Matthew Gallaway

Let's Go To the Apple Orchard! (Tops and Bottoms)

As we do every year, Stephen and I went to northern Westchester to Salinger's, our favorite apple orchard.
Most of the time in suburban Westchester (where we also go for the "high-end" nurseries), we seem to be the only nonheterosexual couple around, but this year I spotted another, who (somewhat predictably) were laughing at and photographing the sign for the pie crusts. Also somewhat predictably, I photographed it as well:
Once this moment of "high hilarity" waned, I fixated on more traditional and G-rated fall pleasures, such as the granny smith apples (although these are a bit too sour for my taste).
Outside there was a box of gourds.
And of course the omnipresent mums.
I felt a kind of camaraderie with a single green pumpkin in a field of orange.
Which just goes to show that we can find ourselves almost anywhere, if we know where to look.

The American Flag Casts a Long Shadow This Fall

I can't even imagine going to a political rally these days, although I agree that there's a lot to protest.
Mostly I think people have the mistaken sense that life is going to get easier as they get older, and when this inevitably turns out to be not quite the case, or at least a lot more complicated than any kind of slogan can possibly convey, they direct their anger at political figureheads. The appeal of the Tea Party is in this sense emotional, not logical, which I'm not sure many people on the left are prepared to understand or acknowledge.
Many of us on the left succumb to the temptation to view our adversaries as stupid and dangerous, which in turn is exactly what they become, much as if we had created them ourselves. We long for a restful sleep, but are terrified of our nightmares.

Sometimes the View Is Perfect When the Televisions Are Taken Away (What Fun Life Was)

I've been jogging at the gym for many years now, and for slightly less time than that have grown to detest the television monitors that are inevitably installed in front of every treadmill. At my present gym, which is on the second floor of a midtown building offering views of the sidewalk below, I much prefer to watch the ebb and flow of traffic (both vehicular and pedestrian) than anything I might find on daytime television.
You can imagine my pleasure when earlier this week I discovered that the gym had installed several new treadmills in front of a window and miraculously decided (at least for the time being) not to place television monitors in front of them (i.e., the treadmills), so that my view of the sidewalk is completely unobscured, perfect even. I didn't go running for the past three days because I've been trying to shake a cold, but today I went and ran three very easy miles, with Bedhead's first album What Fun Life Was (which btw I consider one of the most criminally neglected masterpieces of the 1990s) blaring pleasantly in my headphones. (I'm not a complete luddite, after all.) Oddly or not, I was the only person of the handful using the treadmills to choose a monitor-free model, which just goes to show that either a) I'm a freak, or b) most ppl like television present no matter where they are or what they're doing, even if they have views of the mutating city available only a few feet in front of them. (I was hypnotized by the brick pattern on the facing building, among other things.)  
Running along at an easy pace I felt like I could have lasted forever, even though I wasn't going anywhere. The music, which only seconds earlier had been magisterial, grew quiet and contemplative, and the hushed lyric "just float and relax" had never sounded better or more appropriate.

Boardwalk Empire Shoots in Washington Heights (Sylvan Terrace)

Hey, are any of you guys watching Boardwalk Empire, the new HBO show set in Atlantic City during the Prohibition/1920s? So far it's kind of a snoozefest in my opinion: after all, how many times do we need to see an American mob story, and I'm not sure the leads have the charisma of say, Tony Soprano, much less Carmela (miss u). (Also: there were apparently no nonheterosexual ppl in Atlantic City back then lol?) But at least the sets and costumes are fun to watch. 
The most exciting part of the most recent episode for me was when the character played by Steve Buscemi's mistress moves (or gets moved) to a new house on what is apparently 'whore row,' which I recognized as Sylvan Terrace, a cobblestone street about a half a block from where I live in Washington Heights. (The street leads to Jumel Terrace, site of the oldest freestanding mansion in New York City, which I wrote about last year for THE AWL.) Funnily enough, when I was walking down this street last year, a passerby told me that the street was actually notorious in the old days for housing brothels, which just goes to show how fiction can imitate reality or vice versa.
Here's a pic of Sylvan Terrace, with pigeons in place of actors. Let's hope Boardwalk Empire decides to shoot a lot more in Wahi, which will make for a more interesting show!

