I was having a mag with some friends of mine the other day when the subject of what a classic gay novel should look like. You know what sort of storylines, plots, characters etc., and themes should it contain? I mean there are potentially so many. Coming out, boy meets boy, fag hags, bisexuals, denial of sexuality, trapped in a sexless str8 marriage, longing, unrequited love for a str8 boy, sex, cruising, butterflysтАЩ, but then open love, visibility, courage, truthfulness, pride, etc., I mean the list is endless really. We couldnтАЩt agree, but maybe thatтАЩs because what it means to be gay, and gay experience in general, is just too disparate among gay men throughout time and place for a single laundry list of themes to emerge and be agreed upon.
But I am mindful that if we think about str8 literature there is any number of classics we could name that deal with the themes of heterosexual love, but homosexual love?
So what I would like to know from the men here is from your perspectives, what themes would you expect to see in a gay novel that would raise it to the level of a classic of gay literature? The classics often tell us about what it is to be human, so what should a gay novel tell us about what it is to be gay?