Arts
Pride Around The World Calendar 2003
Max Martini's Entertainment Shorts
Head Start on Summer Reading
Reviewed by Euan Bear
| Nancy Never Married by Mary Randall. X-Libris Press, 2003. |
Or so I thought until one of Mary Randall’s seven sisters (the one who lives in Vermont) handed me a copy of Mary’s book Nancy Never Married (published by X-Libris, a “print-on-demand” – aka self-publishing – outfit) and asked me to read and review it. I gave her no guarantees and worked hard to deflate any expectations.
I shouldn’t have bothered – with the deflating, I mean. Nancy Never Married is as good as any lesbian lit I’ve read in the last five years. I can’t imagine why it wasn’t picked up by Spinsters Ink or New Victoria, unless the agent who shopped it around ten years ago spurned the women’s presses in favor of the big mainstream houses, who couldn’t figure out how to market it.
The story opens with the nurse-turned-poet first-person narrator, Lee Ann Leonard, driving to Long Island from upstate New York to give a poetry reading, after which she is offered hospitality, then seduced by Maeve, a local free spirit. But the real plot is in the growth of the narrator, her abusive and non-monogamous ex-lover, and the lesbian – and straight – community they live in.
Randall weaves in past and present almost seamlessly, delving into the constant stream of associations any given object or event can evoke: Maeve’s reaching for a bottle of ginko biloba capsules calls up the moment when Lee’s ex-lover Liz shouted “Ginko!” at the trees outside the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston, and then her somewhat disappointing reaction to the paintings Lee wanted her to see.
Liz, the ex-lover, is self-possessed and narcissistic. She threw things when angry, disappeared for days – and nights – at a time, had sex with other women, and was maddeningly oblivious to any of Lee’s relationship expectations. Lee called it quits and Liz moved out. But thoughts of Liz keep haunting Lee – and then she reappears, despite Lee’s friends’ best efforts to keep them apart. She’s changed, Liz says. She wants Lee back.
Sounds like lesbian soap opera – and it might be, except for the depth and richness of the writing, the allusions to art and literature, the warmth, quirkiness, and humor of the community, the honest but discomforting discussion of disability politics, the loyalty of the dyke couple who want to support Lee as a writer, the family of origin complications.
I read the book in one sitting – and I enjoyed it so much, I read it again a month later.
In our interview, Mary Randall wouldn’t specify how autobiographical this novel is, but there are strong resonances: both “Lee” and Mary grew up in Long Island and moved to the Adirondacks, both come from Catholic families with 13 children, both work in the healthcare/social service field, and, of course, both are writers, though the offer of financial support that Lee gets from her friends is apparently wishful thinking in Mary Randall’s life.
Randall, aged 47 and the seventh of the 13 siblings, wrote the book more than 10 years ago in longhand at first, then typed the manuscript on an electric typewriter, doing the two-finger hunt-and-peck through seven more drafts. “I cut typing class to play chess with my English teacher,” she explained. Before that, she wrote plays for LILT – the Long Island Lesbian Thespians – and poetry.
“Writing becomes the act of remembering,” she declared over a plate of spicy garlic beans at a Chinese restaurant on the South Burlington-Shelburne line. “Every moment of your life exists in every other moment. And every now and then you’re aware of the collision.” Those collisions permeate Nancy Never Married. It’s not about holding grudges, but about not forgetting what has gone before.
She compares writing with dancing through a story: “In my late thirties, I used to go to The Bunkhouse, a gay bar, where they did line dancing. There were some very interesting and intricate steps and routines. I so wanted to be part of the dance, but I couldn’t. I’d watch, and pace along the edge of the floor like an animal. When I finally joined in, I remember the moment when I felt part of the dance: ÎI’m here, I’m flying through the air, and I love it!’
“Writing is being part of the literature I love. Self-consciousness interferes with the ability to be in the moment.”
Although most authors dread rewriting, Randall claims to “love” the process of doing every draft. “The story pours out – craftsmanship comes later. Most first-draft lines come out misshapen.”
