Sunday, September 9, 2007
Facebook Albums
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4814&l=1c54c&id=668946018
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=6547&l=d503f&id=668946018
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=7349&l=32851&id=668946018
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=11333&l=7b0ba&id=668946018
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=11336&l=7dc2b&id=668946018
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=11334&l=a65e5&id=668946018
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=9754&l=881bf&id=668946018
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=9769&l=a14fd&id=668946018
The Hunt for Nick Tosches
The Hunt for NICK TOSCHES
I “discovered” the books of Nick Tosches quite by accident, as oft-times happens. A local thrift had a copy of “IN THE HAND OF DANTE” which caught my eye, and especially standing there reading the very first sentence:
“Louie took off his bra and threw it on the coffin”.
That grabs one’s attention. The book turned into a rollicking good time, with strange passages about the publishing industry, origins of words and symbols, all carried along with a gangster plot and the life if Dante. You really had to be there, as the saying goes. Somehow, Nick makes this all hang together in a very satisfactory manner.
Intrigued, I wanted to read some of his other books.
Most of what Nick writes is about music. His first book was on the history of Country Music; his second on the roots of Rook ‘n Roll. But what he really writes well are biographies. His bio of Jerry Lee Lewis, the rival of Elvis until poor Jerry Lee made the mistake of taking his bride on a tour in England (she was 13 at the time). “The Killer” was a phenomena, as big as Elvis and perhaps more talented. This bio puts you there, every step of the way.
Other bios have filled the Nick Tosches list of books. Perhaps the best for reliving the fifties and early sixties is his wonderful bio of Dean Martin. The story of Martin and Lewis, their rise in the entertainment world and separate careers thereafter, is a legend made real. Tosches also follows his Italian roots to do a bio of a banker, God’s Banker. A bio of Sonny Liston, the boxer and others followed.
Done only for the money and not a good book at all is his bio of a musical duo – Hall and Oates. More a publicity rag than a bio, this rare item is sough after by the fans of the duo still. “Dangerous Dances” is not a book Tosches regards with any high esteem.
Nick is also a poet, perhaps the last of the “beat” poets. There are a few books of his poems and, more interesting, several CDs of his poems with music. Close your eyes and travel back into the coffeehouses of yore.
In 1988, Tosches drew upon his New Jersey and New York “connections” to produce his first novel, and the first of a small series of three novels linked in a Tosches manner. These are hard-edged novels following the drug trade and the gangs that operate them. “Cut Numbers” came first followed by “Trinities” and then “In the Hand of Dante”. Trinities used an interesting approach. The Advance Reader’s Copy was presented in a brown butcher paper wrapping with the logo “Double Uniglobe Brand” – a mock brick of heroin.
As Nick is an Associate Editor of “Vanity Fair”, my favourite magazine, his articles appear there now as they have in “Rolling Stone” in the past. He gets sent to interesting places and reports on them – Japan and the sushi and fish industry there, Bahrain and the fantastic hotels. Some of his articles are gathered in the “The Nick Tosches Reader” volume, and they are truly all over the map. One article for Vanity Fair tracks efforts to find the last opium den and was made into a small volume on its own, the ARC presented in a small plastine package, as would be a small amount of opium.
Early American minstrels form the subject of one book, which I found hard to follow lacking any sense of the music. I think that Nick’s books on music would be enhanced if he also produced a CD to accompany each so a reader removed from the archives of such music might be able to follow the test. This is especially so with “Where Dead Voices Gather”, which is both a bio of Emmett Miller and a tale of the minstrel songs of the 1800s and 1900s.
His last book “King of the Jews: The Arnold Rothstein Story” is the bio of Rothstein, plus a bit more. The first four chapters discuss the translations of the bible, some later chapters branch off to eulogize his recently deceased friend and fellow writer, Hubert Selby, Jr. You really have to follow his mind as it goes along.
Nick is sometimes billed as the “bad boy of lit”, the leader of the “grit lit” movement and “one of the greatest living American writers". Fine and good. I knew of no other readers who had read any of his books. Few had heard of him in “these parts”. What a delight to collect!
So, with all that in mind as an introduction, I am out to track down the elusive Mr. Tosches. Having managed to gather all of his books, the next necessary step for me was to have them signed by him (A form of madness reached in the penultimate stages of bookaholicism).
His web site was nice, but gave no way of contacting him. Yes, he did write for Vanity Fair and was listed as an Associate Editor, but posts sent to them remained unanswered. No, what was needed as a small bit of originality, something that matched his insane way of telling a tale.
On the Net, one interviewer stated that he met Nick in a wonderful Italian restaruarnt in New York – one of those places I shall never see where people have to line up to get in. Nick has lunch there daily, the interviewer stated. Indeed, Nick wrote several passages in a cookbook produced by the owner.
So – a solution! I wrote a nice e-mail to the restaurant, asking if they could print it up and give it to “Pope Nick” on his next appearance, together with a pen and some paper. I added that there was a post box not too far from their front door.
A week later, a parchment arrived. Perhaps this was the fancy paper they used for daily specials, but it was very rich in texture and bore a wonderful inscription from Nick Tosche for my copy of “In the Hand of Dante”. Some time later, I wrote back to the restaurant and asked if he would mind signing bookplates for all the books; he replied with a postcard saying “yes”. The bookplates were sent and returned shortly thereafter.
Which gives me perhaps one of the only collections of the complete words of Nick Tosches in the world, all signed and pristine. The world is not breaking down my door to get them, but I am happy to have enjoyed this writer and made a little contact.
I “discovered” the books of Nick Tosches quite by accident, as oft-times happens. A local thrift had a copy of “IN THE HAND OF DANTE” which caught my eye, and especially standing there reading the very first sentence:
“Louie took off his bra and threw it on the coffin”.
That grabs one’s attention. The book turned into a rollicking good time, with strange passages about the publishing industry, origins of words and symbols, all carried along with a gangster plot and the life if Dante. You really had to be there, as the saying goes. Somehow, Nick makes this all hang together in a very satisfactory manner.
Intrigued, I wanted to read some of his other books.