When We Talk about Homophobia in the Context of Literature, We're Usually Talking About a Fear of Gay Sex

As readers of this blog are no doubt all too aware, I spend quite a bit of time for obvious and (probably to some degree but not entirely) selfish reasons mulling over what I consider to be a very uneasy 'relaish' between contemporary nonheterosexual writers (particularly novelists) and what can more or less be called the 'post-war literary canon' or the mainstream establishment or whatever else you want to envision as a gleaming skyscraper on top of a tall hill, which (i.e., the skyscraper, or perhaps those who own it or manage it) with some regularity rolls out the red carpet to nonhomosexual writers but much less rarely offers the same welcome to those of the nonheterosexual persuasion, i.e., it admits to its vaunted interior writers in percentages (speaking from a sexual orientation/preference/tendency standpoint) in a manner that in no way reflects the ratio of these groups in the general population. Or to put it in a more concrete question format: why is it that when 'mainstream' (leaving aside the issue of what this means exactly, for the moment) critics or prominent literary bloggers (lol) put together lists of the greatest novelists of 'all time,' we are not at all surprised to find any number of nonheterosexuals from the pre-war period (e.g., Proust, James, Melville, Woolf, Cather, etc.) but are generally very surprised to find any dating from the last sixty or so years, i.e., the modern era? Also, whereas most thinking critics nowadays (or those who want to appear as at least marginally intelligent) are careful to include in their reviews and lists a mix of writers from both gender and ethnic standpoints, why is it not really considered a serious oversight to leave out nonheterosexuals? (By the way, this situation is one I know for a fact (or at least from talking to some of my professor friends lol) is similar to what exists at most MFA programs and on hiring committees in general at U.S. colleges and universities, i.e., if you're looking for a teaching job, it's generally considered a plus if you're non-male or non-white, whereas nonheterosexuals are NOT actively recruited, sorry gays, which, just to be clear, I think is a good thing in terms non-males and non-whites: it's important to actively incorporate members of such groups into the 'establishment,' so to speak, and I'm only making the argument that the same treatment should apply to nonheterosexuals and for the same reasons; admittedly this might seem selfish, but I'm not looking to teach, so you can take that for what it's worth.) Getting back to the point, I'm not going to bother including links to various lists and so forth -- or okay, I'll include this one, which really got under my skin a few years ago (in certain ways this post is a continuation of that essay) -- and if you don't really believe that what I've so far described is an accurate depiction of the state of the world, then we might be better off parting ways now instead of later. I don't want to fight or even quibble with angry commenters, I'm just trying to wrap my head around a situation that strikes me as not only far from ideal but in some ways worse than what existed 100 years ago, at least if you're a gay novelist. The answer, it turns out, and which was not apparent to me at the time but now seems crystal clear, is not that complicated: essentially, since the post-war period began, we as society have in literature moved toward a model in which (hetero)sexual relations are depicted very honestly and graphically, but we have maintained a continuing revulsion and horror w/r/t gay sex, which 99 percent of the time effectively limits the recognition available to any novelist describing gay sex (no matter how brilliant his or her ideas or prose or story is otherwise). It's really that simple! (There are a few exceptions to this rule, obviously, although not so much on the U.S. side, but the numbers in no way reflect what's going on demographically, so let's not even get into that argument.) If you think about it, it's pretty much expected that modern writers have some facility at describing manparts and ladyparts 'in action,' i.e., what they look like and what they do and so forth, which of course is meant to offer insight into the characters who possess them. I personally don't have a problem with this, although after forty years of being inundated with straight sex, I hope you won't be offended if I tell you that I tend to FF (fast forward) through the gratuitous but mandatory R-rated scenes on my favorite HBO shows and when they occur in similar types of movies (which is to say, pretty much all of them). But like I said, I'm not opposed: after all, sex is a big part of who we are and what we do, so it seems natural that movies and literature (which after all is arguably the most introspective of the arts) would explore this in more than some detail. The problem, however (or the problem if you're a novelist who wants to write a gay sex scene for whatever reason) is that the longstanding revulsion for gay sex (which goes back hundreds of years, obv) has not really changed significantally enough so that ppl can encounter it in the course of a movie or book and be like, 'okay, this is cool, I'm just getting into the character and he/she likes/needs this kind of sex, so let's roll with it,' etc. etc. Rather, the fact remains that we as a culture are not AT ALL comfortable talking about (or hearing about) or visualizing what goes on behind closed doors or wherever else between two men or two women (however you want to definte 'man' or 'woman'). This is not to say that people are actively homophobic or don't support gay marriage or whatever, it's far more subtle than that; I mean, seriously, when's the last time you read a commerically successful novel (loosely defined, but you know what I mean, a novel that 'everyone's talking about') in which there's a scene with two men or two women 'getting down to bizness' in a manner that's pretty much run-of-the-mill for nonhomosexual characters?  