Great Gay Novels Recommended by the Director of “The History of Sound”

In Oliver Hermanus’s new film, “The History of Sound,” two young men at the New England Conservatory of Music meet in a bar, when one of them (Josh O’Connor) plays a folk song the other (Paul Mescal) instantly recognizes. The two fall into bed, and then love, almost at once—but World War I soon intervenes, sending one to the front and the other back to the countryside where he was born. Queer love and romance are not new themes for Hermanus, whose other projects include “Mary & George” (in which Julianne Moore plays a countess who uses her son’s beauty to seduce King James I). Not long ago, he joined us to talk about a few novels of same-sex desire that have inspired him. His remarks have been edited and condensed.

Death in Venice

by Thomas Mann

When I started thinking about the books I wanted to talk about, I was struck by the fact that there’s the story of each book, but there’s also the story of the authors and their relationships to the books. The ones I chose are all interesting to me because of the intention behind them. These are all by queer writers who hid their sexuality sometimes.

I read “Death in Venice” when I was in my twenties, living in Paris—I had the very Parisian experience of sitting in a café reading it—and it loosely inspired my second film, which is about a sexually repressed middle-aged character. I called my film “Beauty” because that is the commodity that is most treasured in the book. I was fuelled by the book, but I was almost upset by it, too, because I interpreted it as a very misguided, varnished book about lust. It’s a case where the author is speaking in a language that he finds agreeable in order to express something inside of him. It’s hidden, but it’s also not hidden. It’s coding desire into beauty, to make that desire acceptable in some way.

Maurice

by E. M. Forster

The Merchant Ivory adaptation of “Maurice” was the first queer film I ever watched. I did it sort of illegally—I was too young, it was kind of titillating to watch it in secret—and I read the book only after I saw the movie. I read it again recently because I was fascinated by the fact that it was published without the author’s knowledge—I’d never realized that Forster had died before the book could come out. It fascinates me that the author has no idea that we, the public, have access to this novel.

The story first follows two men, Maurice and Clive, who meet at Cambridge and fall in love. Although Maurice is cautious about it, they step into a relationship. But, because they are of marrying age, the threats on their bachelorhood become a pressure between them, and eventually Clive succumbs to those pressures, and the relationship ends. Later, Maurice—who is more upper class—has a relationship with a man who comes from a background very different from his, and who is working on the grounds of Clive’s estate. The book traverses the story of these relationships elegantly. And Forster’s attitude toward Maurice is also very interesting—he describes him as someone who’s handsome but not necessarily the smartest or the most deserving of things. I like that he questions the main character in this way.

The Price of Salt

by Patricia Highsmith

Highsmith first published this book under a pseudonym, for fear of being associated with it. That is another, rather blunt manifestation of the fear of authorship that each of these books expresses, in a way—Forster didn’t want to publish his novel, and Mann kind of veils the true content of what he’s interested in.

In “The Price of Salt,” a housewife falls in love with a shopgirl. The novel really shows the texture of their life. Ultimately, the drama of the book turns on whether the housewife’s love for her child—who could be taken away from her in those days, if during divorce proceedings the court learned that she was gay—is more important than the love she has in her relationship. The characters are beautifully drawn. I always love Highsmith, but one thing that stands out in this case is that these characters are nice. You like them. And that’s not usually the case with her.