For thirty years my husband, Jupp, and I collected books. As a television-free home we read – a lot. Of course, I didn’t read the novels and history books he read in German, and he didn’t read the Welsh novels that I very occasionally read, but many of the books in English were shared, dissected, discussed and even rated in our own Book of the Year competition. And then, in 2017, we moved to Germany and our library of books was sold off, given away to friends and placed in charity shops. So today my bookcase is a barren field!
Growing up, I wasn’t much of a reader; I mixed up my letters, was slow to develop word recognition, found reading a chore – and reading out aloud in class at school an absolute trauma! Once I started (enjoying) reading – whilst at university – I felt there was some catching up to do, and for many years I would read one or two titles by recently deceased authors – E. M. Forster, Agatha Christie, Kingsley Amis, Christopher Isherwood, Doris Lessing, John Fowles, Iris Murdoch … and these would be interspersed with the (mostly) American writers, writing about the lives of gay men, which I discovered after reading James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room.
With my move in 1981 to study Theology in Berkeley, California, I discovered the novels of Edmund White (A Boy’s Own Story, 1982) and his Violet Quill Club colleagues Andrew Holleran (Dancer from the Dance, 1978) and Felice Picano (An Asian Minor, 1981), and soon became aware of the anthologies of gay short stories which ran to ten volumes from the mid-1980s to 2000 under the title Men on Men – Best New Gay Fiction. It was these writers, and these novels and short stories, that offered some shape to my life as a gay man and challenged the ‘mad, bad and sad’ narrative that I had absorbed from the sea of negative stories about homosexuality in which I had been drowning. Of course, I’m not an American – so I didn’t always see myself in these stories, and after much reflection (and prevarication) I was inspired to write short stories about the lives of gay men from Wales. Welsh Boys Too, my first published collection of short fiction, is 21 this year!
Since moving to Germany I have developed a lovely relationship with Gwyn Siôn Ifan at Awen Meirion in Bala. I transfer money to him every couple of months and he sends me books, mostly in Welsh. During these long months of lockdown I have read Llyfr Glas Nebo by Manon Steffan Ros, Gavi by Sonia Edwards, Ymbapuroli by Angharad Price, Plant Magdeburg by Sion Hughes, Y Castell Siwgr by Angharad Tomos, and the wonderful Gabriela by John Roberts.
And there are three books that have found a home on this journey for almost 40 years – three books that significantly enriched my life, and continue to do so … but you’ll have to read The Journey is Home to find out which ones they are.
The Journey is Home by John Sam Jones (Parthian Books) is available now from your local bookshop.