Or ditto for the movies: okay, there's Brokeback Mountain, we all saw the two cowboys getting it on in the tent, which was great (although I will never forget the gasps in the audience -- this in New York City, btw -- when one of the guys lubed up his cock with saliva before fucking the other one), but how many others can you think of from the past ten or twenty or more years? I challenge you to come up with more than than a few, because if they're out there and getting awards and Oscar nominations (or the literary equivalent) I want to know what I've been missing! And I don't mean to bring this up as an us-versus-them type of argument, because it applies to any writer (not just the gay ones) who wants to describe gay sex. Moreover, this is a kind of homophobia that I believe afflicts everyone, just by virtue of growing up in our country at this point in time: frankly, I'm even vaguely horrified on some deep level when I see two men having sex (in any of its possible permutations) in a movie or book, despite my understanding that this is very much a part of me (the sex part, not the revulsion) and something I wouldn't give up for the world, for the same reasons I think apply to most people, whatever your sexual orientation. But like everyone else, I've been conditioned by the literally thousands and thousands of visual images of what it meanst to be normal, i.e., heterosexual, and what it means to be abnormal, i.e., nonheterosexual, and so am in a weird way 'grossed out' by gay sex (at least as it's depicted in film or literature); it's just too dissonant on some level to acknowledge as a legitimate artistic statement, like it Does Not Compute. Of course I've reached a point where I recognize this reaction and dismiss it, but that's not to say it isn't there. Not to mention that our entire day-to-day language is infused with anti-gay-sex slurs that we hardly even notice anymore, e.g., if you think of basically any insult like 'stick it up yer butt' or 'suck my cock' or any number of similar permutations of the same theme, i.e., implying that the person receiving the insult is inferior for wanting on some level to have something up his butt or in his mouth, which is pretty much the definition of gay sex (at least the male kind; the female kind is traditionally less threatening to straight men, so is somewhat less likely to be used as an insult, at least against other men; obviously, lesbians get teased and bullied and every other awful thing as much as gay men, I'm not trying to diminish the pain of any group or category but frame it in relation to the most powerful segment of our society, which is still straight, white men). So what's the solution? Obviously we're not going to turn the clock back on the graphic depiction of sex in books and movies, but we need to turn it up a notch (or ten thousand) on the gay front, and some percentage of nonhomosexual ppl have to embrace that and even 'relate,' much the way white ppl can be expected to enjoy or relate to stories about black ppl; it's all a valid part of the American experience. Because right now there's a lot of ignorance out there, despite the fact that there are obviously plenty of well-intentioned straight people who view themselves as tolerant and 'gay-friendly' -- and moreover, proabably are. But just to give you an example, I happen to have heard a story, possibly apocryphal but nevertheless telling, about the editor of a prominent literary magazine in New York City who -- the editor -- is considered one of the smartest people on the planet but whose girlfriend had to show him using a book with pictures exactly what happens during sex between two men. I couldn't believe it, either, but then I was like, well yeah, maybe I do believe it? I think we also need to be cognizant of the idea that the situation with gay sex is very different (and in some ways, more challenging) than what exists for non-males or non-whites to the extent that we as a culture these days are somewhat less revolted by women or ethnic minorities per se, although even as I write this, I'm thinking that there's a lot of bullshit/derogatory messages that fly across the marketing/entertainment airwaves, which I guess is a way of saying that while the situation is pretty fucking bleak for non-males and non-whites, it's maybe even worse for non-heterosexuals. I don't know, I can't pretend to have a complete grip on all this stuff, it's likely that I'm just looking at the world through my 'ish,' I won't ever deny that, and in no way do I mean to downplay or belittle the problems and discrimination faced by others, that's for sure. So, what does this mean for novelists? It means we can either 1) not write about gay sex or try to do it in a very shielded or 'unoffensive' manner, which is great if you can pull it off or don't have that inclination (i.e., to write about gay sex), but can obv be limiting in terms of exploring the full dimensions of a character, or 2) you can write about gay sex and hope for the best, knowing that the odds are even longer that you will find yourself pushed into the metaphorical gutter, watching with sadness and envy as others are ushered in to the place where you want to belong.

