Book Whore Chronicles: Disgrace

I tend to follow somewhat of a pattern when I read: I find something that a like -- an author or a genre -- and read everything I can get my little hands on that fits into that category. During high school, I devoured anything in the horror genre, from Stephen King to H.P. Lovecraft to Richard Matheson. When it came time to begin college, pieces of "heavy" literature crept into my reading list, and I found myself reading everything I could from Yukio Mishima, Hemingway, Faulkner and anything considered a classic. Once I settled into post-college life and coming out, I searched for anything from a gay/lesbian author or that involved gay/lesbian characters: Larry Kramer, Rita Mae Brown, Felice Picano, David Leavitt, and the like. Today, my reading list runs the gamut from gay/lesbian and world literature to mysteries, non-fiction, sci-fi, and on and on.

But, nothing excites me as much as discovering an unexpected gay/lesbian character in a story. In the book Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee, I stumbled across one such character. The main story focused on a fifty-year-old college professor in Cape Town, South Africa. After being forced to retire in disgrace due to improprieties with a young, female student, he scurried away to his daughter's farm near Grahamstown, South Africa. The building and grounds once served as a commune until his daughter Lucy and her partner Helen took over the duties of running the place. My eyes opened wider. My heart beat a little faster. Partner? Did I read that right, or was I just impressing my own opinions about that word into the story? A few paragraphs later, and sure enough, Lucy and Helen used to be a couple until something about the house forced her to flee. My mouth actually hung open. I re-read the comments on the dustjacket flaps and found not one word about Lucy being a lesbian. (I know it sounds odd, but for me, it's like walking down the street and spying a $10 bill lying on the ground. I wasn't looking for it, but my day becomes more interesting because of that little find.) I stayed up until 1 AM to finish the book.

It's little instances such as that which make reading so interesting to me.