Oh, of course not, and I'm sorry if I sounded like I was saying that, because it wasn't at all what I meant.
Let me put it a different way. Have you ever read a book in which there was a gay character whose gayness was present and not sidelined, and yet just handled as kind of a nonevent, as something that didn't deserve undue attention and wasn't spotlit or used to make some kind of big statement about Marriage or Homophobia or Gender Roles or whatever? Because I love talking about those things, just like I love talking about racism and ethnicity and nonwhite minorities and immigration laws, but just once in a while it would be cool to read a book about the folks who bump up against that stuff on a regular basis, and see these same characters also thinking about other things.
Paradoxically I think it's Smith's lack of neuroses that makes me long for a book like this from her: because her characters are all so full and three-dimensional, in a way that makes me sure that if anyone could write what I'm longing to read it would be her.
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Date: 30 Jun 2011 01:02 am (UTC)Let me put it a different way. Have you ever read a book in which there was a gay character whose gayness was present and not sidelined, and yet just handled as kind of a nonevent, as something that didn't deserve undue attention and wasn't spotlit or used to make some kind of big statement about Marriage or Homophobia or Gender Roles or whatever? Because I love talking about those things, just like I love talking about racism and ethnicity and nonwhite minorities and immigration laws, but just once in a while it would be cool to read a book about the folks who bump up against that stuff on a regular basis, and see these same characters also thinking about other things.
Paradoxically I think it's Smith's lack of neuroses that makes me long for a book like this from her: because her characters are all so full and three-dimensional, in a way that makes me sure that if anyone could write what I'm longing to read it would be her.