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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 7, 2008)
NOVEMBER 7, 2008 books Only the Lonely Wordstock author writes about gay Arab American by Glenn Scofield Williams sim, a young gay man from Lackawa nna, N.Y.—bom in the United States to Egyptian parents—receives a pack age at the movie theater he’s inherited from his father. The package is from his militant Islamic brother. In it is the skull of a Jew, filled with ashes. The date is Sept. 4, 2001. Lambda Award winner Gary Zebrun is a master of plot and character. His first novel, Someone You Know, is an intense growl of a novel in which we watch a serial killer stalk a married, closeted gay man. Similarly, his newest book, Only the Lonely, does not let up the intensity for one page. This novel couldn’t be more stuffed with dra ma and beauty. It is a rich dive into the tempest of family, the cold depths of loneliness and the rip tide of fundamentalism. It is a passionate poem to the power of movies and the inevitability of both sorrow and joy. It is a haunting look inside the mind of loneliness and the desire within all of us to escape to something better. I had the pleasure of sharing a correspondence with Zebrun, 53, in anticipation of his visit to Portland. Glenn Scofield Williams: What was the im petus for Only the Lonely? Gary Zebrun: For a long time 1 had wanted to write a novel about the Abbott Theater [a movie house in Lackawanna), which my father man aged. When I was a kid 1 used to spend weekends watching films there. A year after 9/11, when the Lackawanna Six were arrested as a suspected ter rorist cell, that rundown steel town captured my attention again. To my surprise, 1 was writing about two Egyptian Americans, one gay and the other a militant Muslim, who had inherited the local movie theater in Lackawanna. Memories of my boyhotxl at the movie house provided me a way to get into the mind of the three main char acters in Only the Lonely: Asim, the younger gay brother; Tarik, the wannabe terrorist; and Sonia, the longtime mistress of their dead father. The one thing they all share, as I do too, is an obses sion with movies. GSW: In both Only the Lonely and Some one You Know, the gay character, through the fact of his sexuality, causes trouble in the world around him, particularly in his family. Do you think this is inevitable? GZ: Most gay men of my generation spent at least part of their lives hiding their homosexuality. That secret life does hurt everyone close to you. Lies almost never bring anything but Boyhood memories helped Gary Zebrun get into the mind of pain and sorrow in the long run. Just his characters. look at the last eight years of George Bush’s presidency. These days, young gay people heart of her character is my attempt to imagine can be open about their sexuality, and that open the grandmother I never knew, and in a way ness is good for everyone—family, friends, neigh make her more personally engaging to me than bors, the entire country. But in some intolerant just family lore. cultures, including many in the Arab world, being gay is still fraught with fear and danger. GSW: When and how did you come out? GZ: I came out late, in my 40s. Someone You GSW: Only the Lonely allows us into the Know was, in a sense, autobiographical and my mind of a woman with Parkinson’s. How dif coming-out novel. Of course, unlike the protago ficult was this to write, and why did you find it nist, Daniel Caruso, I’ve never been married or important? stalked by a serial killer. But like him, I was clos GZ: My Russian grandmother, who died eted for decades. In the novel, living a secret life before 1 was born, had Parkinson’s. My father’s has terrible consequences for Daniel. For me, be relatives used to tell me stories about her. Appar ing closeted didn’t destroy me, but it did leave me ently, she was fairly lonely here in America, and with a sense that 1 wasted so much of the life 1 was intended to have. © according to family stories, she loved the mov ies: musicals and film noirs, happy-go-lucky and grim. If 1 were going to write about the Lacka Wordstock 2008 presents G ary Z ebrun noon Nov. 8 wanna movie house, I wanted to find a way to in Room 136 at the Oregon Convention Center, imagine her in it. So in my novel, she becomes 777 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Fora complete schedule visit www.wordstockfestival.com. the mistress of the father of Asim and Tarik. In fact, she and her husband both become lovers of their father—a threesome, which allowed me to G lenn S cofield W illiams writes poetry, prose, plays, periodica and pom in Portland. complicate the lives of the two sons. But at the The Color# of Camp Starlight: tact ™ PORTLAND'S PREMIER G ay M en ' s C lub DHARMA RAIN ZEN CENTER 2539 Southeast Madison. Portland. OR 97214 503.239 4846 www dharma-rain.org Let Your Spirit Soar NO COVER First Unitarian Church 1211 SW Main St., Portland www.firstunitarianportland.org Sunday Mornings: 9:15 & 11:15 Commitment ceremonies welcome everyday. surnom — A tribute to the songs of color — Celebrating Darcelle XV’s 78th Birthday! Sunday, November 16, 2OO8 Cocktail* & Appetizers 5pm Show 6pm — $5.00 donation Darcelle XV Showplace 208 NW 3rd Ave., Portland This is a non-smoking event
