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• Coming out
  This novel tells the story of middle-aged divorcee Roger Thornton, and his new life as an out gay man residing in New York, in a relationship with the younger and more extrovert Michael. In addition to this central relationship, the novel features characters from the wider LGBT community including a lesbian couple and Lola, who we would now recognise as a trans woman. The book’s design is reminiscent of a pulp novel, complete with yellow edges. The blurb contains the word “sensitive” which was often used by publishers in the earlier half of the twentieth century to allude to gay men. Wallace Hamilton (1919?-1983) also wrote non-fiction and plays and was a contributor to the ‘New York Native’ paper. Like his character Roger, he was married and came out when he was middle-aged.
• Kevin
  Wallace Hamilton came out in his fifties, moved to Greenwich Village and began writing popular books and plays about the queer community. ‘Kevin’, about a relationship between a teenage runaway and a professional man in his mid-thirties, draws in part on Hamilton’s own experiences. Hamilton died after a fall at his home in 1983, aged 64. Various obituaries note his involvement in the international paedophilia advocacy organisation NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association). Criticised by one contemporary reviewer for its sentimentality and lack of realism, readers of ‘Kevin’ today may have more serious concerns about the abusive power dynamics at play. Hamilton’s novel ‘Coming Out’ (1977) was also seized in ‘Operation Tiger’.