SEPTEMBER 1, 1995

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

BOOKS

Gay epic gives Russian novels a run for their money

How Long Has This Been Going On?

by Ethan Mordden Villard Books, $25.00 hardcover

Reviewed by Timothy Robson

This is the season of gay epic novels. Following close on the heels of How Long Has This Been Going On? was Felice Picano's Like People in History (Viking). Both books span decades of gay history and both are by "grand old men" of gay literature.

(The toll AIDS has taken in the literary world is startling when one considers the many authors who began their careers at about the same time as Mordden and Picano,

How Long Has THIS BEEN GOING ON?

Ithan Mardden

Been Going On?, which gives some nineteenth-century Russian novels a run for their money in sheer quantity of characters. Some of the exposition is arid, particularly the first third of the book, in which Mordden must depend more on historical research rather than personal knowledge of the gay milieu. And despite the dozens of characters, only a handful seem to really take life and live in one's memory.

It is not until Walt, the boy from Minnesota, with his stuffed bear Claude and his Irish setter Dexter, appear that the pages light up with Mordden's usual witty brilliance. As we approach the present, the pace of the novel picks up considerably. No doubt some of the episodes are contrived, but only an author of Mordden's skill could carry this book off. It is the kind of book which one would consider to be the capstone of a career-historical, romantic, sexy. Presumably, Ethan Mordden has many more left to write.

Q. Afraid of the Dentist?

A. 226-3800 It's normal! We can help! We're absolutely dedicated to providing your family's dental care as comfortably as is modernly possible. We welcome cowards.

Q. Afraid of the Cost?

A. 226-3800 Our various payment options take the fear out of dental expense. We welcome most insurances and gladly accept Visa, Mastercard and Discover. We also have interest-free financing packages available.

Q. Afraid to take the Time?

A. 226-3800 Our early morning, evening and Saturday office hours will take the worry out of interfering with your busy schedule.

COMFORT DENTAL GROUP

DAVID M. RAIFFE, DDS & ASSOCIATES

226-3800

15901 Hilliard Rd. (corner of Hilliard and Madison) Lakewood, Ohio

$500

REG. $6800

Exam, Cavity-Detecting

X-rays, and Cosmetic Consultation

(cannot be combined with other offers)

Ohio Clinic

SKIN CARE

services

Jeffrey J. Gerhardstein, L.I.S.W., A.C.C.

Individual and Group Psychotherapy

◇ male survivors of sexual abuse

◇ oppressions recovery

◇ addictions recovery

◇ mens liberation work

20800 Center Ridge Rd., Suite 202 Rocky River, OH 44116 356-9385

but who succumbed to the Plague.) Ethan Mordden is the prolific author best known for the so-called Buddies trilogy (I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore, Buddies, and Everybody Loves You), as well as a host of non-fiction books and articles.

How Long Has This Been Going On? follows the lives of a group of (mostly) gay men and women from 1949 to Gay Pride Day 1991. The range of characters is truly astonishing: the policeman turned gay porn star and icon of Christopher Street; a drag queen; the mistress of a gay bar; two gay high-school jocks and their best friend, a straight woman; a white trash hustler who falls in love with a gentle Minnesota youth; a gay serial killer; and on and on. Through the years their stories become intertwined and diverge through a series of coincidences strange enough to be true. At various points an unnamed, but omniscient, narrator steps from the background to comment on the action and the foibles of the characters.

For those of us whose adult lives have been lived in the 1970s and later, it is difficult to imagine just how secretive and dangerous gay life was in the 1940s and 50s. Thriller Jill's was a meeting place for "hustlers and johns" as Lois, the proprietor, put it. Police payoffs were order of the day, with raids expected if payment wasn't prompt. The police also regularly engaged in entrapment, sending hunky young cops out to entice gay men to sex, then arresting them. Mordden is adept at portraying this oppressive atmosphere. The Stonewall riots of 1969 (witnessed by several characters in this novel from a variety of viewpoints) led to a liberating and hopeful time in the 1970s when it seemed that all problems confronting gays could be resolved. Of course, AIDS rears its head and touches all the characters in one way or another, perhaps most hauntingly in the person of a little boy, briefly encountered by one of the older lesbian characters, harassed at school and beaten by his mother, herself AIDS-stricken. Another character, a former vice cop turned porn star/gay myth, proves himself a hero during one of his last days.

No brief review can do justice to the stunning complexity of How Lang Has This

for men and

women

deep cleansing facial

treatments

therapeutic acne treatments

face and body waxing lash and brow tinting

body massage manicures and pedicures make-up services

pre and post operative skin care post plastic surgery camouflage make-up

full line of skin care and make-up products gift certificates

216 333-9150

950

Clague Road

Westlake

ANNOUNCING OUR 2ND LOCATION

VIDEO CENTRAL

Still the largest Laserdisc selection in Central Ohio

OPEN 24 HOURS

Large selection of Videos --all ratings, Super Nintendo, Sega

German Village 231 E. Livingston 221-6848

North 1299 Bethel Rd.

442-TAPE