Monthly Archives: September 2011

Neil Gaiman’s American Gods

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I recently completed Neil Gaiman’s AMERICAN GODS, 10th Anniversary edition.

The book had been in my reading queue for awhile while I’m on the hunt for mythology-based fantasy.  AMERICAN GODS is fantasy of an urban/contemporary sort, as opposed to my ancient world/heroic tastes, but the premise was awfully compelling.  Plus, there was the August  announcement that HBO will be producing an AMERICAN GODS mini-series.

The story is about a down-on-his-luck, ex-con Shadow who is pulled into the world of gods  hiding behind America’s everyday reality.  The premise is every generation of immigrants brought mysticism and folktales with them, but as they created a new “American” culture, their beliefs faded, and their Old World gods became marginal sorts of characters like small time con men, prostitutes, drifters and undertakers.

Released early from a three-year sentence to attend his wife’s funeral, Shadow is hired by the mysterious Mr. Wednesday — an alias of the Norse god Odin — to act as a sort of bodyguard and errand boy.  Shadow quickly learns there’s much more going on with the job than organized crime.  Wednesday is rallying the forgotten gods to fight the new establishment that has captured America’s imagination:  the modern idols such as materialism, technology and the media.

In his foreword, Gaiman says he set out to write a long, meandering novel, and long and meandering it is at 500 pages with plenty of plot diversions.  But it’s an immersing story of a large scale, so there’s an epic drive that pulled me forward even through longish chapters that added color to  the fantasy world, or provided a curiously retold parable.

My favorite parable-style chapter was “Somewhere in America,” which concerns a young Arab immigrant Salim who is trying, unsuccessfully, to work as a salesman for his family’s company of touristy knick-knacks.  On the brink of giving up, and returning to his home country in disgrace, he confesses his troubles to an Arab taxi driver who is secretly a mystical demon from Islamic lore.  Salim takes the demon home, they make love, and the demon is gone the next morning.  So is Salim’s passport, which has been replaced with his lover’s taxi driver license, providing Salim with an opportunity to start a new life.

That chapter worked well for me because of my soft spot for gay romance, but it’s one of many literary touches that beautifully articulate the story’s complex themes.  America is a country of immigrants, promising economic advancement, cosmopolitanism, and – in Salim’s case – sexual liberation.  At the same time, it’s a land of assimilation where newcomers abandon their cultural traditions in the pursuit of social mobility and personal independence.

On that level, AMERICAN GODS is a traditional tale of the discontents of modern living, which force people to relinquish their soulful natures.  But it also poses deeper questions about the nature of Old World mysticism and the secular materialism of the day.

The old gods have their quirky charms – the swearing, drunk Leprachaunish Mad Sweeney, and the gruffly earnest Czernobog, a Slavic god of death who misses the good old days of bludgeoning men with his hammer – as opposed to the embodiments of commercialism with their slick-backed hair, expensive suits and sunglasses.  But the brutality and trickery of the old gods brings up equally profound challenges for Shadow.  Are there moral truths behind their capricious ways?  Even if so, are there sacrifices too big to make in order to preserve cultural traditions?

In the end, a touch of sentimentality redeems Mr. Wednesday and his pantheon.  Shadow is a tool in their spiritual survival, by but showing himself to be sincere and selfless, he is given a chance for resurrection—both literally and figuratively—which is an opportunity that’s difficult to imagine if he were playing for the other team.

My occasional qualm with the book is the spare characterization of Shadow.  At times he seems to be a heartbroken drifter—and rightly so—and at others he’s a remarkably cool-headed observer of the bizarre, metaphysical vagaries surrounding him.  I suppose he’s written to be an Everyman character, taking in his fantastical circumstances with a degree of distance.  It’s a minor point, but I found myself wanting a bit more disbelief and emotion from him.