She’s working on yet another draft of her second novel, which she last looked at eight years ago. “I lost the disk, so I’m retyping it from a hardcopy. There’s a certain discipline to that, and the joy of rediscovery. To write is to remember,” she says again.
If her second novel is anything like as good as her first, it’ll pay to remember Mary Randall’s name.
Nancy Never Married is available at North Country Books in Burlington, In the Alley Bookshop in Middlebury, and Briggs Carriage Book Store in Brandon.
Reviewed by Peter Jacobsen
| The Sperm Engine by Stephen Greco. Green Candy Press, 2002. |
Stephen Greco, a former editor of The Advocate, has written 204 pages devoted to how much he loves cock. The Sperm Engine earnestly tries to integrate classic smut and postmodern queer intellect, and ultimately tells stories with crystal-clear components of each. He insists, rightly so, that smut and intellect can be mixed thoroughly, but does not always transition smoothly between the two. While sexy, thoughtful stories have been put to paper for centuries, Greco writes from a truly spectacular sexual history, illuminating erotic frontiers some queers consider from a distance.
Greco surveys subjects ranging from oral sex “service stations” to masturbatory prayer circles, from intimate fisting to impersonal public sex. It’s simple to write decent pornography by describing this enlarged appendage and that tender motion, but this collection has a real familiarity to it. It is so autobiographical that stories feel personal and universal. This intimacy makes his stories truly erotic.
In “Men and Their Issues,” Greco shares snapshots of men seeking sex, intimacy, or romance. If any thread of the story feels alien – we can’t all be male models, after all – the familiar feelings of loneliness, ambiguity, and anticipation ground the story for every reader.
Probably the best story in this collection is “The Trout,” a story about a young A-lister learning about his sexuality while climbing the social ladder at the expense of those around him. The least outwardly sexual, this story nonetheless continues with themes of finding intimacy, redefining relationships, and understanding desire. In the end, the “trout,” swimming upstream, finds he most wants what he can’t have: a butch, straight, beautiful actor. While the object of his desire is literally in his grasp, he finds even the prettiest, most successful people can’t always win.
This easy read is not a read without impact. Audre Lorde said the personal is political (as did many after her). Greco takes this mantra a step further by reiterating through every story that the personal is political is sexual is emotional is intellectual is spiritual is corporeal. With the breadth of experience Greco brings to bear on his writing, he shares real observations about sex and relationships.
To preach the religion of cock while conveying the urgency of loving, the necessity of making a connection, and the importance of trusting the body’s instincts: that is the challenge. Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, Thom Gunn, Neil Bartlett, Gordon Merrick, and Gore Vidal – to name just a few – have written over the past fifty years about the role of sex in the creation of one of many queer identities. Greco builds upon these themes, and explicitly states what many queer folk have learned from sharing intimacy outside of the “mainstream”: sex is powerful, the body is powerful, culture is powerful, relationships are powerful, love is powerful.
To read about sex free from guilt, blame, or heavy-handed morality is so refreshing, especially in a time when the Supreme Court is considering, once again, whether sex between two men is inherently immoral. Arguments against queer sex seem trite, foolish and moot against the backdrop Greco paints: a world where sex never stops and is always innovating. Such stories also breathe fresh air into a state where those scared of sex can whip up a furor over HIV prevention activities at so-called Public Sex Environments. At least briefly, Stephen Greco provides counterpoints for accusations, crack downs, and sex panics. Through all of his stories, Greco considers himself an eronaut, exploring sex blissfully, but never judging those who’ve not yet ventured as far.
His stories are either brutally autobiographical or ridiculously far-flung. The truth does not ultimately matter, because Greco’s “lessons” transcend the details of the stories themselves. A more skeptical reader of this book might hope for more purely hot action or slightly expanded thinking. It may be a sort of “porn lite.” Unlike America’s sexy role models, who will always be watered down or sanitized, Greco searches for reality. Stephen Greco affirms love, intellect and romance simply by being a genuinely sexual person.
Those looking for unadulterated smut might be better served by just about any glossy magazine, but for those seeking a thought-provoking body-positive sexual manifesto, this might be the perfect collection of dirty stories.
Peter Jacobsen is a Dartmouth grad now living in Burlington.