• BIGfib.com: The best reads this side of the rainbow™ • |
• Issue 1 • |
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| • Book Review • Skin Lane • |
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• Interview • Armistead Maupin • |
 London: The sweltering summer of '67. The Beatles have just released ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, Jimi Hendrix is ‘Stone Free’, and Cream are basking in the ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’. The Sexual Offences Act of 1967 has legalised homosexual acts for those aged 21 and over. The city was a swinging, psychedelic playground of youthful excess.
Or was it?
Neil Bartlett’s Costa-nominated ‘Skin Lane’ (Serpents Tail, £10.99) takes us to the heart of the nation’s capital in that hot and sticky summer, and introduces us to a character whose life is anything but swinging.
Mr F (short for Freeman) is head cutter at Scheiner’s furriers on the seemingly ancient Skin Lane, a part of the City devoted almost exclusively to the manufacturing of fur coats. He is forty seven years old, obsessively fastidious, never late for work, and unbearably lonely.
With meticulous (but never tedious) attention to the minutiae of Mr F’s humdrum life, Bartlett crafts a story of obsession and unrequited love that is often heart-stopping. When Mr F is given the task of training a beautiful new apprentice (the boss’s nephew), his well-ordered, precision-made world is sent spiraling into a terminal nose-dive. Mr F is neither a formally educated nor an articulate man. How does this character, who has devoted thirty three years of his life to the cutting of furs and little else, respond to his illicit and barely talked-about desires?
It is in this last respect that Mr F is a truly amazing creation. Books are, more often than not, populated by incredibly articulate characters who are fond of voicing their emotions, either externally or internally, thus giving the author a nice, easy ride. It is a brave author who decides to render his protagonist practically mute with shame, and virtually incapable of self-analysis.<more>
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Armistead Maupin figures on just about every list of gay fiction you will ever see - and not without reason - his Tales Of The City series of novels broke every record, selling over six million copies they have now been translated into more than ten languages. Nick Alexander spoke to "uncle" Armistead at length about his latest novel - Michael Tolliver Lives -writing, HIV, France and Jacques Chirac's wife...
Nick: So how are you today?
Armistead: I'm very good, great in fact. My husband and I went up to the High Sierra - we just bought a piece of property and have been kind of fantasizing about the kind of cabin we want to put on it... <more>
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| • Books and Life • Anthony McDonald • |
• Reading List • The Publishing Triangle 100 Best • |
Anthony McDonald is the author of the most successful book ever to be published by Gay Men's Press - Adam. He tells BIGfib about the books that most influenced him.
"My first encounter with a book whose principal theme was homosexual love came when I was 15. The book was Lord Dismiss Us by Michael Campbell.
Set in a boarding school, and telling the story of two teenage boys discovering the pains and pleasures of love and sex.... <more>
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There have been a number of attempts at producing a "definitive" list of the best gay fiction; some of the lists have a traditional air about them (some might say stuffy) whilst others are more risque... But if you're looking for a quality gay read these are always good places to start...
The definitive list is still considered by many to be the list produced by the Publishing Triangle in 2004 The selection was put together by a panel of judges, and if you're looking for classic literary fiction it's almost certainly the best place to start. <more>
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• Poetry • Hugh Fleetwood • |
• Editorial • BIGfib is Dead - Long Live BIGfib • |
The Trouble With Dreams
What he’s really like,
that handsome young man on the beach,
that young man you pass on the street
with the broad shoulders,
the flat stomach,
the interesting bulge in his pants,
you neither know, nor care.
Perhaps his voice is shrill.
Perhaps his views are narrow.
Perhaps he’s merely
a bore.
No matter.
What counts is what you see,
and
what you imagine him to be:
yourself, in a different guise:
the boy with the laughing eyes.
Of course it’s only part of you
that wants to be that rough –
or smooth, according to your taste –
young man,
and could you have him for an hour or two
even part might say: enough!
For the thing about dreams is,
night or day,
one wants to entertain them for a while
then with a smile,
send them on their way.
If you let dreams stick around
they tend to do damage.
And history’s taught us,
on a wider scale,
that if you really take them in,
allow them
to pitch their tents
permanently,
they’re capable of laying waste
whole continents.
- Hugh Fleetwood
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It's been fun, but we're moving on.
After four years and over eighty issues, the BIGfib.com satire site has been archived (here) and so that we can concentrate all our energies on our publishing arm.
Of course, the world hasn't moved on at all - George Bush is still driving the rest of the world crazy, Gordon Brown has replaced Blair as the UK's least wanted person, but the BIGfib team have individually moved on to pastures new. You can catch Lee Camp's acid humour on 236.com. Alan Lord is reborn as a Cynyckle Kant and is shortly to release his debut album - Reality Burger and Lolo Laroche has run off with a Saudi Prince and is now wearing a veil and stoning homosexuals to death on Sundays.
The BIGfib.com publishing arm will continue to bring you fabulous gay fiction, and the site here at BIGfib.com will be showcasing excellent gay fiction from around the world and bringing you interviews, shorts and blogs from your favourite writers.
We're proud to launch the new BIGfib.com with an interview from uncle Armistead - a friend once described him as "comfortable as a pair of old pyjamas" - and an article by Anthony McDonald - author of the best selling novel ever to be published under the now defunct gay men's press. Hugh Fleetwood graces us with a magnificent poem, The Trouble With Dreams and David Llewellyn reviews Niel Bartlett's Skin Lane.
If you are a writer and you have something to say about the state of gay literature; if your words are arty, controversial or newsworthy please drop us a line.
For our readers - we realise that the demographics of our new literary magazine will be very different to that of our much loved satire site but we hope you'll stay with us. If you don't want to receive the new newsletter - no hard feelings - just reply to this email with unsubscribe in the title and you'll be removed immediately.
With love.
The BIGfib Team
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