Still, this extraordinary book shows off Gaiman’s sly use of imagery, symbol and foreshadowing.  The ever present coin tricks keep the story grounded in the contemporary while setting up the possibility for magic.  Wednesday’s tales of old time con jobs provide a clever tie-in to the story’s bigger themes of belief and deception in consumerism, religion and love.  A side-story mystery concerning generations of disappearing teens in a small Minnesota town comes to a satisfying resolution through deciphering a “hiding-in-plain-sight” villain (and a clever play-on-words).  Well-done indeed.  I expect the story will be in good hands for a small-screen adaptation by HBO, based on the company’s success with George R.R. Martin’s SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.

Short Story Publication News, and Other Stuff

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Gotta say, I’ve had a patch of good stuff happening lately.  From my videotaped reading coming out earlier this week to getting an acceptance from Wilde Oats for my short story Mike’s Pond, I’m feeling pretty proud of meself, and lucky.

Wilde Oats Issue Nine will include my short, fictionalized memoir Mike’s Pond about growing up in suburban Western New York.  The issue comes out in December, and I’ll be sure to do a major blast on the release.

I also have a guest blog up today about working with LGBT teens in the suburbs.  It was a great opportunity offered to me by author/blogger Brandon Shire.  Brandon recently published The Value of Rain, a novel about a gay teen who gets sent to an institution to turn him straight.  He’s donating half of his book sales to LGBT youth agencies, and he was kind enough to do a plug for Pride for Youth, where I work.

I’m still following Yes Gay Ya, and working on an article about diversifying young adult literature.  Since Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith put out their testimonial on censorship, Colleen Lindsay leant her platform The Swivet to Joanna Stampfel-Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary Agency to tell a different side of the story.

Stampfel-Volpe writes that the authors leaked the name of the agent they accuse (from Nancy Coffey); the agent never offered representation on the condition of cutting out a gay character or making him straight; and the Genreville article is a mean-spirited publicity stunt.

Only a fly on the wall knows the truth.

But out of the kerfuffle, there’s an opportunity to look critically at the status of LGBT YA, and how we can get more and better representation of LGBTs in literature.  That’s what I’m writing about.  Deep stuff.

Live Reading from The Seventh Pleiade

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Pretty cool — thanks to the 2011 Lambda Literary Foundation retreat, I have my first videotaped reading.

It’s from my novel THE SEVENTH PLEIADE, an excerpt from midway through the story when things are heating up for the hero Aerander.

Let me know what you think!

Embedly Powered

via Vimeo

 

 

 

Yes Gay YA

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On Monday, Young Adult (YA) fantasy authors Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith posted an article on Publishers Weekly’s Genreville blog about their experience trying to sell a post-apocalyptic novel that featured a gay Japanese character.

An agent offered representation on the condition that they change the character from gay to straight, or remove him from the manuscript and/or omit references to his sexual orientation.

The character in question had a boyfriend, and according to the authors, the relationship was depicted in-line with those of the non-gay characters, i.e. no graphic sexual content, basically PG-rated.

I encourage people to read the entire article, which provides an excellent call to action for agents, editors, authors and readers who support LGBT portrayals in YA.

It’s a topic that has come up before, most recently when author Jessica Verday pulled her story out of the YA fantasy anthology Wicked Pretty Things, because the editor asked Verday to change the gender of one of her main characters to depict a non-gay relationship.  The incident sparked the creation of the fansite GayYA.org to promote LGBT portrayals in YA.

Brown and Smith make the point that their experience is not an isolated incident, and they invoke the heterocentric tendencies of the publishing biz.  Certainly, some  LGBT YA gets published, but it’s a tough mountain for authors to climb, in an industry where the slope is insanely steep regardless of what you’re writing about.

Author Melinda Lo wrote a great article on the subject:  “How Hard is it to Sell an LGBT YA novel?”  Therein, she makes the sensible point that LGBT YA will always be tougher to get published than non-LGBT stories simply because the readership will always be smaller.  Most readers aren’t LGBT.  The number of non-LGBT readers who are interested in LGBT books is relatively small.  Thus, the bar is higher for those of us who write LGBT characters.  Our stories must be spectacular and resonate with a “wider” (meaning:  non-LGBT) audience.