God Light over New Jersey and other Mysteries

In the effort to momentarily "lighten things up" around here, let's consider the mystery of the god light over New Jersey. This is only one of several mysteries with which I've been preoccupied lately; others include the following: 
1) Who stole the garbage and recycling bins out of my office? (And more disconcertingly: why?)
2) Who left a single black sock (carefully folded) outside of my locker at the gym (note that I use a different locker every day), almost two years after I lost an identical sock at the gym? (And even more disconcertingly: why?)

What We Mean When We Talk about Gay Writers in the Context of Literary Fiction (Categories)

In my ongoing discussions surrounding the issue of what it means to be gay in the context of literary fiction -- by which I mean novels that aspire to avoid the kind of standardized plot points of "genre fiction" (not that there's anything wrong with genre fiction, obv!) -- I've noticed a lot of confusion due to a failure of most speakers (including me, I should be the first to add) about exactly what we're talking about, definition-wise, when we say that so-and-so is a "gay writer." In the attempt to bring some clarity to this often-vexing issue, I put on my "lawyer hat" and came up with five possible categories: 1) A NONHOMOSEXUAL or STRAIGHT writer with absolutely no interest in nonheterosexuality, either IRL or in his/her books. These writers make up the bulk of the post-war literary canon in the United States and include ____, _____, and _____. To determine whether a writer falls into this category, you must envision an alien visiting the planet and encountering only books by this writer, along with a film of his/her life. If the alien has no reason to believe that nonheterosexuals exist, then the writer can be comfortably placed into this category.
2) A NONHOMOSEXUAL or STRAIGHT writer who "isn't afraid" to include nonheteroseuxal characters in his/her work. This is sort of the literary equivalent of "playing gay," and writers who can "pull it off" can expect a lot of critical and sometimes even commercial success, far more than their gay peers, even. Off the top of my head, I think ___ and ____ are good examples of this category of writer (if not exactly "good writers" lol?). Obviously, please feel free to add your own examples in the comments below!
3) THE SECRETLY NONHETEROSEXUAL WRITER who doesn't include gay characters in his/her work. This writer is someone who clearly has a lot of 'issues' and despite the lack of gay characters in his/her work leads readers (or sometimes, gossip columnists or biographers) to conclude that the writer in question is or was probably a "closet-case." There are countless historical examples of this category of writer, including ___, ____, ____, and let's not be pretend, probably ____ and maybe even ____. Most recently, the detached irony and sexual ambivalence of ____ has led many to conclude that this (male) writer is probably "not exactly interested in women sexually speaking." Let's hope he can "come out" soon, for his own sake if not ours!
4) THE OPENLY GAY OR NONHETEROSEXUAL WRITER who rarely or never includes gay characters in his/her work. There are some very 'big names' out there in this category, including ___ and ____. Sometimes there's a tendency to look at these writers and be like: "jesus, wtf, are u some kind of self-hating gay?" On the other hand, it's a "known fact" that including gay characters in a work (especially if you're gay) can be "commercial suicide," so we have to keep that in mind before being too judgmental. After all, everyone has to make a living, and if you can write bestsellers without mentioning anyone who shares your interest in ___ or ___ (sexually speaking), the more power to you, so to speak.
5) THE OPENLY GAY or NONHETEROSEXUAL NOVELIST who writes about gay/nonheterosexual characters/themes in his/her work. There are plenty of examples of writers who fall into this category, but probably only a handful have careers that can be considered commercial and critical successes. Probably the best example of this category of writer in the United States is ____ , and in England there's Alan Hollinghurst.

