ONE ARM & OTHER STORIES.

New Directions 1954

...Tennessee Williams

This is a new issue, said to be slightly edited, of the famous (or infamous) 1948 edition of 1500 copies, stories dating from 1939-1948. Five of them are concerned with homosexuals or homosexual acts: One Arm; The Poet; Desire and The Black Masseur; The Angel in the Alcove; The Night of the Iguana.

The early, or minor, works of an author are often exploited. This would seem the case here, despite enthusiastic blurbs by the Bohemian literary fringe as to the literary merits of the stories.

Best of the lot is the title story, telling with sympathy and understanding of a young boxer debarred from his profession by an accident, who then lends his magnificent physique to another-prostitution. His conquests and success were phenomenal, but at last he kills one victim and is finally apprehended. Hearing of his sentence to the chair, letters pour in from his past "clients." Despite their mawkishness and banality he finally comes to see that these men were real people, with real feelings. He thus for the first time comes to see himself as a real person and in a muddled attempt at social atonement offers his body to the young minister who visits his cell. His offer is rejected and he goes to the chair, a life that ended before it truly began.

The other stories for the most part seem the product of a much lesser artist: Freudian symbology from the textbooks; allegory that attempts to be grandiose; big themes handled with all the skill of some precocious college student. Interesting though this collection may be to the "compleat" reader, Tennessee Williams' reputation must find basis elsewhere.

WHISPER HIS SIN..

.Vin Packer

Fawcett Publications-Gold Medal Series-1954

A compact, competently written, if somewhat over-dramatized story on the homosexual theme. The story concerns a homosexual attachment between two male college students, who later murder the parents of one of them in an attempt to prevent an expose of their relationship. The major characters, Ferris and Paul, students, and Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, parents of Ferris, are quite believable though rather rare types. The author shows a considerable understanding of certain kinds of homosexual behavior, and introduces sufficient psychological background for his two "heroes" to suggest that they were victims of conditions in their upbringing which were beyond their control.

As to its representation of homosexuality, "Whisper His Sin" is quite typical of conventional approaches, which attribute to the class as a whole the characteristics of its worst or most distorted types. Ferris is a helpless egocentric, confirmed in homosexuality by his mother's constant criticism of "queers" and by her blind determination to "make a man of him." Paul, on the other hand, is a bisexual of the irresolute type, determined to keep up conventional appearances, and unable to understand and reconcile the two aspects of his nature. From the standpoint of practical psychology, these two types are accurately and consistently developed, and the book well worth reading from this point of view. However, the psychological motif is dealt with in such a brief and intense way, that it would not be readily understood by the average reader, especially the heterosexual reader. As a sketch of the irrational and irresponsible homosexual, "Whisper His Sin" has definite realism, and therefore its own place in the realm of homosexual fiction.

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