Most of what Nick writes is about music. His first book was on the history of Country Music; his second on the roots of Rook ‘n Roll. But what he really writes well are biographies. His bio of Jerry Lee Lewis, the rival of Elvis until poor Jerry Lee made the mistake of taking his bride on a tour in England (she was 13 at the time). “The Killer” was a phenomena, as big as Elvis and perhaps more talented. This bio puts you there, every step of the way.
Other bios have filled the Nick Tosches list of books. Perhaps the best for reliving the fifties and early sixties is his wonderful bio of Dean Martin. The story of Martin and Lewis, their rise in the entertainment world and separate careers thereafter, is a legend made real. Tosches also follows his Italian roots to do a bio of a banker, God’s Banker. A bio of Sonny Liston, the boxer and others followed.
Done only for the money and not a good book at all is his bio of a musical duo – Hall and Oates. More a publicity rag than a bio, this rare item is sough after by the fans of the duo still. “Dangerous Dances” is not a book Tosches regards with any high esteem.
Nick is also a poet, perhaps the last of the “beat” poets. There are a few books of his poems and, more interesting, several CDs of his poems with music. Close your eyes and travel back into the coffeehouses of yore.
In 1988, Tosches drew upon his New Jersey and New York “connections” to produce his first novel, and the first of a small series of three novels linked in a Tosches manner. These are hard-edged novels following the drug trade and the gangs that operate them. “Cut Numbers” came first followed by “Trinities” and then “In the Hand of Dante”. Trinities used an interesting approach. The Advance Reader’s Copy was presented in a brown butcher paper wrapping with the logo “Double Uniglobe Brand” – a mock brick of heroin.
As Nick is an Associate Editor of “Vanity Fair”, my favourite magazine, his articles appear there now as they have in “Rolling Stone” in the past. He gets sent to interesting places and reports on them – Japan and the sushi and fish industry there, Bahrain and the fantastic hotels. Some of his articles are gathered in the “The Nick Tosches Reader” volume, and they are truly all over the map. One article for Vanity Fair tracks efforts to find the last opium den and was made into a small volume on its own, the ARC presented in a small plastine package, as would be a small amount of opium.
Early American minstrels form the subject of one book, which I found hard to follow lacking any sense of the music. I think that Nick’s books on music would be enhanced if he also produced a CD to accompany each so a reader removed from the archives of such music might be able to follow the test. This is especially so with “Where Dead Voices Gather”, which is both a bio of Emmett Miller and a tale of the minstrel songs of the 1800s and 1900s.
His last book “King of the Jews: The Arnold Rothstein Story” is the bio of Rothstein, plus a bit more. The first four chapters discuss the translations of the bible, some later chapters branch off to eulogize his recently deceased friend and fellow writer, Hubert Selby, Jr. You really have to follow his mind as it goes along.
Nick is sometimes billed as the “bad boy of lit”, the leader of the “grit lit” movement and “one of the greatest living American writers". Fine and good. I knew of no other readers who had read any of his books. Few had heard of him in “these parts”. What a delight to collect!
So, with all that in mind as an introduction, I am out to track down the elusive Mr. Tosches. Having managed to gather all of his books, the next necessary step for me was to have them signed by him (A form of madness reached in the penultimate stages of bookaholicism).
His web site was nice, but gave no way of contacting him. Yes, he did write for Vanity Fair and was listed as an Associate Editor, but posts sent to them remained unanswered. No, what was needed as a small bit of originality, something that matched his insane way of telling a tale.
On the Net, one interviewer stated that he met Nick in a wonderful Italian restaruarnt in New York – one of those places I shall never see where people have to line up to get in. Nick has lunch there daily, the interviewer stated. Indeed, Nick wrote several passages in a cookbook produced by the owner.
So – a solution! I wrote a nice e-mail to the restaurant, asking if they could print it up and give it to “Pope Nick” on his next appearance, together with a pen and some paper. I added that there was a post box not too far from their front door.
A week later, a parchment arrived. Perhaps this was the fancy paper they used for daily specials, but it was very rich in texture and bore a wonderful inscription from Nick Tosche for my copy of “In the Hand of Dante”. Some time later, I wrote back to the restaurant and asked if he would mind signing bookplates for all the books; he replied with a postcard saying “yes”. The bookplates were sent and returned shortly thereafter.
Which gives me perhaps one of the only collections of the complete words of Nick Tosches in the world, all signed and pristine. The world is not breaking down my door to get them, but I am happy to have enjoyed this writer and made a little contact.
The Hunt for Geoff Brown
[Note: as a book collector, I enjoy finding all of a writer's books, often in used book bins, thrift stores and lastly on line. Gathered on this Blog will be the stories of actually having these first editions signed by the writer, which means that one has to find the writer - an engaging pursuit.]
THE HUNT FOR GEOFF BROWN
If you talk to a transsexual woman older than 40, changes are she remembers having read a novel that dates back to the 1960s by the strange title of “I Want What I Want”. Perhaps you have seen a black-and-white movie on late night television by the same name.
Most of us have
What makes this book so very interesting is that it is the first – the very first - novel to deal in a realistic manner with a new minority then emerging – transsexuals. It dates back to 1966, the year before Christine Jorgensen published her autobiography and Dr. Harry Benjamin published his groundbreaking medical book, "The Transsexual Phenomena”. Gore Vidal’s spoof “Myra Breckenridge” was not yet published – it would follow in 1968. (The first book, in the form of a novel but what we would today call a “fiction non-fiction”, on transsexuality was “Man Into Woman”, by Niels Hoyer an account of the first known sex reassignment surgery in 1931 Germany. Very rare, it was reprinted as a pocketbook in the early 1950s and recently reprinted in the UK by Blue Boat Publishers. Novels dealing with intersexed people are more common. From Gary Jennings and his "Raptor" to the 2003 Pulitzer Prize winning "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides and arguably many in science fiction).
“I Want What I Want” was published first in the United Kingdom, then in the USA. It made little impact. A late paperback copy was released in both countries, with not much more impact. The writer, Geoff Brown, was unknown and new to novels (“I Want” was his first and only one more would follow and that almost ten years later).