From the Mailbag (Letters and Discussion)

Recently I received the following note from Francis Strand, who lives in Sweden and is married to a Swedish man, and who writes a great blog that everyone should read.

Hey Matthew: I tried to post a comment, but for some reason it says "Sorry we cannot accept this data." [Ed: wtf, typepad?] So this is what I wanted to say, about Michael Cunningham and no gay writers under 57 writing about gay lives these days: Yeah, but. Um. I think other "outsiders" have a pretty tough time of it, actually. Nonhomosexual white men pretty much rule, although nonhomosexual women seem to continue to improve their lot. I don't disagree with you, though. I couldn't come up with anyone that fits the bill exactly (Augusten Burroughs? Dale Peck? Scott Heim?) Also, I have a few favorite gay writers who don't at all fit the bill but I [wanted to mention]. They don't always write about gay lives either, but sometimes: Colm Toibin, Peter Cameron, Patrick Gale... and funny that David Leavitt never lands in these lists, he was the great gay hope for popular literature at one point. -- Francis

My response: I completely get what you're saying about other outsiders, Francis -- it's not easy for anyone -- and you're right about the establishment still being largely ruled by straight, white men. I also don't mean to sound like a "crusader": after all, as you may or may not have noticed, the promotional materials for THE METROPOLIS CASE make no explicit reference to the many "scorching" nonheterosexual scenes/motifs/themes/affairs in the novel (although to be fair, there's plenty of nonhomosexual stuff, too -- basically there's a lot of sex in the book!), because like every other gay writer, I don't want to be tossed into the "gay ghetto." I guess what bugs me is my perception (and I could be wrong about this, I've always had a bit of a persecution complex, I won't try to deny it) that members of other groups are so often cited as being "proud" (for lack of a better word) of their outsider status, and moreover, recognized and applauded for incorporating that element of their identities into their fiction, whereas if a gay person tries to do the same, there's a lot of awkward coughing and uncomfortable shuffling of feet, sort of like there's a collective sigh and "okayyyy." I guess the example I keep coming back to is an interview I read with Junot Diaz, where he said something to the effect of: 'I just wanted to tell the stories of my people (i.e., Dominican Americans)," and he sounded so forthright and honest and relaxed about it in a way that never seems possible for a gay writer. Which okay is just one example, but I think it's a telling one.

Over the City, Under the City

After flying over Manhattan in the morning, I went last night down to the East Village to meet a friend for dinner. The first place had no reservations available, so we went to a second spot where the crowd was spilling out on the street, which led us to a third place, where we were told that they actually did have a single reservation left for two, at 9:45pm (it was 7:45). We both sighed, since we were both better acquainted with an East Village that existed close to twenty years ago, when the concept of reservations was pretty much foreign to the neighborhood. We did see a punk get violently thrown out of a bar on Avenue A, however, so there was that. In the end we went to an Indian restaurant in 'Little India' (aka Sixth Street), which was good. 
After dinner we went to a 'Tumblr meetup' at a bar on Avenue A, which thankfully was neither too crowded nor too loud. It was interesting to meet people 'IRL' whose blogs I've followed and admired, and there were some great moments of sit-com hilarity, such as when I gave my phone to Meg with a thought to text the absent Jennie to find out where she was, but ended up accidentally sending the text to Norman, who was sitting two feet from us. Meg (who had never met Jennie IRL) then recomposed the text (a work-intensive process in a dark bar after a drink or two) and sent the following: 'You should come here because I am her. It's me, Meg,' which (i.e., the typo 'her' for 'here') led to many more laffs).
True, I felt a bit old at times (because I was definitely pushing that end of the spectrum; most of the ppl there were in their 20s, if I had to guess), but I didn't mind. The city was crowded and spinning, and for a few hours it felt good to be a part of it.

