THE SHOCK OF RECOGNITION
I think my greatest hope as a writer is that I’ll resonate with someone. Not everyone. I think it’s impossible to write something that resonates with everyone. But even if just one person reads something I wrote and can empathize with a character or a situation, I’ve done what I set out to do.
When writing succeeds, it’s because of resonance. The writer holds up a mirror and gives us the shock of recognition. Sometimes we relate to a character’s aspirations. Sometimes we just understand their hardships. I’m not sure I believe in universal truths but I definitely believe in resonance.
David LaRochelle’s 2005 YA debut, ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NOT was a book that resonated with me like no other. There’s a wealth of young adult literature that addresses a shared, defining moment for the LGBT community: questioning one’s sexuality and the exploration that follows. No two paths to understanding are exactly alike. Some can be easy, others almost unimaginably difficult. ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NOT is the closest I’ve seen to what I experienced: a sometimes comical journey with an abundance of rationalizations in its wake.
Steven, the 16-year-old protagonist, is convinced he’s not gay. Anything that might even hint at his sexuality has a perfectly logical explanation. Such as his attraction to the assistant hockey coach:
I studied
Mr. Bowman would make a good Superman. I pictured
him in tights…. . So what if I had been thinking about
Mr. Bowman every five minutes all day long? That
meant nothing. He was an interesting teacher, that’s
all. I bet every single one of his students was thinking
about Mr. Bowman right this very moment.
Or the magazines under his bed:
Beneath my bed, in a shoe box wrapped in rubber bands,
locked in a suitcase covered with an old blanket, were two
magazines: The Men’s Underwear Catalog and International
Male. I had discovered them at our neighbor’s when she had
asked me to take in her mail. I figured the post office had made
a mistake. What was an eighty-year-old woman going to do
with a catalog full of male models in thongs and jockstraps?
Not wanting her to be offended, I had brought the magazines
home with every intention of throwing them away. Two years
later I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
The overall tone of LaRochelle’s book is infused with humor. Steven’s attempts to distance himself from his orientation only manage to bring him closer to acceptance. And that’s what hit home with me. In so many ways, *I* was Steven. I spent years assuring myself I wasn’t gay. I had an excuse for anything that even hinted otherwise.
If I enjoyed looking at pictures of shirtless men, it was because I admired their physiques and wanted to look like that too. If I had more female friends than male, it was because most of the guys I knew were only into sports (and I certainly wasn’t). These didn’t mean I was gay.
They still don’t. But, in my case, they might as well have been gigantic road signs with double arrows pointing up and to the right.
By the time I read the LaRochelle book, I’d been out for a long time. But I wish it had been around when I was fighting to understand who and what I was. I can’t remember reading any books with LGBT characters growing up (which, granted, was mumblemumble years ago when it was much harder to find such things). What I would have given to read about Steven back then. To understand that the excuses I made were just that: excuses. To see that my warped brain wasn’t solely capable of coming up with that particular path of resistance. But reading this in 2005, it retroactively validated all the excuses I came up with. I’m glad this book is out there. Because I have no doubt that somewhere, right now, there’s a struggling kid in the Midwest who’s doling out excuses like a blackjack dealer after downing six Red Bulls.
In a few weeks, my YA debut, WITH OR WITHOUT YOU, will be released. Like a lot of writers, this stirs a mélange of happiness and horror within. It’s not a coming out story. I tend to describe it as a young man struggling with maintaining his first adult relationship as he watches his oldest friendship self-destruct. It could be slaughtered in the reviews. Worse, it could be completely ignored. I’m not worried about that. I find myself thinking one thing over and over: I hope this means something to someone. I hope it resonates in readers like ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NOT did with me.
No two coming out processes are alike. But most can be eased with a single realization, found in that shock of recognition. It’s the reason we desperately need LGBT-themed YA books. No matter what the story or the message, these books give anyone struggling with their sexuality the five words that have brought assurance to so many over the years. Five words that aren’t the end of the struggle but can be a significant turning point because of the resonance they provide:
I’m not the only one.
Brian Farrey’s debut YA novel, WITH OR WITHOUT YOU, will be published May 24 by Simon Pulse. He tweets @BrianFarrey and he blogs at www.brianfarreybooks.com/wordpress.
Review: Ash by Malinda Lo
The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King’s royal Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash’s capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.
