Scott_Pomfret's Blog

Review of First Person Plural by Andrew W.M. Beierle (New York: Kensington 2007), 322pp.

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            On the surface, Andrew Beierle's 2007 novel First Person Plural, takes the mantra "write what you know" and throws it out the window.  Beierle's main characters are Owen and Porter, dicephalus ("two-headed") conjoined twins, who share just one body (and one penis) between them.  I have met Beierle and can attest that he has but one head to call his own.  (I cannot speak to how many penises he might have.)

            That's what makes First Person Plural a work of such extended, imaginative genius.  He has managed literally to put himself in the body of an Other.  Not one sentence permits the reader to escape the conceit that the narrator is a musically inclined, conjoined twin raised by progressive parents in a misty time that feels like late Nineties Athens, Georgia.  And that one of these conjoined twins, Porter, is straight, and the other, Owen, is gay.

            Needless to say, the sexual wrinkle is a wonderful vehicle for humor and Beierle exploits it for all its worth.  The horny brothers' argument concerning which hand, if either, is going to jerk off their shared penis after Porter has met the pure girl of his dreams had me laughing to tears.  And Owen's counting state capitals so as not to have to pay attention to the girly parts of the woman with whom Porter is making love is another riotous, indelible scene.

            But humor isn't Beierle's main achievement.  Not by a long stretch.  The brilliance of First Person Plural is the way the novel - solely through narrative conflict and not didactically - provides a new perspective on what it means to be an Other, the fluidity of boundaries between people in relationship, loneliness that is most acute paradoxically in a crowd, and the mysteries and surprises that the people closest to us can spring on us years after we think we know everything there is to know about them.  Beierle, of course, brings a peculiar knowledge of these issues because he is a gay man.  But when Porter's wife becomes pregnant - has another being that is both inside and a part of her, yet separate from her - the universality of his theme becomes apparent.  These are issues that all of us "know."

            First Person Plural is a novel that for the most part surprises.  (Only the last line was no surprise, and yet still managed to be dramatically moving.)  The novel traces Owen and Porter's life from high school, through college, and into a budding career as alterna-rock musicians, with a focus on their romantic lives - or lack thereof.  No character is a stereotype, except maybe the skanky roadies of both sexes who bed down Owen and Porter while they are on the road with their band.  Even the evangelicals have a human face, and what is most surprising is the way in which Beierle allows them to be moved, to show a generosity of spirit on some issues that isn't reflected in the more common gay narratives.

            "People always tell stories to explain things they cannot understand," Owen muses to himself near the end.  He imagines the narrative people tell about his conjoined condition typically involves a metaphor of imprisonment and, perhaps, escape.  The narrative of First Person Plural is infinitely more complex, incorporating themes of both imprisonment and escape, but also elements of transcendence and empathy that suggest neither imprisonment or escape, but rather the building of bridges from one of us to the Other.

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Unholy Wine of the Week: Scagliola 2004 Petali di rose Brachetto: a Piedmont red wine from a great producer, with a bit of frizzante and some serious sweetness (7% residual sugar).  But it's not a candied sweetness, but something more sophisticated, with a full mouth of fruit and, yes, the taste of rose petals.  A combination of bubbles and acidity keeps the body firm and tight, rather than amorphous.  We drank it as an aperitif, but it seems to be marketed as a dessert wine, and has a low alcohol content (6%) that won't overwhelm.  When we see a wine with the Scaliogla label, we always pick it up and are never disappointed.

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I have a new defense for all those self-proclaimed orthodox bloggers who might criticize Saint Anthony Shrine for being welcoming of gay and lesbian Catholics:

At least we don't have a Buddha.

<o:p> It seems that down in Australia, a bishop there has issued a warning to a "renegade" parish "where women can preach, homosexual couples can be blessed and social justice is championed." It seems the church is "operating outside practices and policies acceptable to the Roman Catholic Church." (God forbid the Church should champion social justice.) The bishop concluded that whatever good the parish might be doing, it is decidedly not Catholic. (The crisis was, of course, precipitated by a person not a member of the parish who came in and took surreptitious photographs - yet another Catholic snitch on a self-appointed crusade to purify the Church. If you're worried about impurities, my friends, try Lysol.)