Michael Cunningham, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

So this morning I woke up at 6:15 and went back to bed before tossing and turning for perhaps 30 minutes and deciding to get up for real and head out to the airport for my 10:30 flight, thinking that perhaps I would be able to 'slide on' to the 8:30 'shuttle' to New York LGA, which in the old days wasn't a problem, it was almost like taking a bus, but which I soon enough learned is a 'courtesy' that has been permanently suspended for 'security' reasons (I think I already knew this but had 'forgot' about it), meaning that even if the 8:30 flight were empty, which it pretty much was, I would still have to pay $50 to change my ticket. Which I did, because I obv didn't want to sit around the airport for two extra hours on a Saturday morning after spending the better part of a week at a conference in Washington, DC. Not that I minded the conference; I went to some very interesting sessions, such as the one on counterfeit operations in the 'far east' (mostly China, but also South Korea and Viet Nam), which in the past decade or so have become increasingly sophisticated thanks to the internet, so that these operations (like the corporations they mirror) generally ignore geographical boundaries (and many of the laws associated with them) and use all manner of fake names and corporate shells and off-shore bank accounts to hide the actual identities of the people running them, which by the way in one case cited by the attorney panelist was bringing in $1.65 million per week, so we're not talking about small, fly-by-night operations but very entrenched and profitable concerns, which manufacture everything from fake watches and clothes to pharmaceuticals and probably everything else you can think of that we associate with a 'name brand.' Chances are, you have bought and used some kind of counterfeit item without even knowing it at some recent point in your life, which raises many interesting questions not only from an enforcement standpoint (i.e., the subject of the talk I attended) but also philosophical questions in terms of exactly what's real and what's not. These questions are both beyond the scope of what I want to talk about here, I just wanted to give you an idea of some of the things (i.e., the counterfeit goods, and there was also an interesting panel on the legalities of this crazy thing called 'blogging') occupying the energy of certain intellectual-property attorneys (and hence me) in the year 2010.
Anyway, on the way out of the hotel room, I picked up the gratis Washington Post and put it in my bag, which (the newspaper) I forgot about as I orchestrated the trip to the airport, beginning with a call down to the front desk to please order me a cab, which they did. Strange thing about the phone: whenever they called back, it would ring, but when I picked it up, it would keep ringing but I would hear only the dial tone. Aggravating! I pushed every other button on the phone to no avail. Whatever, the cab was waiting for me when I got downstairs and I got in and the driver asked me where I was going and with some degree of pain and awkwardness I said 'DC Reagan' instead of 'DC National' or however it is that most people in DC say it without mentioning the name of the president after whom it's now sadly named, and I spent the drive to the airport (albeit through the exhilaratingly empty, i.e., traffic-free streets of DC, owing to early hour on a Saturday morning) ruing that I had uttered the name of one of my least favorite characters in history but then considering that with the passage of time, perhaps he becomes more innocuous; after all, I bet there are a ton of kids under the age of ___ who don't even know who Ronald Reagan was, and that's maybe sort of comforting (although I think it's safe to say that his political legacy is very much alive and well these days), I don't know I'm probably grasping at straws. 
So after I was checked-in and waiting to board, I pulled out the WaPo and was scanning through the usual front-page horror show related to war and racism and economic blight when I was struck by the following lede: 'REWRITING STEREOTYPES: Michael Cunningham and a new generation of writers redefining gay lit. C1 (STYLE)' Which made me think, sweet, cool, I wonder who they're going to talk about. I mean, obviously Michael Cunningham has a new novel out (which I haven't read yet, but I intend to because I have loved much of his work and long considered him something of a hero for obv reasons), but I was curious to know who the other members are of this new generation 'redefining gay lit.' Turns out the answer is, besides Michael Cunningham (age 57): Tony Kushner (at 54, the youngest), Andrew Holleran (66 or 67), Edmund White (70), and Larry Kramer (75). I don't think I need to spend a lot of time explaining why this is depressing, although you may want to consider it along with the possible fact that not a single writer (as