Mary Swann

( Questions for Bones and Rags )

Southern Comfort

Tennessee Williams, Collected Stories, 1985
Either Tennessee Williams was a very unhappy gay man or he had a terrible opinion of queer life. His stories reflect a time in America when "perversion" was the first word that popped into people's minds when the idea of two men loving each other came up. To allow yourself the love of a beautiful man was equal to losing innocence and turning into a monster. A happy end was impossible, unthinkable. A whole underworld, lit like a pulp novel scene, ties these stories together: drunks of all types, kind-hearted prostitutes, horny sailors, tubercular artists - everyone struggling through life as best as they can, living mostly in warm, brightly-lit cities in the South that hum with nostalgia, sex and tragedy.

Every story seems to have one beautiful man or boy that is at the centre of everyone else's ruin. Sometimes, like the prodigious musician in "The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin", he's a boy that shines so brightly he can only mean death. At other times, these beautiful men are a procession of quick fucks that come and go in the lives of drunks killing time, with nothing better to do, like the ones in "Two on a Party." Unsurprisingly, these hot studs are not averse to beating up a "queen" if they feel like it.

Gay men who are not blessed with beauty, like the creep in "Hard Candy", carry around sweets and pennies in their pockets so they can buy love from boys in dark, dingy cinemas. Or they hide behind curtains and live voyeuristically through other people's dramas, like the young gay boy in "Three Players of a Summer Game."

The preface, written by Tennessee, plus an introduction by Gore Vidal, help to explain how the writer's sexuality and family (especially his drunk father and beloved sister and grandmother) played strong roles in his life. From the preface and the introduction you realize that Tennessee always used his lovers and family as a source of inspiration.