Tonight's Poet Corner: Not Another Gay Novel

Not Another Gay Novel
by Belinda Roddie

It's one of those nights when I've arrived
at my parents' house for dinner. My sister
and brother are there, too, and somehow,
the old mutt who's been the darling
of my family for over a decade
still has the energy and posture to beg
for any food remnants that tumble from
the table. We eat ravenously,

talking in between chews,
while I ignore the occasional
political quip from my brother as he tries
to push my father's buttons on healthcare -
a rather hot button at that, one that
will burn your fingers. And then,
when I've found the chicken
less interesting than
the words bubbling in my brain,
I announce, "So,

I'm planning on writing another novel."

My parents look up from their plates
with an aura of slight interest. My sister
already knows, and my brother
has always seemed apathetic about
my writing.  I already pumped
out a book a year prior,
the ideas once wiggling in my cerebral

cortex, desperate to break their way
out of the folds of gray matter
like something out of Alien. And since
the curiosity of my guardians
is still somewhat piqued, I decide that
it can't hurt to tell them what
my new work-in-progress is about.

"It's different," I start, "than the last one. No
magical realism. It's actually going to be more
of a coming-of-age story, and the main character - "

"Let me guess," my mother interrupts,
an attempt at a teasing smile
pulling at her lips although her eyes
betray her efforts of concealing concern.
"Another lesbian."

The table is consequently shrouded
in silence, and I find myself
wishing that I could say this
is the first time someone
has commented in that way about
my stories before, friends or family.
But given my luck,

I have heard it approximately
half a dozen times from
half a dozen people, and the questions
remain the awkwardly formulaic
jabs that leave bruises for me

to nurse at when no one is looking.
"Is there a gay couple
in your book? Is everyone gay?
Does everything have to be gay?
Why do you always write about
homosexuals? Why don't you try writing a
straight main character? Why write

another gay novel?"

As if there are already hundreds
if not thousands of the things
circulating around libraries, and
everyone is so sick to death
of them, despite the fact that
the chances of publishing mainstream
queer literature, even these days,

is so slim that it's a wonder
I find an LGBTQ section
in a bookstore at all. Or even if I do,
there are a good five or so books there
and all of them focus on coming out
because God knows
that, with an engagement ring
on my finger, I still need to learn
how to manage my fucking feelings.

Yet with all these comebacks swarming
behind my tongue like angry hornets, I am
stunned by my own discipline of holding
the stingers back. And cautiously, vaguely,
I put my fork down and reply
to my mother's pseudo-innocent question,

"And what if the main character is
a lesbian? Is that a problem?"

Of course not, the sentiment is, but -
yes, but - always the world but - wouldn't it
be all right if I tried out a heterosexual
main character for once? "I did that,"
I point out, as patiently as I can
without bunching my napkin up into
a makeshift musket ball. "In a novel I

already finished." But - always the
fucking word but - didn't that book
also have a gay supporting character
and a bisexual character? As if the very idea
of someone non-hetero in a literary universe
is just too alarming to deal with regularly.
And my short answer, of course, remains,

"Is that a problem?" And brevity,
of course, responds
to brevity: "No, but still..."

No.
But still - no.
No, but still no.
Has it ever occurred

to anyone besides my sister
at this table, or anyone I've come across
in a popular eatery or supermarket, some kind
of old acquaintance or schoolmate, all
congratulatory of my love life but skeptical
that I'd dare type tales about it -

that there are plenty
of heterosexual books
to go around? That I am so
inundated, daily, with straight men
and straight women in novels
that maybe I am inclined, perhaps
even obligated, to provide
a minority some faint idea of
representation? And is it

bad to repeat? And is it bad to add
more? Is there a quota on how many
gay characters I can write? Did I hit
my monthly limit? Do I need to spend more
on my gay data cap? Is the battery running
too low? Or can I, perhaps, pop

in the cord and recharge to
keep the plot fresh, to keep a kiss
between two girls or two boys inspiring,
something to make a reader smile? Because