Entrancing and romantic, Ash is an empowering retelling of Cinderella about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.
The Gay Gamut
Today’s guest post was written by Charlotte Johnson of Lady Charlotte’s House of Delirium. Enjoy!
Admittedly, my exposure to LGBT characters in young adult fiction has been less than desired. Perhaps the first gay character I met was in Holly Black’s second novel, Valiant, which of course was Ruth (and eventually Luis, but only in retrospect…actually, I wasn’t even sure Ruth was a lesbian because Jen, a girl who did not approve of Val, had called her so). Then, when I read Tithe, I met Corny. Oh dear, Corny, those scenes between him and Nephamael were almost as riveting as Kaye and Roiben (before I became desensitised toward kissing scenes), albeit in a different way. Darker and more dangerous. Holly Black, I find, has always been great when it comes to LGBT characters. It is far too easy to make one’s gay characters too flamboyant and lisping, and always handy with fashion advice. Characters like that tend to write themselves, because there is no creativity required. It’s almost an archetype (not to mention stereotype) now. In Black’s novels, the reader would never imagine the street-smart, hard-ass Luis to care about his weave or lusting on every penis that crosses his path. Neither would we press the stereotype on Corny. The great thing about his character and Luis’s character is that the fact that they are gay is not the biggest part of their character. Luis has a vendetta against the faeries and is primarily concerned with keeping everyone, especially his brother Dave, safe from them. Corny is a geek with a grudge of his own, and I do say that endearingly. The closest that Black has gotten to the sparkly stereotype is Rafael from her short story “The Coat of Stars”, a character who is a well-dressed costume designer in NYC. But she does not dwell on it. I think watching his morning routine was a way to hook the readers. I know I was, but I am obsessed with flamboyance.
As I write this, I am thinking of all the books I have read and trying to figure out what else I could write about. I think about Melissa Marr’s bisexual characters, Irial and Niall (the best solution to a love triangle is definitely a threesome); I think about Alec and Magnus from Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments series (which I have not read, but I remember Magnus from Clockwork Angel). I had assumed I would stay within the realms of YA paranormal. But I remember other books I have read, where the characters don’t care if they appear gay to the world, such as Duck and Dirk from Francesca Lia Block’s Weetzie Bat books, and Wallace from the Scott Pilgrim comics (do comics count?).
And then…
There’s Freak Show by former-club kid and drag queen, James St. James. He also wrote the novel Disco Bloodbath that was turned into the film, Party Monsters, starring the Home Alone kid (what’s-his-name…we share a birthday). St. James wrote Freak Show as a fictionalised account of his own childhood in Florida. The story is super fun, hyperbolised, and empowering to anyone who has ever felt threatened by their classmates. The summary is below:
“Billy Bloom is gay, but it’s mostly theoretical, as he hasn’t had much experience. When he has to move to Florida, he can’t believe his bad luck. His new school is a mix of Bible Belles, Aberzombies, and Football Heroes, none of which are exactly his type. Billy’s efforts to fit in and stand out at the same time are both hilarious and heartrending. In this novel from adult author and media personality James St. James, readers are in for a wild ride as he tells Billy’s fascinating story of bravado, pain, and unexpected love, inspired by his own experiences.” (quoted from Goodreads)
Did I mention that Billy is a teen drag queen? I love it. The book starts out with Billy’s daily makeup routine, and it is utterly ridiculous. Billy goes to great lengths to describe his outfits (layers of greasy greasy foundation, glitter, feathers, if you ever looked at something and thought “How Tacky!”, Billy’s got it), and he is rather reminiscent of the Victorian dandy in the 21st century. Billy is unafraid to flaunt his “gayness” and stands up to fight for justice in his very red school. I doubt we would even see Luis or Corny at a pride parade, much less drag a stick of glitter over their lips…or would we?
Anyway, to my point. This portrayal of a gay character is significantly different from Black’s characters. The thing I love about young adult fiction how it shows the gamut of personalities that gay characters can run. There is nothing that all LGBT people have. Some are thugs, some are fashionistas, some are laid-back artsy types. And who says that gay characters in YA have to be men? We have lots of gay men, but how often do we see bi, lesbian, or transsexuals? What about asexuals or intersexed? I would love see more LGBT of all flavours in YA fantasy. I get the feeling that because of the formula of to-day’s YA paranormal romances (girl meets mysterious, dangerous boy, boy turns out to be not-human, girl suddenly has two lovers, a little bit of adventure, make way for the trilogy), it would be quite difficult to fit a gay main character in there. If the main character was a lesbian, and she had two lesbian girls after her heart, it would be too easy to lapse into a true love-triangle, and people already think gays and lesbians are sluts.