Still, the subject of transsexuality had been given many pages of print and a few salacious pocketbooks before 1967. It was not an unknown topic but viewed as a very strange one. In fact, as novels go, those that involve realistic portrayals of transsexual women are still rare. Those by males ("Two Strand River" by Keith Mallard in 1974, "The Danish Girl" by David Eberhoff and "Trans Sister Radio" by Chris Bohjalian in 2000) have made the trade press. Those by transsexual women writers such a Pamela Hayes are generally found, with great difficulty, amongst the publish on demand press.
So where did “I Want What I Want” come from? Who is the writer and is he (or she) dead? Did he transition?
From what is available, we know very little. In fact, as much as we know is contained on the back cover of “I Want…”. “Geoff Brown”, we are told, “was born in Bridlington in Yorkshire in 1932 [making him now 77] and still lives there. This is his first novel and he at work on a second”. That second novel was in fact written and published, in 1975. On the blurb of that book we find out a bit more, but not much:
“Geoff Brown is a Yorkshireman he says he is stuck with it so he might as well be proud of it When questioned, he said that he though he might be able to write what were taken for autobiographical novels, as yet he did not seem to have any autobiography of his own. In the photograph above [see below] it is just possible to discern the scar on the right side of his nose that resulted from a misunderstanding with a neurotic dog. (“I got my nose between his teeth and I wouldn’t let go”). His hobbies are chess, war games and jeering at certain television programmers”
Blurb from the cover of “My Struggle”,
the second and final novel by Geoff Brown
That was in 1975. After that, nothing.
Two blurbs and silence.
Formal reviews of “I Want…” were promising. Punch, Sunday Times, the New Statesman and Saturday Review used words like “promising”, charm”, “intelligence”, “Powerful and moving”, “honesty”, “compassion and glowing with truth”. For the 1960s, that was great! In fact, for any novel about transsexuality today, that would be wonderful!
What the book did do is inspire a young actress to look upon it as her vehicle to stardom. Anne Heywood, a young actress with some film credits and a former Miss GB, saw “I Want…” as her golden opportunity. She was in a position to do something about it as well, for her husband of the time was a film producer, Raymond Stross. Stross had many pictures under his belt in the UK. According to what is suspected, Anne put the flea in his ear and he bought the movie rights from Geoff Brown, hiring John Dexter to direct (Dexter would go on to win fame – and awards – on Broadway but “I Want…” was the last film he directed).
The Stross project moved ahead, as movies do, slowly. In the meantime, back in the YUUU ESSS AHHH, other movies were a-makin’ – and faster. Gore Vidal’s “Myra Breckenridge” had shocked the public, surprised his publishers (who even ordered cheap paper as they thought the book would fail) and become a movie with Raquel Welch released in 1970. On a more serious side, Paramount had bought the rights to Jorgensen’s biography (saving her financial life at the same time) to make “The Christine Jorgensen Story”, also released in 1970. Both of those had a big advantage – they were each in living colour. Poor “I Want…” was a black-and-white film.
Poor Myra. Vidal was hired to do the screenplay and then replaced. The effort was to decline even worse:
“Rex Reed says that MYRA BRECKINRIDGE was a film made by a bunch of people who hid in their dressing rooms while waiting for their lawyers to return their calls.
The film itself demonstrates the accuracy of these comments. The basics of Vidal's story are there, but not only has the story been shorn of all broader implications, it seems to have no point in and of itself. Everything runs off in multiple directions, nothing connects, and numerous scenes undercut whatever logic previous scenes might have had. And while director Sarne repeatedly states in his commentary that he wanted to make the film as pure farce, the only laughs generated are accidental”.
“User Comments” from IMDB
“I Want…” had a happier time with the screenwriter. Brown was not up to the task, although he is credited. An English novelist, one who created a stir when she wrote the first classic book involving homosexuality (“Leather Boys”), Gillian Freeman was set to work. She had worked with Stross before, bringing her own book to the screen, but this was different and she should have known better. After all, the star was Anne Heywood, who just happened to be married to Stross. By the time it all ended, both Brown and Freeman thought they were off the hook for the result. The producers (i.e. Stross) had changed everything.
Transsexuality was a tough subject back in those days and remains so today, even with “Boy’s Don’t Cry” and “Transamerica”. So by the time “I Want…”hit the screens, the topic as well as the b&w treatment sank like a stone. Still, transsexual women who saw it, including myself, considered it a classic.
Making matters more confusing for anyone who cared to look, there were several other “Geoff Brown"’s who elected to write books on Black music, biking and other subjects. The name is certainly not uncommon. After his second novel failed to generate many sales, our Geoff Brown simply stopped writing and disappeared from view.
For over 25 years…
Being a transsexual woman, I had seen “I Want…” on late night television (it was actually on at 2:30am, but I stayed up to watch). Being a bookaholic, I wanted and finally found a copy of the first edition, which was becoming rather pricy by 2000. Even the paperback copies were going for over $50 by then, although thinking Brown was dead had the book show up free on the Internet, reproduced without concern for royalties, I suspect. After hunting down one Geoff Brown after another, none of them the “right” Geoff Brown, I had pretty well given up when my partner and I moved north to Prince George, some 700 miles north of Vancouver. (“You left Vancouver, the world’s most liveable/wonderful/best traveller’s/best business traveller’s city!!!” Yep. Getting too pricy, trendy and too warm. We needed cheap, basic and cold. Just our luck to move north when global warming gave Prince George the warmest winter on record. We may have to head further north soon…).
After the move, I revisited the matter of the missing Brown. As publishers and more had failed me, I headed off in another direction – after the movie types. Now, Stross was dead. Anne Heywood had moved to the USA, married a former NYC D.A. and moved to Hollywood, made many more films with small roles up to 1988, and then… Nothing.
All of the other members of the cast had died, it seemed. But then, a bit of luck. I found that Gillian Freeman had published a new book, her tenth. I write to her publisher (a very small publisher on the English coast), itself a bit of a strange step, and got back word that Gillian had had a stroke, but that her publisher, the dear, would copy my post and send it on to her for reply.
Several weeks past. Then the postie brought a rather thick envelope postmarked from the UK. It was from Gillian. Unable to type after her stroke, she had kindly taken the time to dictate a letter and have her husband type it! Even better, she had not given all her papers to Reading University, as my Internet research had disclosed, but had kept some. She enclosed with her letter copies of letters she had received from Brown during the writing, filming and release of “I Want What I Want”, the movie. The bad news was the last correspondence she had with Brown was back in the 1970s. She had no idea of where he was – dead or more likely transitioned with a new name, she thought.
