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:
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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