It always amazes me how quick the self-proclaimed orthodox are to declare others "not Catholic." In the Jewish tradition, there are orthodox, reformed, conservative, etc., each with radically different practices, and yet they never regard each other as "not Jewish." (They may regard each other as wrongheaded, but that's different.)<o:p>

Can this impulse toward exclusion be anything more than an effort by the self-proclaimed orthodox to elevate themselves above the masses, perhaps to secure reserved seating in the Hereafter?

<o:p>All this talk of purification and exclusion reminded me of an online exchange I had with a straighter, more conservative brother. He wrote,

"How can you be a Eucharistic Minister and a practicing homosexual at the same time? I would not be handling the Blessed Sacrament while living in mortal sin."

<o:p>I wrote back:

"Set your mind at ease, brother. The friars at Saint Anthony Shrine keep a Sam's Club-sized pump bottle of Ritual-Impurity-B-Gon in the Sacristy. I thoroughly scrub my hands before Mass.

<o:p> "We make the menstruating women use it, too. And the lepers, of course."

<o:p>It made my brother "LOL."

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Speaking of exclusion, you know it must be election season again when bishops are again directing that politicians be denied the Eucharist. Not all politicians, mind you. Not politicians that favor war and random killing in foreign nations, or who wish to banish today's lepers (we call them "illegal immigrants") to their misery. No, these bishops are focused solely on Democratic politicians. Thus, with our new VP being a Catholic, Archbishop Chaput of Denver has responded seasonally and predictably.

Well, this is my "Dear Sean" letter. It's a perfect inversion. Instead of being about break-ups, it's about reconciliation. And leper kisses. That part is important.

 

Dear Cardinal Sean O'Malley, Archdiocese of Boston:

Remember me? Well, not just me. Thousands of people, including Catholics. A year ago today, June 14, 2007, responding to the lobby of the Religious Coalition for Freedom to Marry and other well-intentioned people of faith, the Massachusetts legislature dissed you. No amount of your personal phone calls to legislators, letters read from the pulpit, pronouncements by the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, or appearances with the Concerned Women for America was going to stop the march for justice. The legislature soundly defeated a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage that you vigorously supported.

You were remarkably ungracious in your Massachusetts defeat, issuing a statement calling the vote "tragic," and claiming that "Today the common good has been sacrificed by the extreme individualism that subordinates what is best for children, family, and society." You also hinted at unfair backroom political pressure and decried the supposed influence of "powerful special interest groups." This estranging language - like the language you used to address gay adoption and gays in the seminary - drove many LGBT Catholics from the pews over the years from 2003-2007. (I know: I was headed inbound and nearly got crushed by the stampede.)

Since then, we've seen some softening. Your Vicar General has met with gay groups at area churches. Your lieutenants helped find a new home for the gay community that worshipped at the now shuttered Jesuit Urban Center. Your personal secretary assured me that you stand firmly against using the Eucharist as battle ground and won't ban anyone from receiving it. And on your blog, you graciously included a photograph from a talk you gave at an Irish Pub that shows a six-inch sliver of my bald pate sticking out among the heads of the more pious. (Not that all is well: the Archdiocesan newspaper The Pilot printed a piece a few weeks ago comparing adoption by gay parents to "throwing [the adopted] children off the roof" and waiting to see the bodies pile up.)

But with the proverbial sky still intact (and no bodies piling up that I have seen), I ask you to set a new tone. Here are a few steps you can take to start the process of reconciliation with the state's gay and lesbian Catholics:

• Issue a statement acknowledging the existence of families headed by same-sex couples and gay individuals and state firmly, like your brother bishops in California in response to that state's recent Supreme Court decision, that "Every person involved in the family of domestic partners is a child of God and deserves respect in the eyes of the law and their community."

• Assure your brother bishop, Allen Vigneron, who this week broke from the neutral stance of his fellow bishops and issued a statement asking California voters to overturn California's fledgling marriage equality, that the Church's entering into the political fray is both a misuse of its power and undermines its authority. Just as many pastors refused to make available your statements against gay marriage here in Massachusetts (50% according to the Diocesan newspaper, The Pilot), already priests in California are refusing to read Archbishop Vigneron's letter. If you cannot get your priests to support you, a play for the faithful is futile.

