Something Inside: Conversations With Gay Fiction Writers - Softcover

Gambone, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 029916134X ISBN 13: 9780299161347

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999

Synopsis

In the last twenty years, gay literature has earned a place at the American and British literary tables, spawning its own constellation of important writers and winning a dedicated audience. No one, though, until Philip Gambone, has attempted to offer a collective portrait of our most important gay fiction writers. This selection of interviews attempts just that and is notable both for the depth of Gambone’s probing conversations and for the sheer range of important authors included.

Allen Barnett
Christopher Bram
Peter Cameron
Bernard Cooper
Dennis Cooper
Michael Cunningham
Brad Gooch
Joseph Hansen
Scott Heim
Andrew Holleran
Alan Hollinghurst
Brian Keith Jackson
Randall Kenan
David Leavitt
Michael Lowenthal
Paul Monette
Michael Nava
David Plante
John Preston
Lev Raphael
Edmund White

About this title

About the Author:

Philip Gambone is an award-winning essayist, journalist, and fiction writer living in Boston. He teaches writing at Harvard University. His previous work includes a book of stories, The Language We Use Up Here. He is the author of a novel, Beijing, also published by the Press. Robert Giard contributed photos of sixteen of the writers interviewed.

From Publishers Weekly:

A welcome compilation of interviews Gambone has conducted with 21 gay writers since 1987, this collection amounts to a compelling portrait gallery of many influential figures. Gambone's knowledge of each writer's work and his sensitivity to the craft is impressive. While consciously eschewing "literary gossip," his carefully probing interviews provide insight into the working methods and aesthetic, personal and social concerns of a varied group, including such well-known writers as Edmund White and Andrew Holleran, as well as those who emerged in the late 1980s and 1990s, including Alan Hollinghurst, Randall Kenan and Scott Heim. Presented in roughly chronological order by date of interview, the book amounts to a broad overview of the "breathlessly rapid" development of gay fiction and its themes, from early coming-out novels (such as Edmund White's A Boy's Own Story) to more complex visions of a world in which gay people are no unhappier than other people. Many of the writers stress how important it is for them to feel the freedom to depict their world honestly. There are also some provocative juxtapositions, in which authors reflect on (and in the notable case of Dennis Cooper, vehemently reject) the work of their contemporaries. Here's hoping that Gambone is at work on volume two. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 029916134X
• ISBN 13: 9780299161347
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352