You've Never Heard of Denton Welch?

You’ve Never Heard of Denton Welch? ENTON WELCH (1915–1948) land. One can only wonder what he might was a writer’s writer and, in JIM NAWROCKI have accomplished had he lived longer. particular, a gay writer’s writer. Beloved Comrade marks the first com- He isn’t as well known as other plete publication of Welch’s love letters to D Good Night, Beloved Comrade: queer authors of the early 20th century, longtime companion Eric Oliver. He met but the list of writers who have admired The Letters of Denton Welch Oliver by chance, and there was an imme- and championed his work includes Edith to Eric Oliver diate connection. Though their relationship Sitwell, Vita Sackville-West, E. M. Forster, Edited by Daniel J. Murtaugh was emotionally stormy (as shown in the W. H. Auden, John Updike, William Bur- Wisconsin. 232 pages, $29.95 letters), Oliver proved to be a devoted roughs, John Waters, and Edmund White. friend. He outlived Welch by nearly fifty Welch died young, at 33, succumbing to injuries he sus- years and is largely responsible for solidifying his literary rep- tained at age twenty when he was run over by a car while bicy- utation. Among other things, he ensured that Welch’s last novel cling in the English countryside. Although he aspired to be a was published. Unfortunately, Oliver destroyed all but one of painter, and had some success at it, it’s fair to say that he found his own letters to Welch, so Beloved Comrade is a somewhat his true calling as a writer, which might not have happened if he incomplete view of their relationship. hadn’t been forced by his accident into a long convalescence. In Welch’s highly autobiographical novels, his relatives and He’s known mostly for three autobiographical novels, Maiden friends are barely disguised, and the circumstances of his un- usual upbringing and schooling are revealed through his first- person narration. Indeed, his fiction could almost be described as memoir. He refers to himself by name in his first book, Maiden Voyage, an act of considerable courage given the book’s homosexual content. W. H. Auden praised the debut novel in a review for The New York Times. Welch quickly drew the atten- tion of gay readers and received his fair share of fan mail, some of which led to visits and friendships. (He had actually blipped the radar a year earlier with his first published work, a bitingly funny article for Horizon about his strange meeting with the painter Walter Sickert.) By today’s standards, the sex depicted in Maiden Voyage is tame. The actual sex is suggested rather than described in detail, but readers clearly knew what was going on. Welch spent a lot of time cruising for and flirting with military men and laborers, and these efforts are described in detail in the novels and the journal. He seemed to abhor many of the gay men he met, and he particularly disliked academic types, preferring rough trade. He had a wonderful eye for detail, and the novels often read like collages of scenes and vignettes, many erotic and startling. For example, there’s this scene from Maiden Voyage, which takes place during a visit to the Chinese interior: I looked into the dark mouth of a doorway and saw a bare chest Denton Welch, Self-Portrait, 1940 and arm moving backwards and forwards rhythmically. The Voyage (1943), In Youth Is Pleasure (1945), and A Voice man stopped his pumping and came and stood in the doorway. Through A Cloud (1950), unfinished at his death but published He saw me staring and lifted his head, so that the sun fell on his magnificent chest and arms, making them glisten. He was posthumously. (All the novels remain in print, from Exact like no other Chinaman I had seen. He had not the immature, Change, an independent publisher.) He also published a collec- slight look. He was more like a Roman boxer or athlete, glis- tion of short stories, Brave and Cruel (1948), wrote many other tening with oil. ... I went into the garden and leant against the stories and poems, and left behind extensive journals, which doorpost of the hut. He did not stop pumping. ... I touched the were published in 1984. Welch accomplished all of this in a muscles as they raced across his back under the elastic skin. He roughly ten-year period during which he endured many painful did not even look up. medical setbacks, even as German bombs rained down on Eng- The passage is remarkable not only for its sexual content but Jim Nawrocki, a writer based in San Francisco, is a frequent contrib- also because the object of his admiration is Chinese. There’s a utor to this magazine. fair amount of condescension in Welch’s general descriptions 32 The Gay & Lesbian Review / WORLDWIDE.

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