I've just noticed that the Irish novelist Colm Tóibín has made it to the Booker Prize shortlist for his novel The Blackwater Lightship. I don't know anything about this book - I haven't read this, haven't even seen any reviews of it, not even on amazon. But it reminded me of one of his earlier novels, The Story Of The Night, which is one of the most moving novels with a gay related theme I have ever read. 

(Note please that I am not describing it as gay fiction which is a thoroughly irritating category, where the 'gay' part is usually at the expense of the 'fiction'. Best example is the usually awful Men On Men series. The Story Of The Night is nothing like that - just a very good novel, gay or otherwise). 

I'd actually written about it a long time back on the list, so with apologies to everyone who read the original mail, I'm just reproducing it here: 

The Story Of The Night, by Colm Tóibín - The only book I'm listing which may not be that easily available. It was first published about two years ago, and all the copies I've seen here are Picador paperbacks. Some shops may have them, but otherwise they should be able to order it for you. Again, the British Council library also has a copy.

This was the one gay themed book that I read last year that most moved me. I suppose I'm wrong to describe it as 'gay themed'. Unlike most gay books, where the gay theme often seems to be the only point of the book, ere its just part of something larger. 

The book is set in Argentina where Richard Garay a half-Argentinean, half-British boy grows up with his British mother. Their Britishness isolates them from Argentinean society, as does Richard's being gay. They are poor, and Richard makes a living teaching English. Then his mother dies and he is even more alone. He teaches, lives alone in his flat, has sex with anonymous men. But he is closeted, isolated - its like he has a shell and the real world is a distance away. 

The Falkland War happens and Argentina loses. The country is in chaos, it throws out the military government and installs a civilian one. American government officials, companies and advisers descend on the country. Richard's English language skills now are an advantage and he is befriended by two sets of people - the family of one of his former pupils, whose father has political ambitions, and a rather sinister American couple who are probably spies. 

The American couple take over Richard's life. They make him dress better, give him new jobs, introduce him to new people. And slowly he starts coming out of his shell. The other person who brings him out is Pablo, the brother of his former pupil, who has lived abroad and is gay, but in the closet back home. Pablo and Richard establish a relationship and start living together. Richard is doing very well now, he is making money, he is in love and is out of his shell. 

But coming out has its costs, and one day Pablo disappears, and Richard can't find him. The American couple leaves Argentina, and Richard is on his own again. Not as badly as before, since he's making money now, he travels, he's a man of the world. But then he falls sick and he learns he has AIDS. And then at the hospital he encounters Pablo again. Pablo also has AIDS, much worse, which is why he left. They are now together again, and Richard nurses Pablo till he's slightly healthier. And the book ends here, both of them with AIDS, but together. 

Describing it, the book doesn't sound like much, even rather silly. But that's because I can't describe the way its told, the atmosphere. Its all told in a quiet, unemotional, very simple way. Its a very easy to read book - I finished it at one reading, reading right through the night and it was almost morning when I finished, but I hadn't realised. And it moved me so much I could hardly sleep then. 

Its a book full of shadows, moods, distances. There's a sort of controlled sadness about it. And yet, like My Own Country, its not really a sad book. Because whatever else has happened, Richard started off the book closeted and isolated and hence somehow incomplete. In the end, he may have been hurt and have AIDS, but he is now a complete human being. 

The book is saying that there are worse things to be than to have AIDS and to be dying. What matters is to have lived and to be a whole human being, and that you can never be when you are in the closet and alone. Its not hard to see, I guess, why the book moved me and why I felt it had a message for me, and for so many other guys out there. 

-- Compiled by Vikram
Uploaded on 08-Feb-2002