My many trips to England had taught me some of the local culture. One fact I remembered. We here in North America pull up stakes and move every second year, it seems. But in the UK, many people live all their lives, from birth to death, in the same house. Brown’s letters to Freeman, from the 1970s, had a return address. Was it possible???
A bit more Internet digging. A search for the town and it has a bulletin board! So I asked if someone would look up Geoff Brown in the local telephone directory – just to tell me if one was shown at the old address. A reply came back in a few hours. “G. Brown” was listed. Another search with Brit Mail and Brit telephone gave me the postal code and telephone number.
Delighted, I even look up a map of the town, to pinpoint Brown’s home, nosey parker that I might be.
And I wrote a very nice letter.
And I waited…
A week passed. Then two. During that short time, my partner and I changed our phone plans and could now phone anywhere in the UK for a mere $.10 per minute. I did have Brown’s telephone number, thanks to Brit Telephone. With temptation steering my course, I picked up the phone one morning (allowing for the time differences and such) and dialled the number, getting the distinctive British telephone ring.
It was picked up!
“’Allo. Who’s this?” said a decidedly elderly female voice.
I introduced myself and stated my purpose.
“Oh, you’re that Canadian who write to my Geoff, are you? Oh yes, he got you letter. Matter of fact, he’s up stairs now writing a reply. I’m his wife”.
Now, the voice was a tad cold and unfriendly, but even finding that Geoff had a wife and was thus, presumably, still a man was a step forward. I asked if I could speak with him directly.
“Auw no. He’s up the stairs, isn’t he? “ad his supper and went back up stairs. Can’t get him downstairs now, where the tele is”.
Having some experience with the elderly and a little with the narrow old English staircases, I could appreciate that this might be difficult. Still, I had to gain some ground with this formidable character. Now, when confronted with this type of wall, I cast about with subjects, hoping to establish some rapport. I hit on the third – dogs.
“Oh yes, dogs are nice. Geoff and I have three big dogs” and Mrs. Brown and I were on our way to establishing a nice relationship.
Through our brief conversation, I found that Geoff had only written two books, been dissatisfied with the results, so simply ceased writing. He still lived in the same house where the book had been written, some thirty plus years after. In fact, I suspect he was born in the same house, the same town, and the same room! Mrs. Brown and I had a nice little chat and she promised that she would see to it that Geoff did indeed reply to my letter. The amazing thing was that he did!
Now, pause there. Here is a man who wrote two books, had no continuing interest in either the books or writing, and who suddenly gets a letter then a call form across the seas about the damn thing, filed long away in the past.
The next week, the postman brought another letter from England, this won from Mr. Geoff brown himself. Not only did he send the letter, but also it was obviously typed on the same typewriter that had been used for the correspondence with Gillian Freeman, back in the 1970s. In fact, it looked like the same typewriter ribbon!
History in my hands.
Now, Geoff signed some bookplates for my copies of his two books, thus making mine the only autographed copies of the “Complete Works of Geoff Brown”, something only a book collector could appreciate or even understand. Attempts to ferret out more concerning how he had come to write such a book were fruitless. In fact, after some attempts, I finally tried to enlist the aid of the Gender Trust of the UK, writing to them and suggesting they do an interview to record some of our history, scant as that is, as a minority. They did indeed delegate someone to do so, but a solid brick wall emerged when they wrote to set up the interview. Geoff replied that he had once granted permission foe an interview, but the two fellows who showed up to complete the task were officious, in white shirt and dark suits, and were in his belief either CIS or FBI. Naturally, that removed any chance for a further interview. He had tried it once, then books were tried twice, and he did not need to repeat the performance.
So, we know that Geoff did not transition, is married, has three big dogs, and… What else. Well, The second book, My Struggle is rather like “One Flew Over the CooCoo’s Nest”. Geoff writes the book from inside the mind of a schizophrenic, and it is a chilling read indeed. One example – the young hero is playing with his brother when parents are away. For fun, he ties his brother to the staircase railings and then tortures him. His parents, upon their return, are upset. “Why?” he wonders. Just a nice thing to do on a slow boring day.
Geoff has lived all his life in a small seaside town. While I cannot say this for sure, certain indications suggest that he lives in the hours his parents lived in. During his late teens, a shipwreck just off the coast had a profound impact on young Geoff. The large fishing vessel had run aground on a reef and was pounded for days before it sank with all hands. Rescuers could not scale down the steep cliffs in the bad weather. This real incident plays a role in Geoff’s second book and certainly for a time during the 1970s was an obsession. He wanted to write a new “Moby Dick” using the wreck of the Skegness. That book was never written; instead, the news reports of the sinking appear as a close to “My Struggle”. A book that Geoff “blames” on an American editor who had joined the publishing house.
Geoff has never seen the movie version of “I Want…” - not even today. When the movie was being made, he had sided with the producer to use a female to play the lead. Gillian had wanted a male actor. The producers ripped apart Gillian’s screenplay and Geoff’s book, as Geoff and Gillian agree.
Well and good, the mystery remains. This book was written in 1964 (publication was two years later) at the height of the Beatle craze. There was almost nothing publish on transsexual treatment or sex reassignment surgery outside of the press – no books, autobiographies, or medical studies. Geoff was married at the time. How was Brown able to convey so much of the transsexual world from a small coastal English town? Did he, as Gillian Freeman suggests in one letter, want to transition, to become a woman? Did he know those that did? There were few transsexuals in England at that time. April Ashley was certainly known but few others and, I suspect, none at all I Brown’s location. Still, the book clearly shows a rather close understanding of what a transsexual feels and the options then coming available.
Both of his books do show a very intimate knowledge of the subject and it could be that such was his special talent – taking the imagined life of others and making it real on paper. Contrary to that concept, many first novels are highly autobiographical. The locations used in “I Want.” are certainly drawn directly from Geoff’s own “neck of the woods”. If “I Want...” was solely imagination, where did he find out more? No books were available, as none had yet been printed.