Oh well…one day. One day.
Old Dog, New Tricks
Originally posted at Making Stuff Up For A Living. Thanks to Saundra for allowing us to repost!
By: Saundra Mitchell
When sister Deb Jessica Verday told us that her editor for WICKED PRETTY THINGS insisted that the G-rated, one-kiss gay romance in her story had to become a het romance to be published, I was appalled, but not surprised.
I came out in 1989, and as a YA author, I try not to spend a lot of time pointing out how much older I am than my audience. But even though 1989 seems recent to me, it’s more than two decades ago. The world has changed considerably since then.
In the 80s, we were still looking for acknowledgement. It was a big deal just to get the world to acknowledge our existence, to even admit we were real. That denial is what allowed the AIDS crisis to explode the way it did- Reagan turned a blind eye to it, because it was an invisible and outcast people who mainly suffered from it.
There’s a reason our early protest chant was “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.” It was still a shock to the mainstream that we existed at all. Then on top of it, they had to wrap their heads around it.
So even though coming out in my house was easy, being out was manifestly different in 1989 than it is now. I didn’t have an expectation then that being queer should be acceptable to the world at large. I got used to negotiating first kisses so they happened in private places, instead of enjoying them as they bloomed spontaneously.
As a writer, I understood that my short fiction had to be straight to be published, unless I asked permission. Unless an editor was looking to give a dispensation and get brownie points for being daring.
Twenty two years is a long time. I’m an old dog, and it never occurred to me to stopasking if I could submit queer fiction. Even though I was nominated for a Pushcart for a genderqueer story, even though times have changed- I was still asking. Until Jessica Verday, who’s straight, and has nothing particular to gain by writing a romantic gay faerie tale, just did it.
And was rebuffed for it. And fought back in public.
As I had two stories coming out in Constable & Robinson and Running Kids Press anthologies this year, I wrote to the editors at both houses expressing my support for Jessica.In that letter, I said, “In this day and age, Jessica Verday shouldn’t have to ask permission to write a YA story that features LGBT characters.”
It didn’t occur to me- because sometimes I’m slow that way- that in this day and age,neither should I.
I’ve withdrawn my short story “Tromsø by Polar Night” from Trisha Telep’s THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF GHOST ROMANCE- but I’m very proud to say that my story for C&R/RPK’s TRUTH & DARE is still on.
That editor, Liz Miles, not only encouraged me to write in an experimental form, her call of entry specifically asked for stories with LGBT content. And I’m so grateful for allies like Jessica Verday. She had nothing to gain and a lot to lose in this, but she did it anyway because it was right.
Thanks for teaching this old dog a new trick, Jessica.
Blogathon Schedule
We are so excited to have so many great participants in our “Gay in YA” Blogathon launch! We’ll be posting the first installment in the blogathon in just a few moments, but first we wanted to say a big, gigantic THANK YOU to all our bloggers. We couldn’t have made any of this happen without you, and we are so excited to see what you have to say about LGBTQ in YA and share it with the rest of the worlf. The outpouring of support from everybody we have talked to and approached with this idea has been overwhelming and nothing short of amazing. Newsflash: The YA community rocks.
On to the schedule! We’ll be announcing each week’s schedule the Friday before and adding past bloggers to our blogroll page.
Coming up this week:
April 1st: Old Dog, New Tricks by Saundra Mitchell
April 2nd: The Gay Gamut by Charlotte Johnson
April 3rd: Review of ASH by Malinda Lo, Reviewed by Andrea from Aine’s Realm
April 4th: Guest Blog by Brian Farrey
April 5th: Guest Blog by Chandra Rooney from Dreaming in Red
April 6th: Review of Pink by Lili Wilkson, Reviewed by Samantha from Looney Reads
April 7th: Review of Tell Me What You See by Zoran Drvenkar
The Week Two schedule will be posted April 8th. Stay tuned for Old Dog, New Tricks from Saundra Mitchell in just a few!