REVIEWS Book Marks Richard Labonte | January 04, 2005 Freedom in This Village: Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men's Writing, ed. by E. Lynn Harris. Carroll & Graf, 450 pages, $15.95 paper. Freedom in This Village, collecting a quarter century of black gay fiction, poetry, and essays, is a substantial, sorrowful, and celebratory anthology showcasing four dozen diverse writers. The "25 years" of the title allows inclusion of an excerpt from James Baldwin's last novel, 1979's Just Above My Head – a fitting homage to a distinguished forebear. Following Baldwin comes a roll call of writers who died too young: Joseph Beam, Melvin Dixon, Assotto Saint, Essex Hemphill, Marlon Riggs, David Frechette, Gary Fisher, Steven Corbin, and many more. That's the sorrow. Contributions from the '80s and early '90s by writers still with us – Sidney Brinkley, Samuel R. Delany, Reginald Shepherd, Jerry Thompson, Randall Kenan, Randy Boyd – is one cause for celebration. Another is the presence of quality work by a newer generation of black gay writers, including Thomas Glave, Tim'm West, Bil Wright, Keith Boykin, and L.M. Ross. The final story in Freedom, fittingly, is from editor Harris, whose racy romances and heartfelt autobiography have made him one of the top-selling black authors – let alone black gay authors – today. Moth and Flame: A Benjamin Justice Novel, by John Morgan Wilson. St. Martin's Minotaur, 291 pages, $23.95 hardcover. Benjamin Justice is one sad-sack sleuth. Stripped of a Pulitzer for fabricating a news feature, dogged by infamy, and living with HIV, he's been a sexual, financial, and emotional wreck through Wilson's five previous award-winning novels. Now, uneasily mellowed by Prozac, he's still stressed about sex and money, still hanging out with well-groomed newspaper reporter Alexandra Templeton, and still drawn to danger – here, the suspicious death of a wheelchair-bound West Hollywood historian. The plot has much to do with daughters and sons searching for lost fathers; hustlers looking for a good daddy; and the glory of old men who have loved each other for years and young men falling in love for the first time. Mostly it's about the murderous passion for preservation aroused by a row of century-old cottages in West Hollywood. Wilson hasn't written a very mysterious mystery: only the most clueless of readers won't figure out whodunit early on. But Moth and Flame is polished, brisk entertainment, with the bonus that the city of West Hollywood – 20 years old last year – emerges as quite a character itself. Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality, by Dwight A. McBride. NYU Press, 240 pages, $19 paper. In some of the essays in this eloquent collection, McBride is a journalist: he's in Los Angeles for the 1992 riots and in West Hollywood bars the night Ellen DeGeneres comes out on her sitcom. In others, he's an academic: he challenges homophobia within his own field of African-American studies and assesses racial discourse in the writing of Cornel West and Toni Morrison. In most, he is engagingly – and, for an academic, unorthodoxly – autobiographical. He recounts sexual encounters with white men eager for his "big black dick," discusses his emotions around the ghettoization of black men in gay male video porn and in online personal ads, and – in the searing title essay – confronts with measured anger the discriminatory hiring practices, racist ad campaigns, and covert white-boy-next-door pitch of Abercrombie & Fitch. What ties these divergent styles together is the focus of his penetrating critique: in academic discourse and popular culture alike, gay men are almost always white, black men are almost always straight, and black gay men are almost always invisible. Sugar, by Karin Kallmaker. Bella Books, 209 pages, $12.95 paper. Kallmaker crafts her fiction – 20-plus romance, fantasy, and erotica titles, and counting – at a prodigious rate (three books are scheduled for 2005). Given her fan base, she's review-proof. Damning a Kallmaker won't hinder sales. Kudos won't sell more copies. Nevertheless, praise for her latest novel is due. Sugar is a literary snack as delectable as the fabulous desserts created by struggling – and, sadly, single – Seattle chef Sugar Sorenson. Life is dire for Sugar, forced from her illegal rental by fire, badgered by her three straight sisters because of her fecklessness, and dependant on her homophobic aunt for refuge. True to the tradition of Kallmaker romances, however, all ends well. Jesus has spoken to her aunt, who has taken tolerance to heart. Sugar's sisters are more sympathetic to her plight – and to her lesbianism – than expected. And, lo, life is suddenly sweet for Sugar. She has three sultry suitors: an aggressive TV producer, a sympathetic social worker, and a hunky female firefighter. It's a given that one of the three fans the flames of love, though the able author quite skillfully keeps readers guessing. Featured Excerpt: Ultimately, I suppose my reasons for hating Abercrombie & Fitch are not so different from the reasons I have no truck with gay Republicans. It is not surprising when one observes that the attitudes of those sporting Abercrombie often seem to have a good deal in common with political conservatives as well. In both cases, you have a group of mostly whites (many of them social and economic climbers themselves – less often are they those who were actually born with money) who are desperate to belong to a fraternity that guarantees all the benefits and liberties of white privilege. — from Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch, by Dwight A. McBride Footnotes: A surreal transgender romp by Alicia Goranson (Supervillainz) and a magical-realism love story by Peggy Munson (Origami Striptease) are the winners – a tie – of the Project Queer Lit (PQL) first novel contest, coordinated by Suspect Thoughts Press and Velvet Mafia. Both novels will be featured in the Winter 2005 Suspect Thoughts catalog for 2006 publication; meanwhile, publishers Greg Wharton and Ian Philips will announce a second PQL contest later this year. "There is a much-needed niche in publishing – support of creative alternative and queer literary voices – that is being underserved. More corporate monsters are taking control, and less innovative books are being created, distributed, and stocked," according to Wharton. "Authors who work with queer, alternative, or subversive themes are finding it increasingly harder to get represented, let alone published." The publishing pair is pleased with the outcome of the first contest, launched more than a year ago: "Both of our first winners are triumphantly queer and terrifically subversive," said Philips. An excerpt from Goranson's novel appeared in the anthology Pinned Down by Pronouns; Munson is a frequent contributor to the Best Lesbian Erotica series, and editor of the anthology Stricken: Voices from the Hidden Epidemic of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. For more information: www.projectqueerlit.com. Richard Labonte has been reading, editing, selling, and writing about queer literature since the mid-'70s. Previous edition Book Marks