If you live near L.A.

and want to help, write

ONE INC.

232 S. Hill St.

Los Angeles 12, Calif.

to say poisoning. Instead of any profound examination of the problem, we are given numerous little suggestive surface incidents, perhaps what Aldridge has in mind when he speaks of Burns' "coy posturing and giggliness." Similarly, the aimlessness of A Cry of Children seems caused by the superimposition of an "acceptable" theme upon what was really on the author's mind.

Secondly, this tissue of homosexually accented incidents, uncontrolled by a serious and forthright treatment of the subject, runs the danger of becoming mere erotic sensationalism, or, what is worse, pruriency in scenes described with prim disapproval. The hero and the author creep close to lascivious revelations. and then dance away in arch distate or with the implication that they did not at all mean what we first thought they did. For example, in a scene coming on the heels of much other evidence of homoerotic preoccupation, Ralph is asked cryptically by his Negro friend Tad McKinley, "Do you feel the urge?" He replies, "Why, yes, and the two boys sneak off to a secluded shed and smoke cigarettes. If the author were frankly lewd, it would be a step forward in honesty. But it is high seriousness of aim that distinguishes a great novel on a sexual theme (such as Kuprin's Yama) from newsstand trash. In being unwilling to deal openly with homosexuality. Burns came close, as the quotations above must show, to producing trash.

The third consequence of this unwillingness to deal openly with his subject is that the author is led to distort reality. After providing abundant evidence that his heroes are inverted. he seems to feel obliged to leave the reader with the notion that they are heterosexual. Thus, Guy, whose whole prior sexual history is sketched in

without the mention of one woman,

EVE ELLOREE

IS 73

and needs assistance (in the art department)

11

3.3