every sex scene, the preoccupation with sex itself, is laid against the backdrop of the characters' lives, sex may make the novel spicy, but it's the social, economic, political factors and the personal relationship of the characters which make the novel. No matter what your personal opinion of From the Terrace as literature, my personal point is that it has never occurred to anyone to characterize it as a "heterosexual" novel. The very idea seems absurd.

Is there any reason why homosexual characters should not be just as interesting as people as anyone else? The fact is that they can be, and there should be no reason why a great novel cannot be written about them. Today any writer is free to accept homosexuality as another of life's interesting phenomena and, like heterosexuality, as a way of life, and then to proceed unselfconsciously to deal with life itself, for life not sex is what great novels are made of.

There have been at least two books in the last few years which prove that this opinion of mine is sound. No one can possibly call James Baldwin's Another Country a "gay" novel, yet it contains some of the boldest and best writing about homosexual relationships and one of the most moving homosexual sex scenes I have yet read. No one has characterized Last Exit to Brooklyn a "gay" book, yet it treats of homosexual situations and characters with a frankness and hon esty new even to this generation. These are not gay books for the simple reason that in neither does the author make an issue of homosexuality, it's just there, to be dealt with, as might be any other facet of life, as capably as the artistic ability of the author permits.

With this criterion in mind the best thing I can say about Totempole is that it is not a gay novel. This is not to damn with faint praise, it is

a fine novel, literate, astute, psy chologically sound, and, best of all, eminently readable. Anyone will find it difficult to lay aside. Not only is Totempole not "gay" it is not really

novel. It is, rather, a series of vignettes, any one of which could, and two of them have, been published separately as short stories or novelettes. Each deals with a certain period, beginning with almost babyhood, in the life of Stephen Wolfe, the second son of a well-to-do, if not wealthy, Jewish family It is essential to point out here that the family is Jewish, for everything that happens to Stephen is conditioned by his Jewish background. If one has been forewarned by the jacket blurbs or reviews, the symbolism of even the first chapter cannot be overlooked. It is obvious that Stephen's nascent sexuality is of primary interest. It is, perhaps, unfortunate that there are blurbs and reviews, for Mr Friedman is subtle and without them the reader might have the pleasure of discovering the symbolism for himself somewhat later Each episode deals with a period in the development of Stephen's sexuality and its contribution to his eventual total personality Each period is skillfully related to a particular symbol and the collection of symbols forms the totempole of Stephen's life. The figurative totempole is, itself, related to a "real" totempole which plays an important role in Stephen's development.

That Stephen turns out to be homosexual seems both natural and inci dental. We're never told that he is homosexual, as a matter of fact, but the climax of the novel which brings. Stephen peace of mind and an acceptance of his body, his personality, and, presumably, a way of life, is a homosexual love affair with a Korean doctor in a prisoner-of-war camp in South Korea. The love affair is described with sensitivity and with a

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