Larry Kramer's Faggots & Andrew Holleran's Dancer From The Dance both came out (so to speak) in 1978. I could barely bring myself to buy Faggots from the B. Dalton in the mall--but eventually I did. Thing is, both books were overshadowed that year by another book I discovered: Giovanni's Room. I was awed by the fact that it had been written in 1956. After a Midwestern childhood where I lived in fear of my own self, I found this book written before I was even born and I fell in love. James Baldwin was a pretty amazing creature. Read something of his - I've read most of his work. Another Country, Nobody Knows My Name, Notes Of A Native Son, Blues For Mister Charlie and Giovanni's Room all are on my shelf. They're definitely at the library. All Centrics should read at least one of his books. I leave you with this excerpt from Giovanni's Room:
“Until I die there will be those moments, moments seeming to rise up out of the ground like Macbeth's witches, when his face will come before me, that face in all its changes, when the exact timbre of his voice and tricks of his speech will nearly burst my ears, when his smell will overpower my nostrils. sometimes, in the days which are coming--God grant me the grace to live them--in the glare of the grey morning, sour-mouthed, eyelids raw and red, hair tangled and damp from my stormy sleep, facing, over coffee and cigarette smoke, last night's impenetrable, meaningless boy who will shortly rise and vanish like the smoke, I will see Giovanni again, as he was that night, so vivid, so winning, all of the light of that gloomy tunnel trapped around his head.”
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