The rural south as a gay men's haven in Andrew Holleran's dancer from the dance and Jim Grimsley's Boulevard

Abstract

Freed by the gay liberation movement of the 1960s and free of the fears brought by the arrival of AIDS in the early 1980s, the 1970s is a period often celebrated as the golden period of American gay urban areas. At the same time, some writers (writing both in the 1970s and later) point out the gilded rather than golden nature of the milieux, with many characters attempting to leave the urban areas. In this context, novels as diverse as Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance (1978) and Jim Grimsley's Boulevard (2002) offer a surprising image of the rural South as a haven for these gay men running away from urban areas. The present essay analyzes the development of this idea in the two novels.