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-~.?-! 'r 3 Hot reads
Regarding Henry
I rish novelist Colm T 6ibin talks about writing The Master, his
riveting journey into the mind of America's great gay writer
Henry James By Michael Giltz
Perhaps it was fate.
Acclaimed Irish au
thor Colm T6ibin
was slyly dubbed
"the Henry James of Enniscor
thy" back in 1999 by The [London 1 In
dependent. Now he has boldly tackled
the life of that legendary 19th-century
novelist in The Master (Scribner, $25). concealed his own attraction
to men.
For T6ibin, who fIrst wrote
about James in a piece collect
ed in his book of essays and ar
ticles Love in a Dark Time
(Simon & Schuster, $24), The
Master was a chance to reclaim
the life of a writer who removed
almost all traces of his sexuality
from his fiction.
"I couldn't see how you
could do it as a novelist," ad
mits T6ibin. "It just seemed an
astonishing level of artistry,
the levels of self-effacement
involved. He does give it
away in places-he's so in
terested in secrecy. And if
secrets are told, they will be
so destructive and so explo
sive. In my own case, I ex
ploded, I suppose."
T6ibfn is already recog
nized as an author of the first
rank in Europe. His third
novel, The Story of the Night,
was picked by the Publishing Triangle as
one of the 100 Best Lesbian and Gay
Novels of all time. And his most recent,
The Blackwater Lightship, was short
listed for the Booker Prize and turned
Like Michael Cunning- into a lovely TV film, star-
ham's The Hours, which ring Dianne Wiest and An-
captured the inner life of gela Lansbury, that aired
Virginia Woolf, T6ibin's earlier this year on CBS.
book brilliantly delves Now advance reviews
into the mind of James, for The Master make clear
the razor-sharp observer this fifth novel by the 49-
of the treachery beneath year-old writer should be
the elegance of the Gild- his breakthrough work in
ed Age. In such novels as the United States. Pub-
The Golden Bowl, The lishers Weekly calls it "riv-
Portrait of a Lady, and eting" and says, "The sub-
The Wings of the Dove, tlety and empathy with
James portrayed a world Closeted master Henry James which T6ibin inhabits
in which naivete and openness lead to I James's psyche and captures the fleeting
ruin. And James was himself a creature emotional nuances of his world are be-
of that secretive world: All his life he yond praise."
THE ADVOCATE 1541 JUNE 8, 2004 @
@
It was three novels into his career
that T6ibfn tackled gay issues himself.
Indeed, an editor and friend urged
T6ibfn to deal with gay life after writing
two novels-The South and The
Heather Blazing. They'd made his name
and admirably tackled Ireland's history
but seemed to avoid the heart of who he
was. "Coming out" in his fiction felt to
T6ibfn like coming out of a box.
"I must say, it was greeted with im
mense relief by everyone I knew, be
cause people were so glad: 'He's finally
fucking written about it,'" laughs T6ibfn,
who lives in Dublin and spends his sum
mers in the Pyrenees. Still, he says, "I'm
probably going to write my next two
books where it won't be a subject."
Being gay is the unspoken subtext of
James's entire life. T6ibin shows him
subtly attracted to a manservant, listen
ing to gossip about Oscar Wilde's trial,
spending a tension-filled night lying
naked in bed next to future Supreme
Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.,
and yearning quietly for a gorgeous
young sculptor.
"I'm obviously interested in the gay
past and what can be done with it," says
T6ibin. "There's very little that we
know. At one point I suddenly realized
this is a really great story. It's a very dra
matic business being Henry James. And
once I saw it as a story you could tell, I
thought I could actually do this."
Indeed, James is compelled by his
mother to feign illness to avoid fighting
in the Civil War, suffers the painful
deaths and suicides of both family mem
bers and mends, and deals with the in
dignities of colossal failure on the Lon
don stage. (T6ibfn himself, ironically, is
writing a play for the Abbey Theatre
something he'd never considered be
fore.) But James's professional failure at
drama can't compare to the personal
failure of an empty emotional-and
physical-life.
"I'd love to have given him one big
shag in the book, one major shag," says
T6ibfn, who is single. "But it couldn't
be done. One long night of licking and
sucking and fucking. But not a hope of
it, I'm afraid. It wasn't true to the spirit
of him." •
Giltz is a regular contributor to
several periodicals, including the New
York Post.