far as I've been able to tell, and I may be wrong about this?) in the New Yorker's notorious (or not, I guess, depending on your perspective) 20-under-40 list has ever included a gay character in his or her fiction. Please tell me I'm wrong about this, I'd really like to know! But seriously, who are the 40-something and under icons of gay literature, the ones who have followed in the wake of Michael Cunningham and his generation who are more or less 'household names' and have written novels that both acknowledge and transcend gay identity, and thus have helped to develop a kind of mainstream empathy for the plight of nonheterosexuals? Oh, you can't come up with anyone? I'm not surprised! In short, why don't these novelists exist? (I have my own theories related to the decimation of AIDS and the institutionalized homophobia and real terror that followed and still follows in its wake, but I don't want to go too far off the track here.) This sad situation isn't Michael Cunningham's fault, obviously, but to see him in this barren context (and one frankly exacerbated by the precious description of the unreal world he lives in, where e.g., he and his P-town friends stay up all night 'performing aloud' a chapter from Joyce's Ulysses, OMGBARF!) did make for some pretty depressing reading, particularly for a 42-year-old aspiring novelist like me. Reading about the exalted life of Michael Cunningham made me want to burn all novels (including my own), I wish I were kidding. 
In Michael Cunningham's new book, the main character is an allegedly non-homosexual 44-year-old male art dealer who develops an infatuation for a 20-something 'bisexual' Adonis who in an the attemt to 'dry out' moves into the Soho loft the art dealer shares with his wife of 20 years. (Like I said, I haven't read it yet.) In terms of making his lead character a 'straight' man, Cunningham says this: 'Most of the straight guys I know have had sex with a guy at some point or another -- in college, most likely.' Orlly? If you're anything like me, and trust me, I know a LOT of straight guys (via having been a closet case for three decades), you're probably thinking that Michael Cunningham knows exactly no straight guys. Which to me is worth a good LOL but also troubling because it 'sends a message' that there's something wrong with being 100-percent gay; in my experience, there are a lot of gay guys (ohai) who have had sexual experiences with women, but I've honestly met one (purportedly) straight guy in my entire life who freely admitted to having sex with another man. (And I have theories about him, lol.) I mean, I've heard about others, of course, and there's obviously the whole 'down-low' thing that happens on Craigslist and in the parks and public toilets across the world, but let's not pretend that these guys are 'straight'; 99 percent of the time they're closet cases who are living with gfs and wives because for whatever reason (like the fact that society hates gay ppl), they were never able to own up to their own orientations/preferences/tendencies to have sex with men. And even more troubling, as we all know, these are often the same macho a-holes (via self-hatred) beating the shit out of the more stereotypically effeminate gay boys, these latter ones who no coincidence here have been cutting their own throats, so to speak, with such alarming regularity of late.
So, the state of story-telling from a gay perspective in 2010: yes it's fine for Michael Cunningham (who btw in the article sounds frankly terrified of being 'labeled' gay, which is understandable, everybody wants to be a writer first and then a gay/black/woman/etc. etc. writer second) to explore the fluid, OMG whose-that-hottie sexuality of a straight art dealer (lol) -- as a writer, he's pretty much incapable of writing a sentence that doesn't resonate with beauty and insight, he deserves to be famous and celebrated, no question about it -- but please let's not pretend he's part of a new generation transforming gay stereotypes. The fact remains that it's apparently still pretty much impossible for a gay man (or at least one under the age of 57) to write stories about 100-percent-identified nonheterosexual men and have any hope of enjoying a kind of mainstream commercial or even critical success that has been achieved by other 'outsiders' (whether religious or ethic or gender driven) in the post-war American literay canon. In short, to be a gay fiction writer examining your own life (and I'm sorry, that's what writers of literary fiction do, even if we like to pretend otherwise) means that on some important level you're still a social pariah, and until that changes, we will continue to be ignored and abused, while leaving subsequent generations even more hopeless than our own. It would be nice if the generation ahead of us would acknowledge this same or a similar idea (since it reverberates with the truth), instead of continually retreating into a bubble of privilege and fantasy.