We shall never know. Geoff Brown is over seventy now and not about to grant an interview (I tried to get the British "Gender Trust" to interview him - he refused citing a prior interview which brought him "FBI or CIA" types". There are few hints in the book itself. What makes that even more a mystery is that few in England at that time would even know about transsexuality, let along sex change operations which were not then legal in the UK. Where did he get his inspiration and information? A newspaper article? A copy of “Man Into Woman” that turned up in a bookshop?
THE HUNT FOR GEOFF BROWN
If you talk to a transsexual woman older than 40, changes are she remembers having read a novel that dates back to the 1960s by the strange title of “I Want What I Want”. Perhaps you have seen a black-and-white movie on late night television by the same name.
Most of us have
What makes this book so very interesting is that it is the first – the very first - novel to deal in a realistic manner with a new minority then emerging – transsexuals. It dates back to 1966, the year before Christine Jorgensen published her autobiography and Dr. Harry Benjamin published his groundbreaking medical book, "The Transsexual Phenomena”. Gore Vidal’s spoof “Myra Breckenridge” was not yet published – it would follow in 1968. (The first book, in the form of a novel but what we would today call a “fiction non-fiction”, on transsexuality was “Man Into Woman”, by Niels Hoyer an account of the first known sex reassignment surgery in 1931 Germany. Very rare, it was reprinted as a pocketbook in the early 1950s and recently reprinted in the UK by Blue Boat Publishers. Novels dealing with intersexed people are more common. From Gary Jennings and his "Raptor" to the 2003 Pulitzer Prize winning "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides and arguably many in science fiction).
“I Want What I Want” was published first in the United Kingdom, then in the USA. It made little impact. A late paperback copy was released in both countries, with not much more impact. The writer, Geoff Brown, was unknown and new to novels (“I Want” was his first and only one more would follow and that almost ten years later).
Still, the subject of transsexuality had been given many pages of print and a few salacious pocketbooks before 1967. It was not an unknown topic but viewed as a very strange one. In fact, as novels go, those that involve realistic portrayals of transsexual women are still rare. Those by males ("Two Strand River" by Keith Mallard in 1974, "The Danish Girl" by David Eberhoff and "Trans Sister Radio" by Chris Bohjalian in 2000) have made the trade press. Those by transsexual women writers such a Pamela Hayes are generally found, with great difficulty, amongst the publish on demand press.
So where did “I Want What I Want” come from? Who is the writer and is he (or she) dead? Did he transition?
From what is available, we know very little. In fact, as much as we know is contained on the back cover of “I Want…”. “Geoff Brown”, we are told, “was born in Bridlington in Yorkshire in 1932 [making him now 77] and still lives there. This is his first novel and he at work on a second”. That second novel was in fact written and published, in 1975. On the blurb of that book we find out a bit more, but not much:
“Geoff Brown is a Yorkshireman he says he is stuck with it so he might as well be proud of it When questioned, he said that he though he might be able to write what were taken for autobiographical novels, as yet he did not seem to have any autobiography of his own. In the photograph above [see below] it is just possible to discern the scar on the right side of his nose that resulted from a misunderstanding with a neurotic dog. (“I got my nose between his teeth and I wouldn’t let go”). His hobbies are chess, war games and jeering at certain television programmers”
Blurb from the cover of “My Struggle”,
the second and final novel by Geoff Brown
That was in 1975. After that, nothing.
Two blurbs and silence.
Formal reviews of “I Want…” were promising. Punch, Sunday Times, the New Statesman and Saturday Review used words like “promising”, charm”, “intelligence”, “Powerful and moving”, “honesty”, “compassion and glowing with truth”. For the 1960s, that was great! In fact, for any novel about transsexuality today, that would be wonderful!
What the book did do is inspire a young actress to look upon it as her vehicle to stardom. Anne Heywood, a young actress with some film credits and a former Miss GB, saw “I Want…” as her golden opportunity. She was in a position to do something about it as well, for her husband of the time was a film producer, Raymond Stross. Stross had many pictures under his belt in the UK. According to what is suspected, Anne put the flea in his ear and he bought the movie rights from Geoff Brown, hiring John Dexter to direct (Dexter would go on to win fame – and awards – on Broadway but “I Want…” was the last film he directed).
The Stross project moved ahead, as movies do, slowly. In the meantime, back in the YUUU ESSS AHHH, other movies were a-makin’ – and faster. Gore Vidal’s “Myra Breckenridge” had shocked the public, surprised his publishers (who even ordered cheap paper as they thought the book would fail) and become a movie with Raquel Welch released in 1970. On a more serious side, Paramount had bought the rights to Jorgensen’s biography (saving her financial life at the same time) to make “The Christine Jorgensen Story”, also released in 1970. Both of those had a big advantage – they were each in living colour. Poor “I Want…” was a black-and-white film.
Poor Myra. Vidal was hired to do the screenplay and then replaced. The effort was to decline even worse:
“Rex Reed says that MYRA BRECKINRIDGE was a film made by a bunch of people who hid in their dressing rooms while waiting for their lawyers to return their calls.
The film itself demonstrates the accuracy of these comments. The basics of Vidal's story are there, but not only has the story been shorn of all broader implications, it seems to have no point in and of itself. Everything runs off in multiple directions, nothing connects, and numerous scenes undercut whatever logic previous scenes might have had. And while director Sarne repeatedly states in his commentary that he wanted to make the film as pure farce, the only laughs generated are accidental”.
“User Comments” from IMDB
“I Want…” had a happier time with the screenwriter. Brown was not up to the task, although he is credited. An English novelist, one who created a stir when she wrote the first classic book involving homosexuality (“Leather Boys”), Gillian Freeman was set to work. She had worked with Stross before, bringing her own book to the screen, but this was different and she should have known better. After all, the star was Anne Heywood, who just happened to be married to Stross. By the time it all ended, both Brown and Freeman thought they were off the hook for the result. The producers (i.e. Stross) had changed everything.
Transsexuality was a tough subject back in those days and remains so today, even with “Boy’s Don’t Cry” and “Transamerica”. So by the time “I Want…”hit the screens, the topic as well as the b&w treatment sank like a stone. Still, transsexual women who saw it, including myself, considered it a classic.