Lo says she never felt any pushback from the publishing industry in writing her first novel (ASH) with a lesbian heroine, but many authors do.  So for authors of LGBT YA, it’s not just the added burden of writing a novel that will appeal to LGBT and non-LGBT readers alike (does anyone ever ask authors who write books with heterosexual characters:  could you make your story more appealing to an LGBT audience?).  It’s the added burden of having to sift very finely through the heap of agents and publishers, to find one who is willing to get behind a high quality LGBT novel because they believe that LGBT portrayals are important, even if it’s a tougher sell to non-LGBT readers.

I don’t think this is a problem that gets solved on an agent-by-agent or an editor-by-editor level (nor do Brown and Smith argue that point).   It’s about increasing the visibility of LGBTs generally so that the publishing industry sees us as the vital market that we are.

Beyond that, we need to educate publishing folks about our community.  An interesting issue to be explored is:  do LGBTs – and LGBT teens specifically – read more than their non-LGBT peers?  My experience working with LGBT youth points to yes.  As a routine evaluation of young people’s developmental assets and needs, we ask kids at my agency how many hours each week they spend reading.  Youth at our drop-in center consistently score higher on this measure than youth in comparable, non-LGBT specific youth programs.

It’s just a preliminary indication, based on a small sample, but it makes intuitive sense to me.  LGBTs frequently turn to reading for escapism, to reduce stress or to validate their marginalized experiences.  It’s a positive coping mechanism.  I’ve shared before that as a closeted gay teen, I sought out any gay lit I could find; in the 80’s it was gritty stuff by William Burroughs and Paul T. Rogers, so I can imagine how much more affirming it would have been for me to have the breadth of LGBT YA titles that are available today.

But it’s time for those titles to get out into the mainstream so that more readers know about them.

Back to the Grind

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I’ve been tight-lipped here for a little while, owing to a walloping on a couple of fronts.

I’m teaching my first ever college class this semester, balancing that with my full time job, and trying to widely hedge my bets on an agent for The Seventh Pleiade.

(You can all put down your bets on how soon the mental breakdown will arrive).

So, on the agent front, I’ve got some folks reading my full manuscript. Cross your fingers!  Querying/pitching is pretty torturous, but at least this time around I am getting some response.

Also on my mind lately:   Lambda’s announcement about changing guidelines for its 24th annual awards.

Responding to strong criticism about restricting nominations to self-identified LGBT authors and poets, Lambda’s Board re-opened the field to all writers, excepting three categories that recognize authors in stages of their careers: debut, mid-career, and lifetime achievement.

I’ve got a heap of mixed feelings about the announcement.   On one hand, exclusion rarely feels right to me.  When authors — LGBT or not — write fresh and honest stories about queer people, they are part of a united fight against censorship and marginalization, which are still very real obstacles in publishing.   Increasing the number of good queer portrayals is something to be lauded whether the author is non-LGBT, like George R.R. Martin (Song of Ice and Fire), or gay, like YA author David Levithan (Boy Meets Boy, Wide Awake).

On the other hand, I believe there is a need to celebrate queer authorship specifically, to have an occasion where people step up to the podium and validate that being a queer author matters.   It’s not just about the content of our work.   Queer authorship is a tradition, a history, a common struggle, and a triumph.   By celebrating queer authors, we celebrate more than simply queer themed work, as though it were a genre of fandom, like sci fi or romance.   We’re celebrating, and creating, community.

According to Lambda’s Executive Director Tony Valenzuela, the organization does not anticipate the policy change to have an impact on the number of queer authors nominated.   There were no restrictions on nominees for most of the Lammy’s history (notwithstanding the period of 2009-2010, when a 2009 policy was in effect restricting most awards to LGBT authors).

In correspondence with Valenzuela, he pointed out to me that queer authors have always competed extremely well, even dominating the competition.   Says Valenzuela:   “I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”