The Way We Were's Secret Gay Backstory

Contents:

• THE HIDN GAY LIV FALLY BEG UNVERED
• A LTLE LIFE: THE GREAT GAY NOVEL MIGHT BE HERE
• THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY
• THE WAY WE WERE'S SECRET GAY BACKSTORY
• THE HEARTBREAKG TE STORY OF THE GAY TEEN AND HIS DAD BEHD ‘JOE BELL’
• WRG GAY HISTORY
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• FEATURED SHORT STORI FICTN

THE HIDN GAY LIV FALLY BEG UNVERED

But when I heard people ravg about the show, wrten by Rsell T Davi, I was stck by how many of them admted to knowg ltle about the epimic – and the stctn wreaked among the gay muny. For a long time, the mastream public didn't want to hear our Ca's The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle tells the story of a secretly gay postman searchg for a lost love om his youth (Cred: Headle Review)"I would venture to say that the public were disgted and outraged, " says thor Crystal Jeans. It's about a lonely, socially awkward and secretly gay postman livg a fictnal town the north of England who hs retirement, realisg he wants to turn his life around and fally be happy – but to do this, he needs to fd the love of his life, a man he hasn’t seen for nearly 50 years.

That same year, the so-lled "Alan Turg law" offered pardons to 49, 000 Brish gay men who’d been nvicted of homosexual acts – followg a mpaign arguably bolstered by the greater awarens brought about by The Imatn Game, the h film that picted the nvictn and chemil stratn of the Enigma-breakg puter scientist. You’d not tch many queer al mers jottg down their memoirs – Crystal JeansHowever, 's fictn that’s very much drivg the phenomenon of brgg "lost" stori of gay life om the past to light. Over the last five years, a tr of Irish wrers have livered stunng gay-themed novels set predomantly perds of history that didn't wele them – John Boyne (The Heart’s Invisible Furi), Graham Norton (Home Stretch), and Sebastian Barry (the Costa Award-wng Days Whout End).

In the theatre, Matthew Lopez's exploratn of gay male history The Inherance triumphed London before transferrg to New York, where opened the year after a well-received revival of Mart Crowley's semal 1968 play Boys the Band.

A LTLE LIFE: THE GREAT GAY NOVEL MIGHT BE HERE

Most recently, the ter explod wh behd-the-scen photos of Harry Styl om the shoot of new film My Policeman, an adaptatn of Bethan Roberts's 2012 novel starrg the pop superstar as a closeted gay man the 1950s. However, as a way of explag the mystery surroundg why Harry left behd everythg he knew, Gale imaged a suatn which he was forced to leave as a rult of a gay affair beg exposed. This was another reason I wrote The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle; I wanted to tell the story of one ordary young gay man tryg to exprs his love for another at a time when this would not have been accepted.

But I also wanted to ntrast this disturbg, sometim horrifyg picture wh what life n be like for a gay man wh today’s much more acceptg society the UK – and celebrate how much progrs we’ve ma.

My spiratn was a seri of terviews I nducted wh olr gay men whilst I was Edor--Chief of Attu magaze, as part of our celebratn of the 50th anniversary of the start of crimalisatn.

THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY

Pop star Harry Styl is starrg new film My Policeman as a closeted gay officer the 1950s (Cred: Getty Imag)"What we see all through history is that people are nied their past as part of a way to ntrol them, " says Hornby. The Homo Sapiens Agenda and The Mistn of Cameron Post have been turned to blockbter films, and jt about every YA agent out there has “own-voic LGBTQ+ stori” on their mancript wish list. Hanya Yanagihara’s novel is an astonishg and amb chronicle of queer life a 2013 say for Salon, the culture wrer Daniel D’Addar lamented the absence of a big, amb novel about gay life Ameri today.

THE WAY WE WERE'S SECRET GAY BACKSTORY

” D’Addar surveyed a number of proment gay wrers about his this, and the next day Tyler Coat summarized their views for Flavorwire a piece tled “The Great Gay Novel is Never Gog to Happen. ” But no verage of the book I’ve seen has discsed as a novel fundamentally about gay liv—as the most amb chronicle of the social and emotnal liv of gay men to have emerged for many book follows a group of four men—Ju, Willem, JB, and Mallm—over three s of iendship, om their years as llege roommat to the heights of profsnal succs.

THE HEARTBREAKG TE STORY OF THE GAY TEEN AND HIS DAD BEHD ‘JOE BELL’

”The plexy of the characters’ relatnships to sexual inty is one way Yanagihara elevat them om mere “wdow drsg, ” and I spect ’s one reason A Ltle Life hasn’t been regnized as a book fundamentally about gay male experience.

WRG GAY HISTORY

From Edmund Whe’s A Boy’s Own Story (1982) to Jt Torr’ We the Animals (2011), novels about gay men and their liv have often been more or ls easily mappable onto the thor’s bgraphy. In says and terviews, Yanagihara has spoken of her sire stead to wre across difference, explorg what she se as specifilly male iendships and emotnal as Yanagihara’s characters challenge nventnal tegori of gay inty, so A Ltle Life avoids the faiar narrativ of gay fictn.