Making matters more confusing for anyone who cared to look, there were several other “Geoff Brown"’s who elected to write books on Black music, biking and other subjects. The name is certainly not uncommon. After his second novel failed to generate many sales, our Geoff Brown simply stopped writing and disappeared from view.
For over 25 years…
Being a transsexual woman, I had seen “I Want…” on late night television (it was actually on at 2:30am, but I stayed up to watch). Being a bookaholic, I wanted and finally found a copy of the first edition, which was becoming rather pricy by 2000. Even the paperback copies were going for over $50 by then, although thinking Brown was dead had the book show up free on the Internet, reproduced without concern for royalties, I suspect. After hunting down one Geoff Brown after another, none of them the “right” Geoff Brown, I had pretty well given up when my partner and I moved north to Prince George, some 700 miles north of Vancouver. (“You left Vancouver, the world’s most liveable/wonderful/best traveller’s/best business traveller’s city!!!” Yep. Getting too pricy, trendy and too warm. We needed cheap, basic and cold. Just our luck to move north when global warming gave Prince George the warmest winter on record. We may have to head further north soon…).
After the move, I revisited the matter of the missing Brown. As publishers and more had failed me, I headed off in another direction – after the movie types. Now, Stross was dead. Anne Heywood had moved to the USA, married a former NYC D.A. and moved to Hollywood, made many more films with small roles up to 1988, and then… Nothing.
All of the other members of the cast had died, it seemed. But then, a bit of luck. I found that Gillian Freeman had published a new book, her tenth. I write to her publisher (a very small publisher on the English coast), itself a bit of a strange step, and got back word that Gillian had had a stroke, but that her publisher, the dear, would copy my post and send it on to her for reply.
Several weeks past. Then the postie brought a rather thick envelope postmarked from the UK. It was from Gillian. Unable to type after her stroke, she had kindly taken the time to dictate a letter and have her husband type it! Even better, she had not given all her papers to Reading University, as my Internet research had disclosed, but had kept some. She enclosed with her letter copies of letters she had received from Brown during the writing, filming and release of “I Want What I Want”, the movie. The bad news was the last correspondence she had with Brown was back in the 1970s. She had no idea of where he was – dead or more likely transitioned with a new name, she thought.
My many trips to England had taught me some of the local culture. One fact I remembered. We here in North America pull up stakes and move every second year, it seems. But in the UK, many people live all their lives, from birth to death, in the same house. Brown’s letters to Freeman, from the 1970s, had a return address. Was it possible???
A bit more Internet digging. A search for the town and it has a bulletin board! So I asked if someone would look up Geoff Brown in the local telephone directory – just to tell me if one was shown at the old address. A reply came back in a few hours. “G. Brown” was listed. Another search with Brit Mail and Brit telephone gave me the postal code and telephone number.
Delighted, I even look up a map of the town, to pinpoint Brown’s home, nosey parker that I might be.
And I wrote a very nice letter.
And I waited…
A week passed. Then two. During that short time, my partner and I changed our phone plans and could now phone anywhere in the UK for a mere $.10 per minute. I did have Brown’s telephone number, thanks to Brit Telephone. With temptation steering my course, I picked up the phone one morning (allowing for the time differences and such) and dialled the number, getting the distinctive British telephone ring.
It was picked up!
“’Allo. Who’s this?” said a decidedly elderly female voice.
I introduced myself and stated my purpose.
“Oh, you’re that Canadian who write to my Geoff, are you? Oh yes, he got you letter. Matter of fact, he’s up stairs now writing a reply. I’m his wife”.
Now, the voice was a tad cold and unfriendly, but even finding that Geoff had a wife and was thus, presumably, still a man was a step forward. I asked if I could speak with him directly.
“Auw no. He’s up the stairs, isn’t he? “ad his supper and went back up stairs. Can’t get him downstairs now, where the tele is”.
Having some experience with the elderly and a little with the narrow old English staircases, I could appreciate that this might be difficult. Still, I had to gain some ground with this formidable character. Now, when confronted with this type of wall, I cast about with subjects, hoping to establish some rapport. I hit on the third – dogs.
“Oh yes, dogs are nice. Geoff and I have three big dogs” and Mrs. Brown and I were on our way to establishing a nice relationship.
Through our brief conversation, I found that Geoff had only written two books, been dissatisfied with the results, so simply ceased writing. He still lived in the same house where the book had been written, some thirty plus years after. In fact, I suspect he was born in the same house, the same town, and the same room! Mrs. Brown and I had a nice little chat and she promised that she would see to it that Geoff did indeed reply to my letter. The amazing thing was that he did!
Now, pause there. Here is a man who wrote two books, had no continuing interest in either the books or writing, and who suddenly gets a letter then a call form across the seas about the damn thing, filed long away in the past.
The next week, the postman brought another letter from England, this won from Mr. Geoff brown himself. Not only did he send the letter, but also it was obviously typed on the same typewriter that had been used for the correspondence with Gillian Freeman, back in the 1970s. In fact, it looked like the same typewriter ribbon!
History in my hands.
Now, Geoff signed some bookplates for my copies of his two books, thus making mine the only autographed copies of the “Complete Works of Geoff Brown”, something only a book collector could appreciate or even understand. Attempts to ferret out more concerning how he had come to write such a book were fruitless. In fact, after some attempts, I finally tried to enlist the aid of the Gender Trust of the UK, writing to them and suggesting they do an interview to record some of our history, scant as that is, as a minority. They did indeed delegate someone to do so, but a solid brick wall emerged when they wrote to set up the interview. Geoff replied that he had once granted permission foe an interview, but the two fellows who showed up to complete the task were officious, in white shirt and dark suits, and were in his belief either CIS or FBI. Naturally, that removed any chance for a further interview. He had tried it once, then books were tried twice, and he did not need to repeat the performance.
So, we know that Geoff did not transition, is married, has three big dogs, and… What else. Well, The second book, My Struggle is rather like “One Flew Over the CooCoo’s Nest”. Geoff writes the book from inside the mind of a schizophrenic, and it is a chilling read indeed. One example – the young hero is playing with his brother when parents are away. For fun, he ties his brother to the staircase railings and then tortures him. His parents, upon their return, are upset. “Why?” he wonders. Just a nice thing to do on a slow boring day.
