APRIL 1976

HIGH GEAR

DOCUMENT AND FAILURE

by Mitchell Menegu

Two novels by Daniel Curzon: Something You Do in the Dark: Lancer Books, 1971; The Misad. ventures of Tim McPick: The John Parke Custer Press, 1975. The cover of Daniel Curzon's latest novel, The Misadventures of Tim McPick, makes clearwhat the author's intention was by. asking, "When was the last time you read a gay comedy?" and reprinting a dictionary entry for "picaresque." Because it would be pleasant to think that treatment of gays had changed so that their situation could be viewed comically, it would be pleasant to report that Curzon has succeeded.

In fact, he has not succeeded for two reasons. In the first place the targets of satire in the novel are too numerous, ranging from student rebellion to pornography to oppression of gays. Not only are there so many targets that the effect becomes diffuse, but also the hero is not "engagingly rougish," as the definition on the cover prescribes he must be, and the satire is heavyhanded and often sophomoric. 1. did not want to read beyond the first chapter and did so only to confirm my negative judgment of the novel before making it public.

The second reason for the novel's failing, I think, is that one of the main targets of satire, oppression of gays, is not one that Curzon finds funny. Humor derives from examining the follies of men; Curzon rightly thinks that oppression of gays is not foolish but vicious.

He conveyed his attitudes more effectively in his earlier serious novel, Something You So in the Dark, a work that is important for picturing clearly and dramatically the catastrophic effects of the oppression of gays.

The novel traces the life of Cole Ruffner from the time he is released from prison after having been convicted for Indecent Exposure and Lewd and Lascivious Behavior in a public lavatory until he takes action finally to exact vengeance on Keel, the vicious vice officer who had delighted in entrapping him. Although the plot proceeds through a series of incidents that lead inevitably to catastrophe and, some may think, tragedy, in Cole's fantasies about dealing with those who oppress him, Curzon has successfully composed passages of bitter humor, powerful in the savage indignation against injustice that motivates the satire. The fantasy that opens

ithe novel, a situation in which heterosexual behavior is treated as perverse, is the most effective, but only one of several telling passages that employ

angry satire to good effect. It would be pleasant, if it were possible to ignore reports from. such places as Los Angeles, to believe that Something You Do in the Dark, is a period piece, a portrait of gay life in the '50's and '60's. Unfortunately, in too many ways its polemic power still holds meaning. It succeeds as polemic in all the ways that The Misadventures of Tim McPick fails.

Its success ultimately results from its realistic portrayal of various aspects of gay life that

many readers will find true in terms of their own experiences. such Treated believably are activities as cruising public lavatories and parks, attempting

to find companionship in bars and settling for impersonal sexual release at the baths. Equally true and emotionally more powerful are the episodes which relate Cole's attempts to seek happiness with people who are important to him: Angie. Fionda, a sympathetic girl whom he can love every way except sexually; Bud Smallwood, an old fried who is attracted to Cole but cannot accept within himself feelings that do not conform to society's model; and Cole's father, who accepts Cole's

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nursing of him but who cannot accept his son's gayness.

Society and those people whom he loves all fail Cole. The novel works so well, however, because Curzon has also shown the extent to which Cole himself bears responsibility for his unhappy situation. His heroic qualities ironically result from his refusal to make any compromise, even with those he loves. in establishing his own identity. Curzon makes Cole's choices seem both necessary and inevitably fatal. This is not, however, just another one of those "It's so sad to be gay" novels that have plagued us. Cole is sad, not because he-is gay but because of the attitude society takes toward him for being gay. Curzon makes clear that it is not Cole who mus 'change essentially but the attitudes of those who oppress him or reject him. The ending o the novel contains a final irony in the results of Cole's feverish pursuit of vengeance on Keel. Daniel Curzon has shown that can convey the gay experience believably and pre. sent characters who move us with their human dimensions We can forgive him Tim McPick (for gay humor, let me seconc Marc Lewis's ecommendation of James Kirk. wood's P.S. Your Cat Is Dead.

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