Yanagihara approach the llective trmas that have so eply shaped morn gay inty—sickns and discrimatn—obliquely, avoidg the nventns of the g-out narrative or the AIDS novel. ” In s sometim gelg scriptns of Ju’s self-harm and his perceptns of his own body, the book remds rears of the long filiatn between gay art and the eakish, the abnormal, the extreme—those aspects of queer culture we’ve been enuraged to fet an era that’s creasgly embracg gay marriage and is not a register of feelg or exprsn rears are acctomed to Amerin lerary fictn.

In this astonishg novel, Yanagihara achiev what great gay art om Prot to Almodóvar has so often sought: a granur of feelg aquate to “the terrifyg largens, the impossibily of the world. Image ptn, Claire Pickerg Wakefield library imag the diary wrer speakg a Yorkshire accentA diary wrten by a Yorkshire farmer more than 200 years ago is beg hailed as providg remarkable evince of tolerance towards homosexualy Bra much earlier than prevly imaged. Historians om Oxford Universy have been taken aback to disver that Matthew Tomlson's diary om 1810 ntas such open-md views about same-sex attractn beg a "natural" human diary challeng prenceptns about what "ordary people" thought about homosexualy - showg there was a bate about whether someone really should be discrimated agast for their sexualy.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

"In this excg new disvery, we see a Yorkshire farmer argug that homosexualy is nate and somethg that shouldn't be punished by ath, " says Oxford rearcher Eamonn O' ptn, The diari were handwrten by Tomlson the farmhoe where he lived and workedThe historian had been examg Tomlson's handwrten diari, which have been stored Wakefield Library sce the thoands of pag of the private journals have never been transcribed and prevly ed by rearchers terted Tomlson's eye-wns acunts of electns Yorkshire and the Ludd smashg up O'Keeffe me across what seemed, for the era of Gee III, to be a rather startlg set of arguments about same-sex relatnships.

Tomlson had been prompted by what had been a big sex sndal of the day - which a well-rpected naval surgeon had been found to be engagg homosexual ptn, Historian Eamonn O'Keeffe says the diari provi a rare sight to the views of "ordary people" the early 1800sA urt martial had orred him to be hanged - but Tomlson seemed unnvced by the cisn, qutng whether what the papers lled an "unnatural act" was really that unnatural. "It mt seem strange ed that God Almighty should make a beg wh such a nature, or such a fect nature; and at the same time make a cree that if that beg whom he had formed, should at any time follow the dictat of that Nature, wh which he was formed, he should be punished wh ath, " he wrote on January 14 there was an "clatn and propensy" for someone to be homosexual om an early age, he wrote, " mt then be nsired as natural, otherwise as a fect nature - and if natural, or a fect nature; seems cel to punish that fect wh ath" diarist mak reference to beg rmed by others that homosexualy is apparent om an early age - suggtg that Tomlson and his social circle had been talkg about this se and discsg somethg that was not unknown to this time, and also Wt Yorkshire, a lol landowner, Anne Lister, was wrg a d diary about her lbian relatnships - wh her story told the televisn seri, Gentleman knowg what "ordary people" really thought about such behavur is always difficult - not least bee the loust survivg voic are ually the wealthy and has exced amics is the chance to eavdrop on an everyday farmer thkg aloud his source, Getty ImagImage ptn, Tomlson was appalled by the levels of rptn durg electns"What's strikg is that he's an ordary guy, he's not a member of the bohemian circl or an tellectual, " says O'Keeffe, a doctoral stunt Oxford's history acceptance of homosexualy might have been exprsed privately aristocratic or philosophilly radil circl - but this was beg discsed by a ral worker. O'Keeffe says shows ias were "perlatg through Brish society much earlier and more wily than we'd expect" - wh the diary workg through the bat that Tomlson might have been havg wh his the were still far om morn liberal views - and O'Keeffe says they n be extremely "jarrg" someone was homosexual by choice, rather than by nature, Tomlson was ready to nsir that they should still be punished - proposg stratn as a more morate optn than the ath ptn, Tomlson's former home was still there the 1930s (bottom left), but has sce disappeared beneath hog and a golf urseO'Keeffe says disverg evince of the kds of bate has both "enriched and plited" what we know about public opn this pre-Victorian diary is raisg ternatnal Fara Dabhoiwala, om Prceton Universy the US, an expert the history of attus towards sexualy, scrib as "vivid proof" that "historil attus to same-sex behavur uld be more sympathetic than is ually prumed".

FEATURED SHORT STORI FICTN

Instead of seeg homosexualy as a "horrible perversn", Prof Dabholwala says the rerd showed a farmer 1810 uld see as a "natural, dively ordaed human qualy" Norton, an expert gay history, said there had been earlier arguments fendg homosexualy as natural - but the were more likely to be om philosophers than farmers. As the only out young gay kid at my school, I took the advancement of my sexual experienc to my own hands and I did what we all do: I bought a fake ID and h the gay clubs. Worst of all, though, the shame attached to the memori of those first tim marred how I would approach sex for years.It was listeng to Years & Years’ new song “Sanctify,” and seeg the band’s out gay sger Olly Alexanr talk about how the song was spired his sexual trysts wh straight men, that I realized that the feelgs are way more mon than people let on.