When we're young, we reduce sex to this terrible
competition -- we've got to get it, we've got to have it and it's
a source of incredible stress," says American writer and gay
icon Andrew Holleran.
"It takes a while before you can relax
about it. The odd thing about aging is that you're no longer as
compelled to 'do it' but the world itself becomes more erotic..."
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Names Index:
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