Imre: A Memorandum

Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson

This 1906 novel, published one year after Freud's first articles on homosexuality, may well be the first gay novel with a happy ending. In style, it might have been written by a well-read author in 1970, but for a few outdated terms like dionistic, Uranianism, similisexual. Prime-Stevenson recognizes the omnipresence of homosexuality throughout all historical periods, social strata, races, ages, and sexes; half-baked psychiatric diagnoses; as well as the horror of the closet, which is more effective in isolating people from one another than in hiding them from their detractors and even black-mailers. He also deals sensitively with the many forms the closet takes, including the tragic “cures”: heterosexual marriage and suicide. Although lesbianism is recognized, the tale concerns men only. It foregrounds the myriad men of genius and high moral character while recognizing and deploring their base counterparts. The only way in which the novel differs from one written today is its oblique treatment of physical love. Bear hugs, walking arm in arm, a hand clasp, and a kiss on the cheek are the only explicit physical expressions of love one finds here—and a final anticipation of bedtime.
(Summary by Thomas A. Copeland)