God forbid we don't create another pair
of hetero wonderment for people to drool over.
Let's rehash the classics. Let's scrape out
another Miss Bennet and Mister Darcy. Let's
give Christian another whip to use on Anastasia.
Let's tell ourselves over and over that there

can't possibly be enough fucked up
Heathcliffs and Catherines to go around, or
Romeos and Juliets to off
themselves in a tomb, or every other
clichéd "He was built like a stallion,
and she painted like porcelain"
that we find in romance novels, reveling in
the manly man and the oh-so-delicate
woman. And that's not to say that

every straight pair is like that, no.
There is variety, and lots of it. So
haven't you eaten your fill for now?
Are you sure that you need seconds
so badly when you spoon up
the same platter for yourself
day after goddamn day?

Does it hurt to offer a different course?
Does it hurt to offer it more frequently?
Are you really so perplexed by my writing

another gay novel
that my own sexuality, which had been
stifled for nine fucking years,
just seems irrelevant to anything
I create?

I would have given my left leg
for a chance to read books
that had a pivotal same-sex
relationship, an opportunity
not to feel weird or out of place
for the feelings I had,
the feelings I kept hidden for
so many years, or displaced onto
hackneyed, heteronormative
storylines, partly because
there was no media out there to support me,

no laugh-track-plagued sitcoms to ooh
and ahh at as a girl dips another girl
into a deserved smooch. No
blockbuster movies with violin music
accompanying a woman's confession of
her wishes to another woman. Nothing
but mere morsels I could barely sample
on my pained, pleading palate.

How much of a difference
it could have made if, one day,
I had been sitting in my school library, a dome
of exploration, a room that screamed,

"Live,
learn,
experience
something new,"

and I had picked up
a stereotypically dusty tome, blown off
its shy, impermanent veil, and turned
the crackling pages to find a romance
that I could relate to. If I had found

a pirate adventure where
the female captain fancies her womanly
first mate. Or a thriller where a scientist
saves her long-haired lover from an evil
laboratory experiment. Or the simple tale
of a high school student falling for one of
her algebra classmates, kissing her while

writing down common integers
in their notebooks. True stories,
strong stories, raw stories,
written by authors
who were no longer frightened of
the consequences of being honest.

How much of a difference that could
have made to the story of my life. And
how much sooner I could have been
comfortable in my own skin,
if writers like I am now had the nerve to
tell me that the instincts I had could create
a literary journey that could save so many lives.
Now that is a meal I would have loved
to be prepared for me at a dinner table.

If you don't like what I serve,
you don't have to eat it. But just remember
that someone else will. Someone else
who's stuck in a dead-end town
on the driest part of a conservative state,
feeling threatened by the metal
crucifixes that could double as
hypocritical deathblows, the harsh light

of a church at eight AM enough
to make a grown woman cry because she's
expected to subdue every yearning she has
for her pretty neighbor because God
allegedly told her it wasn't worth Hell.
Someone else with enough scars

to create a cubist painting will find comfort
in a book that is still so rare these days and so
easy for the majority to evade. Someone
else will embrace the very thought
that perhaps who or what he or she loves
is something you can tell a story about.

Yes, admittedly, I enjoy the classics. I will
cheer for Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger
as much as the next Ravenclaw-identifying
individual. I will devour the tragedy
of Tristan and Isoldt, and cry
every time I revisit the moment when
Penelope recognizes her sea-soaked,
long-lost Odysseus. Their relationships
are beautiful, in their own, now
conventionally embraced ways. But

convention is a word that changes,
and though the process is slow,
it is constantly demanding that I use my pen
to write the stories I want to tell. And if those
stories involve two ladies kissing or two men
holding hands "against all odds," I will write them.

And if, perhaps, the argument of the greater good
does not float steadily on your sea, then I ask
that I provide you another oar: If not for
anyone else - if not for the boys
who are no longer afraid, or the girls
who smile when they finally get to say,
"I do" without retribution - is it enough
to counter that I write
another gay novel for my comfort
and mine alone?