Blackbird. (St. Martin's Press, 1986) My personal favorite of my own books. Johnnie Ray Rousseau's senior year in high school. Sort of a gay Oreo hommage to Catcher in the Rye. Considered the first black gay coming out novel. (For whatever that's worth...)
Tangled Up in Blue. (St. Martin's Press, 1989) In which I wrote about straight white people, just to see if I could. In 1985, as Rock Hudson lay dying, a Los Angeles yuppie woman discovers her husband had once had a gay love affair with a mutual friend, when said friend is diagnosed with HIV. In 1989, I was taken seriously to task by several reviewers for suggesting that AIDS might enter the heterosexual community. Hmmm...
Johnnie Ray Rousseau appears in a supporting role.
Captain Swing. (Alyson, 1992) I think this is the best writing I've done to date. 35 years old and recently widowed of his life partner, Johnnie Ray Rousseau travels to rural Louisiana to his father's deathbed, and develops a romantic obsession with a teenage male cousin. Very Southern.
I also have short stories/articles in the following books:
Hometowns: Gay Men Write About Where They Belong, ed. John Preston (E.P. Dutton, 1991). Article about Mar Vista area of Los Angeles, California, where I was living at the time.
Calling the Wind: Twentieth Century African-American Short Stories, ed. Clarence Major (Perennial, 1992). My story, "Zazoo", concerns the (homo)sexual awakening of a young black boy (not entirely unlike myself) in rural Louisiana in the 1960s.
Member of the Family: Gay Men Write About Their Families, ed. John Preston (E.P. Dutton, 1992). My article is about my mother. One of my favorite pieces.