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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (July 21, 2000)
ju iy -2 1 ,2ÛÛ0 * r*gy \M HI n 5 i We make the impossible possible. While we can't promise to save you every time a deadline changes, we can usually find a solution - like digital printing. Altar-native lifestyles With digital printing, you can have a finished four color printed piece - in no time at all. Use it for rush reprints of your product sheets or a quick run of your brochures. With digital printing, you can afford to print without huge runs or long lead times. Candid w riters reveal what happens when people walk down the aisle before strolling out of the closet T he M arried M an by Edmund W hite. Alfred A . Knopf, 2000; $25 hardcover. ustin Sm ith, a mid dle-aged American living in Paris, meets a young married French man named Julien. A complex rela tionship blossoms. Austin, who is HIV positive in a time before the latest anti viral therapies, believes he has found the man who will care for him as his disease progresses and consumes him. But Austin is wrong. It has been the habit of many 20th century fiction writers to deny autobiographic content in their novels. Hemingway jumped through fiery verbal hixips in his protestations against his characters and situations being “the truth,” even as his publisher scrambled to protect himself from libel. Others shunned the structures of nar rative and character altogether in an effort to erase biographical comparisons. Edmund W hite is not, to our eternal bene fit, like most 20th century fiction writ ers. His writing is unabashedly autobi ographical. Each new tale is a glimpse into his own private life, only thinly veiled with the light gauze of exagger ation, a lace o f humor and a creative weave of chronology. By thus embrac ing the self-revelatory aspect of his fic tion, W hite “outs” fiction and the gay experience for readers of all orienta tions. Here before us is the truth in its beautiful, complicated, angry, silly, mournful fullness. The M am ed M an largely is based on the relationship between W hite and his young married French lover, ( ! Hubert Sorin, with whom he lived for six years. Names, faces and situations have been altered with W h ites usual elegant, sly and compassionate imagination. This novel is revelatory, elegiac and a damn good read. O ne cannot escape the sim ple truth that T he M arried M an reveals in excruciating detail the day-to-day hope and trial of loving someone dying from AID S. Yet the novel is not depressing; instead, it manages to guide us through pain and disappointment into a peaceful hope. This book is about living as much as it is about dying. It is filled with insight into the aging gay persona, into the way we live and the way we die and, most significantly, into the way we love each other. T he novel speaks with experiential bravado on the utter bewil derment of sex in all its befuddled, fumbling glory: candid episodes involving everything from masturbation to anonymous cruising to kept” relationships to the vindictive way we withhold sex from those we love most. White miraculously possesses simultaneous ly two seemingly ambivalent qualities: candor and style. Beneath the specifics of plot, charac ter and language, he has given us, through the years, an honest and intelligent view of gay life in our times. The Married M an proves W hite still has the talent to enlighten us all. — Glenn Williams M arried W omen W ho L ove W omen by Carren Strock. Alyson Publications, 2000; $12.95 softcover. a exual identity never ceases to have its permutations! What happens when a woman, after 25 years of heterosexual marriage, falls in love with her best female friend? What if she comes to identify as les bian but doesn’t choose to leave her marriage? T hat’s what happened to writer and educator Carren Strock. So earth-shattering was the experience and the ensuing personal journey, she wrote a book about it. Coupled with her own story', Strock interviewed more than 100 married women who love women from across the country. She brings to light the unique chal lenges that married bisexual and lesbian women face: from first awareness to coming out to sexual joy. Newly out in paperback, M arried W omen W ho Love Women is a primer on coming out, feminism and contemporary lesbian politics and culture. For the married woman who just is discovering her homosexual feelings, or for married lesbian women who have felt isolated for years, this book will be an es sential— and wel come— entryway to self-awareness and community. The personal rev elations are the heart of Strock’s book. Readers alternately will be moved and challenged by the variety of perspectives and choices her inter K F h N S t r o c k viewees have made in their lives. Not only do many married women who love women (MWLWs, as Strock has self-helpfully dubbed them) experience a renegotiation of their sex uality, their notions of marriage are challenged as well. Some women find ways of accommodating their seemingly disparate needs. Rosalie lives and sleeps with her husband, Jack, and spends time with her female lover, who lives next door. They consider one another family now. Many of the women choose to stay in their marriages, although not all as happily as Ros alie. For others, discovery of their homosexuali ty leads to the dissolution of their marriages. Although Strock s analysis and synthesis of lesbian sexuality can be a bit preachy and sim plistic at times, she has written an important book that can help other married lesbian and bisexual women feel less isolated and live fuller lives. — Meg Daly So the next time you need anything from copies to full-color printing, come to the experts at PIP Printing. 424 NE Broadway • Portland, OR 97232 503.281.8666 * Fax 503.249.1440 • sales@pippdx.com • www.pippdx.com PRINTING The Right Printer. The Right People.® Your Downtown Chevy Store CHEVY 4 D00 BLAZER * 21,999 After $2,000 Factory Rebate Stock #00459 - MSRP $27,120 www.wentworthchevy.com Pre-owned 95 Chevy Camaro Z28 Conv #4493 $12,978 91 Subaru Loyale 4x4 #4497 $4,578 94 Ford Explorer XLT #4423 $10,978 98 Ford Ranger 4x4 #4556 $13,978 98 Plymouth Neon #4515 $9,578 94 Ford Ranger #4564 $5,978 97 Chevy Tahoe #4517 $17,978 98 Subaru Forester # 4416 $17,978 99 Chevy S10 PU 4x4 #4491 $15,978 96 Chevy Camaro #4521 $10,978 CHIVIOLIT ■ G lenn W ill ia m s unites poetry, prose, plays, periixlica and pom in Portland. MEG D aly is co-editor o f the anthology Letters of Intent: Women Cross the Generations to Talk About Family, Work, Sex, Love and the Future of Feminism. She is unmarried and has loved both uxrmen and men; you may unite to her at megdaly@europa. com . WENTWORTH > CHEVYT0WN Expires close of business 8-3-00 107 SE G ra n d • 4 B lo c k s S o u th of th e C o n v e n tio n C e n te r • 5 0 3 -2 3 2 -2 0 0 0