• Hold an amnesty assuring your celibate gay priests (estimates of gay priests run as high as 60% of the entire priesthood) that they may come out of the closet and present themselves to the world with integrity. After all, their orientation is no sin in Catholic doctrine, so why not let them serve openly with dignity intact? That's how Bishop Clark of the Diocese of Rochester responded to Father Fred Daley, a priest who outed himself publicly in 2004. Ditto for Father Jim Morrison and his bishop in Louisiana in 2006.

• Continue to send your vicar general Father Richard Erickson to meet with gay and lesbian Catholics at Boston's welcoming Roman Catholic churches and communities as you have done since before the June 14 vote.

• Following the example of your Pope, consider meeting with gay and lesbian Catholics to hear their stories of faith.

• Give me a big, wet leper's kiss to acknowledge that gay people are the lepers of the age and you, like Saint Francis, can experience conversion.
  

These six steps do not require you to abandon Catholic doctrine. Indeed, your brother bishops have already started down the road. Rather, these simple, largely cost-free acts would help put in the rearview mirror the intemperate words from the Archdiocese concerning same-sex marriage, gay adoption, and gays in the seminary, and would re-assure LGBT Catholics in this Gay Pride month that they have a place at the Eucharistic table as children of God.

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Unholy Wine of the Week: Nothing particularly holy of note this week, alas! Too busy at RI Gay Pride drinking bad Stoli Blue and Tonics.

Go to you local bookstore. Do it. Now. Check where they've shelved my book. Yup, you've guessed it -- in the "Gay and Lesbian" section. Not, decidedly, in the "Catholic" section.

Well, thanks to my new best friend Dave Daniels, I hereby ordain you for a very special ministry. You've heard of the Guerrilla Queer Bar movement? It involves an organized effort to have hundreds of gay people take over a specified "straight" Boston establishment on a given night to transform it instantly into a gay club. I have riffed on this concept before, seeking to establish a Guerrilla Queer Church movement, in which all the gay Catholics and divorced people and romancatholicwomenpriests and married priests and anybody else at the margin of the Church takeover a given mainstream Church on a given Sunday. (Feel free to start a Guerrilla Queer Church movement in your area; I just started a Facebook group for the Boston-area group here. Join now. Maybe we'll start taking churches over this fall.)

But I digress. Your ministry is the Guerrilla Queer Bookshelf. How does it work? You gather up about half the copies of my book from the "Gay and Lesbian" section and hustle them over to the "Catholic" section, where you lovingly re-shelve them (cover facing out, of course!) -- and press a copy on anyone who happens to be browsing in that area. We'll take back these bookstores, one shelf at a time!

And, btw, thanks to Dave for the idea -- he is the original Queer Bookshelf Guerrilla. He is also a photographer -- and talk about pornography! Dave has a collection of shots of the inside of one of Boston's many churches posted here that are absolutely gorgeous -- pure spiritual pornography, designed to make a gay Catholic boy's heart race! Take a look. No box of tissues required to clean up the mess.

Unholy Wine of the Week (the stuff you wish they would consecrate): Domaine Marcel Deiss 2002 Engelgarten from Alsace is a magnificent effort. No slight white, it bursts with strong exotic flavor, edgy acids, a bit of menthol, and a slightly off-dry, viscous mouthfeel. A blend of the noble grapes of Alsace, mostly pinot gris and Riesling. Pricy, but can stand up to a wide range of foods. If you read French, the vineyard is here.<!--<!--[endif]-->--><o:p>

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As you will read about in the book, YouTube can be addictive. I swear I am on the YouTube wagon, but someone sent me a video I could not help but sharing.

One of my projects is a nascent website in which you can confess your sins (anonymously). I then post your sins here, and folks on the internet can then suggest penances or give you absolution.

The idea is that there are so few priests out there, there's no one to confess to. So you seek Web-based confession and absolution here. I call it the Reconciliatron, after the masturbation device in Woody Allen's Sleeper.

In any event, someone in YouTube land is thinking the same thing. Check it out here. (Thanks, Thomas!)

In other, unfortunate news, the Vatican just announced the excommunication of my brave friends, the womenpriests. Fortunately, the excommunication did not take. The womenpriests simply refused to be excommunicated. You go, girl(priest)s!

