[LINK] "‘The American People, Volume 1’ by Larry Kramer Retells History With Passion"

[rfmcdonald]

Dwight Garner's review in The New York Times of the first volume of Larry Kramer's ambitious GLBT-themed history of the United States makes me curious.

Most histories of gay men in America begin around the time of the Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969, when homosexuality fought its way into the national consciousness. Mr. Kramer’s novel rewinds to prehistoric monkeys swapping viruses in the jungle. You get the sense he’d like to go back further. One narrator comments, “Everyone has been infecting everyone else since the Garden of Eden.”

From here on out, like a Sabbath elevator, Mr. Kramer’s book stops at every floor. American Indians bring “anal intercourse into general use in this country.” The mostly male settlers at Jamestown take a great deal of comfort in brotherly love. In this telling, George Washington, who disappears into the woods with “cute young Indian fellows,” is gay, as are Hamilton, Franklin, Lincoln, Jackson, Pierce and Buchanan. Minutemen jokes? Check.

Mr. Kramer doesn’t skim demurely over this material. Scenes don’t dissolve when the candle is snuffed out. Lincoln stars in a sex scene in which, his lover reports, “my big bed took quite a beating.” Lewis, in this book, is frequently, secretly fond of Clark. Samuel Clemens: totally gay. Huck and Jim are “the country’s first gay rock stars.”

There is a method, of sorts, to Mr. Kramer’s madness. He combines these stories with those of unknowns, fictional men of no special importance, some of whose tales are moving. Under this novel’s busy surfaces, the author is saying something quite specific: That gay men have always been with us, long before homosexuality had a name, and it is past time we extend to these men our historical sympathy and imagination.

Americans may have pretended they didn’t know gay men existed. One character, during the Truman presidency, addresses this nonsense in his own way: “You can’t work in a haberdashery in the sticks without knowing what a fairy is.”