Geoff has lived all his life in a small seaside town. While I cannot say this for sure, certain indications suggest that he lives in the hours his parents lived in. During his late teens, a shipwreck just off the coast had a profound impact on young Geoff. The large fishing vessel had run aground on a reef and was pounded for days before it sank with all hands. Rescuers could not scale down the steep cliffs in the bad weather. This real incident plays a role in Geoff’s second book and certainly for a time during the 1970s was an obsession. He wanted to write a new “Moby Dick” using the wreck of the Skegness. That book was never written; instead, the news reports of the sinking appear as a close to “My Struggle”. A book that Geoff “blames” on an American editor who had joined the publishing house.
Geoff has never seen the movie version of “I Want…” - not even today. When the movie was being made, he had sided with the producer to use a female to play the lead. Gillian had wanted a male actor. The producers ripped apart Gillian’s screenplay and Geoff’s book, as Geoff and Gillian agree.
Well and good, the mystery remains. This book was written in 1964 (publication was two years later) at the height of the Beatle craze. There was almost nothing publish on transsexual treatment or sex reassignment surgery outside of the press – no books, autobiographies, or medical studies. Geoff was married at the time. How was Brown able to convey so much of the transsexual world from a small coastal English town? Did he, as Gillian Freeman suggests in one letter, want to transition, to become a woman? Did he know those that did? There were few transsexuals in England at that time. April Ashley was certainly known but few others and, I suspect, none at all I Brown’s location. Still, the book clearly shows a rather close understanding of what a transsexual feels and the options then coming available.
Both of his books do show a very intimate knowledge of the subject and it could be that such was his special talent – taking the imagined life of others and making it real on paper. Contrary to that concept, many first novels are highly autobiographical. The locations used in “I Want.” are certainly drawn directly from Geoff’s own “neck of the woods”. If “I Want...” was solely imagination, where did he find out more? No books were available, as none had yet been printed.
We shall never know. Geoff Brown is over seventy now and not about to grant an interview (I tried to get the British "Gender Trust" to interview him - he refused citing a prior interview which brought him "FBI or CIA" types". There are few hints in the book itself. What makes that even more a mystery is that few in England at that time would even know about transsexuality, let along sex change operations which were not then legal in the UK. Where did he get his inspiration and information? A newspaper article? A copy of “Man Into Woman” that turned up in a bookshop?
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Since Then...
Since our move, we have grown to love living in the North.
Now, there are a few problems in Prince George. Travelling to anywhere is difficult, especially in winter. The town has a problem attracting medical doctors so each practising doctor has a waiting list and many cannot find a family doctor. Weather inversions can make the air horrid on some days.
Crack hit PG a few years ago. It especially hit the Native and Metis population. It took a long time for the City and RCMP to get a handle on that. Our neighbourhood, locally known as "The Hood" was worst hit. Of recent, higher values for houses has seen the former rental units bought by people who intend to live in them and that has resulted in a general upgrade. The RCMP and City have cooperated in attacking the crack shacks. When we first moved in, there were ten or more crack shacks within six blocks. Now, not a one. The police raid the places and break up as much as they can; then city inspectors arrive and list those things that must be repaired before the place can be rented. This has led to major renovations of the older duplexes, with prices rising form $49,000 two year ago to asking $136,000 today.
So, compared with when we moved in five years go, the neighbourhood has gone through major changes and upgrades. We were just a bit early.
When we first moved in, the house next door was a grow-op. Then after months of being a nice fellow, Tom, moved in downstairs. The Gills, landlords of the place, then rented the upstairs to total creeps. Druggies and dumpster divers, they made life for us miserable one summer by burning off the coating of wire they salvaged. But we worked with the city and landlord and finally got them out . They (or someone else) came back the next day and torched the house, a major fire. The house was left as a ruin for some time until we again complained to the City. It was rebuilt, torched again, and finally finished and is now on the market for $225,000 (we had been offered it for $79,000 before the first fire).
One reason why the neighbourhood has cleaned up is our friend - and perhaps protector - Dennis. Dennis is a character. A semi-retired Hell's Angel, Dennis is a great guy to do renovations and a wonderful type to do evictions. One problem in prior years was that Mr. Gill was not good at enforcing any evictions. Then he got Dennis, with a nice aluminium baseball bat somewhat modified. Now, Dennis has a lot of stories, but he looks after us, "the Girls". Any troublemaker in the area knows that Dennis is watching, sometimes walking the area at night. It makes for a very trouble free time.
Dennis also did out two major recent renovations - a back deck and a front porch. A great job for an affordable amount.
Now, there are a few problems in Prince George. Travelling to anywhere is difficult, especially in winter. The town has a problem attracting medical doctors so each practising doctor has a waiting list and many cannot find a family doctor. Weather inversions can make the air horrid on some days.
Crack hit PG a few years ago. It especially hit the Native and Metis population. It took a long time for the City and RCMP to get a handle on that. Our neighbourhood, locally known as "The Hood" was worst hit. Of recent, higher values for houses has seen the former rental units bought by people who intend to live in them and that has resulted in a general upgrade. The RCMP and City have cooperated in attacking the crack shacks. When we first moved in, there were ten or more crack shacks within six blocks. Now, not a one. The police raid the places and break up as much as they can; then city inspectors arrive and list those things that must be repaired before the place can be rented. This has led to major renovations of the older duplexes, with prices rising form $49,000 two year ago to asking $136,000 today.
So, compared with when we moved in five years go, the neighbourhood has gone through major changes and upgrades. We were just a bit early.
When we first moved in, the house next door was a grow-op. Then after months of being a nice fellow, Tom, moved in downstairs. The Gills, landlords of the place, then rented the upstairs to total creeps. Druggies and dumpster divers, they made life for us miserable one summer by burning off the coating of wire they salvaged. But we worked with the city and landlord and finally got them out . They (or someone else) came back the next day and torched the house, a major fire. The house was left as a ruin for some time until we again complained to the City. It was rebuilt, torched again, and finally finished and is now on the market for $225,000 (we had been offered it for $79,000 before the first fire).
