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(This was written for Powell’s, the Oregon-based bookseller.)

“There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.”

I first read Great Expectations back in ninth grade or so, and while I don’t remember exactly, it’s safe to say that the above lines went over my head — whoosh! — along with pretty much anything else that didn’t have to do with boys, Rick Springfield, boys, and ways to make my hair bigger. It was 1981, more than a century after the book was published.

Now it’s 2010 and I’m sitting here having a first-time author fantasy: Charles Dickens and I are chilling in some divey Victorian pub, throwing back a few, and bonding over this very topic. (I’ve worked out the whole time/space continuum thing and have paid him a visit. It’s my fantasy. Go with me on this.)

Dickens, naturally, finds me riveting, and, not for nothing, my hair is perfect. (more…)

I remember this scene from Great Expectations, when Pip visits Miss Havisham in her home, and comes upon the wealthy spinster dressed in a rotting, decrepit wedding gown, surrounded by the detritus of her would-be wedding reception. Mice run in and out of holes in the cake, which still sits on the banquet table, set for the big day some decades before. Miss Havisham has lived like that since the moment of her wedding day betrayal–her dickhead of a fiance only loved her for her money–and has nursed a huge, honking hatred for men ever since. She looks like shit, as anyone would if she never changed out of her wedding dress, taken a shower, exfoliated or, well, left her mansion.

I was reminded of that scene this morning (more…)