THE ADVOCATE I &Ii
-~.?-! 'r 3 Hot reads
Regarding Henry
I rish novelist Colm T 6ibin talks about writing The Master, his
riveting journey into the mind of America's great gay writer
Henry James By Michael Giltz
Perhaps it was fate.
Acclaimed Irish au
thor Colm T6ibin
was slyly dubbed
"the Henry James of Enniscor
thy" back in 1999 by The [London 1 In
dependent. Now he has boldly tackled
the life of that legendary 19th-century
novelist in The Master (Scribner, $25). concealed his own attraction
to men.
For T6ibin, who fIrst wrote
about James in a piece collect
ed in his book of essays and ar
ticles Love in a Dark Time
(Simon & Schuster, $24), The
Master was a chance to reclaim
the life of a writer who removed
almost all traces of his sexuality
from his fiction.
"I couldn't see how you
could do it as a novelist," ad
mits T6ibin. "It just seemed an
astonishing level of artistry,
the levels of self-effacement
involved. He does give it
away in places-he's so in
terested in secrecy. And if
secrets are told, they will be
so destructive and so explo
sive. In my own case, I ex
ploded, I suppose."
T6ibfn is already recog
nized as an author of the first
rank in Europe. His third
novel, The Story of the Night,
was picked by the Publishing Triangle as
one of the 100 Best Lesbian and Gay
Novels of all time. And his most recent,
The Blackwater Lightship, was short
listed for the Booker Prize and turned
Like Michael Cunning- into a lovely TV film, star-
ham's The Hours, which ring Dianne Wiest and An-
captured the inner life of gela Lansbury, that aired
Virginia Woolf, T6ibin's earlier this year on CBS.
book brilliantly delves Now advance reviews
into the mind of James, for The Master make clear
the razor-sharp observer this fifth novel by the 49-
of the treachery beneath year-old writer should be
the elegance of the Gild- his breakthrough work in
ed Age. In such novels as the United States. Pub-
The Golden Bowl, The lishers Weekly calls it "riv-
Portrait of a Lady, and eting" and says, "The sub-
The Wings of the Dove, tlety and empathy with
James portrayed a world Closeted master Henry James which T6ibin inhabits
in which naivete and openness lead to I James's psyche and captures the fleeting
ruin. And James was himself a creature emotional nuances of his world are be-
of that secretive world: All his life he yond praise."
THE ADVOCATE 1541 JUNE 8, 2004 @
@
It was three novels into his career
that T6ibfn tackled gay issues himself.
Indeed, an editor and friend urged
T6ibfn to deal with gay life after writing
two novels-The South and The
Heather Blazing. They'd made his name
and admirably tackled Ireland's history
but seemed to avoid the heart of who he
was. "Coming out" in his fiction felt to
T6ibfn like coming out of a box.
"I must say, it was greeted with im
mense relief by everyone I knew, be
cause people were so glad: 'He's finally
fucking written about it,'" laughs T6ibfn,
who lives in Dublin and spends his sum
mers in the Pyrenees. Still, he says, "I'm
probably going to write my next two
books where it won't be a subject."
Being gay is the unspoken subtext of
James's entire life. T6ibin shows him
subtly attracted to a manservant, listen
ing to gossip about Oscar Wilde's trial,
spending a tension-filled night lying
naked in bed next to future Supreme
Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.,
and yearning quietly for a gorgeous
young sculptor.
"I'm obviously interested in the gay
past and what can be done with it," says
T6ibin. "There's very little that we
know. At one point I suddenly realized
this is a really great story. It's a very dra
matic business being Henry James. And
once I saw it as a story you could tell, I
thought I could actually do this."
Indeed, James is compelled by his
mother to feign illness to avoid fighting
in the Civil War, suffers the painful
deaths and suicides of both family mem
bers and mends, and deals with the in
dignities of colossal failure on the Lon
don stage. (T6ibfn himself, ironically, is
writing a play for the Abbey Theatre
something he'd never considered be
fore.) But James's professional failure at
drama can't compare to the personal
failure of an empty emotional-and
physical-life.
"I'd love to have given him one big
shag in the book, one major shag," says
T6ibfn, who is single. "But it couldn't
be done. One long night of licking and
sucking and fucking. But not a hope of
it, I'm afraid. It wasn't true to the spirit
of him." •
Giltz is a regular contributor to
several periodicals, including the New
York Post.
THE ADVOCATE I &Ii