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I Am Not Raymond Wallace

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There has been a much-deserved revision of Stonewall and pre-Stonewall history in recent years, shifting focus from white men to people of color - and in particular, trans people of color - who bore the brunt of police violence and who played an outsized role in activist circles. Opening in 1963, it follows a Cambridge undergraduate, fresh out of college, who’s won a three-month bursary at The New York Times and meets the love of his life. On an undercover assignment, a secret world is revealed to Raymond: a world in which he need no longer pretend to be something or someone he cannot be; a world in which he meets Joey. It's unclear to me what purpose this novel serves, other than to reinforce an outdated narrative that featured privileged protagonists who had the luxury of a closet. It’s shocking to remember that Raymond had come from a country four years away from decriminalising his sexuality, and, of course, it would be many more years before same sex relationships could be both celebrated and recognised in law.

And the way that gay men of the time, under the pressure of all that, tended towards hot, furtive, anonymous sex with strangers. Like so many men of his time and of his kind, Raymond faces a choice between conformity, courage and compartmentalisation. Witty, touching and hopeful, it’s an absorbing novel which ends with a sentence that brought tears to my eyes. I couldn't put this book down, I had to make myself when I had things to do, otherwise I would have sat in one place until I finished it.Raymond is assigned to Doty, a journalist who has piece planned on the ‘overt homosexuality’ which apparently has New York in its grip. But then he does not have the courage to take all the risks he would need to take, to live out his romance. He’s told to wait for Dolores, the editor’s secretary, who sizes him up before introducing him to Bukowski, her boss.

Joey is the opposite, accepted by a father who doesn’t understand his son’s inclinations but adores him regardless, welcoming Raymond into his family. There's a kind of sad, dark, depressive ambiance suffusing much of the book, even though in both the historical and modern section there are gay men who accept themselves and live lives full of people, fun, art (but not mostly lasting relationships). I Am not Raymond Wallace is a multi-stranded story of queer redemption spanning multiple generations, told with precision-tooled prose, sharply-imagined settings and compassionately-observed characterisation.

As his bursary draws to a close, he’s faced with a choice which we know from the start he will regret.

When he stumbles upon a bar which fits Doty’s bill, Raymond meets Joey, handsome, self-assured and comfortable with himself, who takes him home.It reminds us how bad things were for LGBT+ people within living memory - and indeed continue to be in many countries around the world. The romance is pretty much doomed from the beginning, given that in 1963 homosexuality is still the love that dare not say its name. The sex scenes are quite frank, so I couldn't give it to my 88 year old mother, but if you're OK with those, I would recommend it and I look forward to any future novels.

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