September 21, 2001 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

11

eveningsout

Vivid detail, full characters

KEEP THAT

give life to matador's story SUMMER TAN!

The Wild Man

by Patricia Nell Warren

Wildcat, $19.95 trade paperback Reviewed by Anthony Glassman

Sweat pours down the matador's face, his suit of lights clinging tightly to his taut flesh. The bull makes another pass and is deftly diverted by the cape.

It is a Saturday afternoon in Spain during the fascist reign of Francisco Franco, who came to power in 1939 with the aid of Hitler and Mussolini.

The crowd loves the man dancing with the bull, Antonio Escudero. He was one of the greatest matadors, until a bull caught him with a horn. Now he struggles to reclaim his former heights. The assembled masses ooh and ah and olé with every pass; they are his, they belong to Antonio Escudero. Nothing can change that.

Except, of course, if they find out he is a maricon, gay.

Patricia Nell Warren, whose The Front Runner was the coming-out book for a generation of gay men, has been writing for thirty years, has sold millions of copies of her books across the world, and shows no signs of slowing down in the slightest.

Her latest opus is a worthy continuation of her literary tradition.

From the introduction, couching the novel as being told to her by Escudero at his ranch and in Los Angeles gay bars, until the last page of narrative, the reader is transfixed by a tale of repression, love, loss and daring.

Escudero was born into a wealthy, landed family left intact after the Spanish civil war that swept Franco into power. Early on, he announced that he wanted to be a matador, a bullfighter. His family was aghast, as if a Rockefeller said he wanted to become a pro wrestler. His father allowed him to follow his dream on the proviso that he fight on horseback, the style of the nobility.

Escudero did better than even he could have dreamed, and eventually gave up the noble fighting to spar on foot with the bulls, becoming popular and loved by fans of the fiesta brava.

Then he was gored, pierced in the groin. A

long rehabilitation let him return to the ring, a little stiffer and rustier than when he left it.

All through his rise and fall and second rise, hidden from view, was his love of men. Now, as his comeback seems to be succeeding, a handsome young man named Juan asks to be trained by Escudero. Juan's beauty, however, might lead Antonio and his family to utter ruin in the Inquisition-like atmosphere of fascist Spain of the 1960s.

If one has never read any of Patricia Nell Warren's books before, this should be a wonderful start. She has created some of the most fully-fleshed characters seen in contemporary fiction. And, as far as gay fiction goes, her dedication to characters whose motivation lies above the crotch enables her to once again stand at the forefront of queer-themed novels.

The lushness of nature preserves in Spain, in America, the feral nature of animals, the feral nature of man, are all painted with the most meticulous of brushes. Descriptions are precise, but never does she pile detail upon detail pointlessly, having learned long ago the difference between description and information overload.

The fear, the paranoia engendered by living in a repressive regime are all there, as well as the soaring love, the crushing defeats, the warming hope and burning desires, given life by a woman whose writings have defined the experiences of gay men for the last twenty-five years.

Perhaps her greatest accomplishment with this book, though, is that until the afterword, it is impossible to judge whether she has written another novel, or is actually transcribing the life of a real person. It is the lives of a number of real people amalgamated and fictionalized, but her storytelling is so sincere, so heartfelt, that it might be one man's life being told to the writer so that his story can finally be seen for what it was.

Even as he writes this, this reviewer has to resist the urge to call Warren and ask her if the story is true. It doesn't help that internet searches returned a number of hits on the name "Antonio Escudero" that were related to bullfighting. But perhaps it's better not to ask, to just enjoy the book and think about the way things were, the way things are, and the way things could be.

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Sportsex

Continued from page 9

homophobic. Lennox Lewis and Hasim Rahman had a brawl at an ESPN restaurant in August when they met to promote their upcoming heavyweight boxing world title bout. This followed Rahman referring to Lewis as "gay" because the latter had used the courts to initiate their contest. Weird to think of the law as a safe house for queers!

But this tension, this dynamic, this need to define masculinity as "not-gay" remains very, very powerful indeed. That said, Lewis and Rahman are revealing our cultural tensions in a brutal way, living out the contradictionsincluding the suspicion that part of this was a publicity stunt.

Homophobia is everywhere. Queers grow up with it all around, including, many say, within themselves. It's a tough negotiation. There is a side to sexual fantasy, as we all know, that is bad, bad, bad. Power is hot. Sanitized sex is not. We often dream about and get off on things we don't approve of or wish to do. And sometimes we cross the boundary! Sportsex beautifully explores the complicated gender-bending that goes on in sports: the butt-slapping, wild hugs, exaggerated almost drag-like behavior for the men and the critique sometime hurled at women athletes for "playing like a man.” What kind of genders are being "performed" by these behaviors?se

These are means, I believe, of extending joy beyond the bureaucratic norms of everyday

life. They reference a pre-adult, pre-adolescent moment, when touching intimately has not been defined as transgressive. They represent a wordless play of difference. Folks who would be uncomfortable touching another man in any other context reach out to do so unfailingly and joyously at play. When they do that, they open up our repertoire of relating.

Our experience of sports is very personal and embodied. You bring some really lovely and honest personal narratives of your own experience with sports as you grew up. What did you discover about your own relationship to the subject as you wrote the book?

First of all, the book came out just after another one I did on globalization and sport. In each case, I'd been working on the topic for thirteen years. So I discovered relief and completion. (A bit post-orgasmic!)

On the topic itself, I guess I confirmed that my own response to Sportsex is highly ambivalent. I loathe the disciplinary sides to sports, the moralistic attitudes, and the history of sexism, racism, homophobia, and nationalistic chauvinism. But I love the beauty and power.

I think that there are some progressive sides to capitalism, when it turns its eager eye on the body. For centuries, there has been an overvaluation of the gaze of straight men at women, as registered everywhere in our culture. Now, advertisers have discovered a different gaze and they like how it looks. We can't be sure what the outcome will be, but sports are changed forever.

✓

Tim Miller is a solo performer and the author of Shirts & Skin, published by Alyson.

STRAIGHT BUT NOT NARROW Specializing in comprehensive "family care"; Women's health including GYN, newborns, pediatrics, adolescents, men's health, geriatrics, health risk assessments, and an emphasis on preventative health care.

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