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Unholy Wine(s) of the Week. Memorial Day weekend permitted a trifecta of tastings of the wines we brought back with us from the Finger Lakes. The Standing Stone Riesling 2007 was light, crisp, acidic, refined, with restrained white stone fruit and some mineral qualities. Should be drunk alone; a little delicate for food. Great value! The Silver Spring Winery 2003 Cabernet Franc was a good, light-bodied, light-alcohol summer red with a darker nose than taste, sufficient acid to pair with food. We drank ever so slightly chilled and it changed nice as it warmed in the glass. Lamoureaux (French for "Love Waters") Landing 2007 Gewurtztraminer had dry, citrus qualities like a sauvignon blanc, spiciness mid-to-late-palate, no discernable lychee flavor, medium bodied with high but perfectly balanced alcohol.

60,000 people showed up in Yankee Stadium to celebrate Mass with Pope Benedict XVI. Tickets were in short supply. Several sold on Ebay for more than $200. According to newspaper reports, even those with strings to pull ended up empty-handed.

I was one of the lucky ticketholders selected by lottery by the Archdiocese of Boston. But I spent Sunday in the mountains close to God.

A phone call prompted my decision to stay home. I blogged more about it here. Cardinal Sean O'Malley's Cabinet Secretary and Chairman of the Catholic Foundation Scot Landry refused to give me the ticket until I gave him assurances that I would be neither disruptive nor confrontational. He had read a blog post of mine in which I solicited ideas on how a gay Catholic ought to approach Papal Mass attendance "consistent with not ruining others' worship experience."

Absent the assurances of good behavior, Landry said, he could not release the ticket. Grudgingly, I supplied the assurances and Landry mailed the ticket to me. But the experience soured my view of the Mass. No longer was I a member of the flock with a right to celebrate Mass with the ostensible leader of my Church; instead, Mass was a privilege, withheld pending promises to behave properly. This view of worship-as-privilege is also reflected in the recent acts of certain American bishops, who have called for withholding the sacraments from politicians favoring abortion and, last year in Wyoming, from a lesbian couple who advocated politically for same-sex marriage, and who in March excommunicated three women who had been ordained as womenpriests.

Landry's call also reminded me of the insularity of the Pope's visit. Unlike John Paul II, who held open-air Masses to which all were welcome, Benedict scheduled only closed events, where voices of dissent were discouraged. These themes of privilege and insularity made Benedict's "Apostolic Journey to the United States" feel more like an invasion.

Don't get me wrong. I was moved by the Pope's meeting with five Boston-area abuse victims. The meeting was properly scaled: a pastor and five of the wounded among his flock. It did not end abuse or suffering, and it was no recompense, but for many it was a small consolation, even a bit of a miracle. Stadium-sized miracles seem less likely absent such human-scale interaction.

Now that the Papal invasion is over, we gay people return to our churches and the womenpriests among us return to the pews. No one grants us this privilege; none of our pastors put insulation between them and us. We take our seats because they belong to us by virtue of baptism; they are not leased to us contingent upon good behavior.

In this light, any single Mass at my humble home church Saint Anthony Shrine seemed worth a thousand Papal Masses in Yankee Stadium. I'd rather hear a homily from a friar in his habit than a sermon from a prince in his finery.

I still have that gilted ticket. Sometimes it gives me a twinge of guilt that someone who did not share my view of the Papal mass could have had the ticket in my stead. Perhaps as Penance I'll auction it off on Ebay and donate the proceeds to the friars of Saint Anthony, who make the real day-to-day miracles happen.

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Unholy Wine of the Week: Scott and I and the other founding members of our cooperative Winebuyers.Org traveled up to the Finger Lakes of New York and did some wine tasting. We rented a fab house next to a waterfall and visited wineries along lakes Keuka, Seneca, and Cayuga. Expect to see more N.Y. State wines in this space over the summer. A repeat favorite: Dr. Konstantin Frank Vinefera Wine Cellars Rkatsiteli, reportedly one of the oldest cultivated grapes in the world, grown at Mount Ararat, according to our homolicious wine pourer. Clean, crisp, dry, white with good minerals and acidity, decent fruit, perhaps between a pinot blanc and a dry Riesling.