One reason why the neighbourhood has cleaned up is our friend - and perhaps protector - Dennis. Dennis is a character. A semi-retired Hell's Angel, Dennis is a great guy to do renovations and a wonderful type to do evictions. One problem in prior years was that Mr. Gill was not good at enforcing any evictions. Then he got Dennis, with a nice aluminium baseball bat somewhat modified. Now, Dennis has a lot of stories, but he looks after us, "the Girls". Any troublemaker in the area knows that Dennis is watching, sometimes walking the area at night. It makes for a very trouble free time.
Dennis also did out two major recent renovations - a back deck and a front porch. A great job for an affordable amount.
Well, Here I Am...
Now, this is a new experience, but it looks like fun...
I enjoy writing. Thousands of posts over the Internet for years. The idea of creating a blog seemed to allow me to have fun without concern for taking up too much space on forums, e-grouprs and more.
My Name is Willow and my partner Sonia and I live in Prince George, British Columbia. Prince George is really in the middle of nowhere. A ten hour plus drive south to Vancouver, about the same east to Edmonton, southeast to Calgary. Dawson Creek is closer - perhaps four or five hours north. To the west, Prince Rupert is a longer drive.
We moved here in November, 2003. Our best friend, Danielle, had been raised in Prince George. One August day we picked her up at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal in West Vancouver and stopped for coffee on Lonsdale Avenue in North Van. Over coffee, she told us of her intention to travel north to PG to visit her parents. Having not been out of Vancouver for a long time, the idea of a trip sounded good - and Danielle's parents had extend an invitation to visit months prior. So off we went, Sonia and I having never been north of Cashe Creek.
It was a wonderful September for a trip. Now, in Vancouver Sonia and I shared a small one bedroom condo, the same building as Danielle lived in. In East Van, it was crampted and tight; Vancouver was starting to be livable only if you had lots fo money to enjoy all the good things. Arriving in Prince George, Sonia - as is her way - started to read the classifieds. She quickly discovered that real estate values in PG were very, very low, the result of a long local depression. She wanted to look around. In fact, she wanted to look around with a real estate agent.
I thought she was joking.
No, she was not. Soon we were touring houses and what we saw, we liked. We even put in an offer on one house, only to find the real estate agents were now really looking after our interests. So, after some wandering, we sat down for coffee at the old Taco Bell on Fifth Avenue, since closed and pulled out the local bi-weekly paper. There it was - an ad for a house that looked just right and at a very good price. We thought there had been a misprint, so used to Vancouver prices. We called the number, got the address, and went to see it.
Well, the neighbourhood was no great shakes then. A trailer park, very shoddy, just to the east along with a slough and nature park. Lots of really shabby houses, but the ones next to the own we were to see were fine. A fellow arrived and let us in. The floor plan was perfect and at 1300 square feet, over double our little condo. It sat on a double lot, fenced. Yes, it needed work, but we would have funds on hand to do that if our condo sold in Vancouver.
We quickly made a few trips and put in an offer. It was accepted. Now all we had to do was sell the condo and move north...
If I had passed over our impression so the town, it was deliberate. PG is a working town, more pickups than cars. The downtown is a disaster. Big box stores of all types are found in the Malls and out west on the highway. Several large mills make the smell of pulp almost ever-present. But it had all the facilities we needed and the Internet had become our major source for books and such. The way we looked at it then, it was a nice place for us two old bats to enjoy life.
So back to Vancouver, list the condo, sell the condo in the heating up Vancouver marketplace, and move. With our stuff in the moving trucks, we haded north with five cats and one dog - the cats drugged and in travel crates. It was November 1st, 2003.
The first snowfall of the year arrived the following week; the house next door was raided as a "grow-op" a few days after.
We were home...
I enjoy writing. Thousands of posts over the Internet for years. The idea of creating a blog seemed to allow me to have fun without concern for taking up too much space on forums, e-grouprs and more.
My Name is Willow and my partner Sonia and I live in Prince George, British Columbia. Prince George is really in the middle of nowhere. A ten hour plus drive south to Vancouver, about the same east to Edmonton, southeast to Calgary. Dawson Creek is closer - perhaps four or five hours north. To the west, Prince Rupert is a longer drive.
We moved here in November, 2003. Our best friend, Danielle, had been raised in Prince George. One August day we picked her up at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal in West Vancouver and stopped for coffee on Lonsdale Avenue in North Van. Over coffee, she told us of her intention to travel north to PG to visit her parents. Having not been out of Vancouver for a long time, the idea of a trip sounded good - and Danielle's parents had extend an invitation to visit months prior. So off we went, Sonia and I having never been north of Cashe Creek.
It was a wonderful September for a trip. Now, in Vancouver Sonia and I shared a small one bedroom condo, the same building as Danielle lived in. In East Van, it was crampted and tight; Vancouver was starting to be livable only if you had lots fo money to enjoy all the good things. Arriving in Prince George, Sonia - as is her way - started to read the classifieds. She quickly discovered that real estate values in PG were very, very low, the result of a long local depression. She wanted to look around. In fact, she wanted to look around with a real estate agent.
I thought she was joking.
No, she was not. Soon we were touring houses and what we saw, we liked. We even put in an offer on one house, only to find the real estate agents were now really looking after our interests. So, after some wandering, we sat down for coffee at the old Taco Bell on Fifth Avenue, since closed and pulled out the local bi-weekly paper. There it was - an ad for a house that looked just right and at a very good price. We thought there had been a misprint, so used to Vancouver prices. We called the number, got the address, and went to see it.
Well, the neighbourhood was no great shakes then. A trailer park, very shoddy, just to the east along with a slough and nature park. Lots of really shabby houses, but the ones next to the own we were to see were fine. A fellow arrived and let us in. The floor plan was perfect and at 1300 square feet, over double our little condo. It sat on a double lot, fenced. Yes, it needed work, but we would have funds on hand to do that if our condo sold in Vancouver.
We quickly made a few trips and put in an offer. It was accepted. Now all we had to do was sell the condo and move north...
If I had passed over our impression so the town, it was deliberate. PG is a working town, more pickups than cars. The downtown is a disaster. Big box stores of all types are found in the Malls and out west on the highway. Several large mills make the smell of pulp almost ever-present. But it had all the facilities we needed and the Internet had become our major source for books and such. The way we looked at it then, it was a nice place for us two old bats to enjoy life.
So back to Vancouver, list the condo, sell the condo in the heating up Vancouver marketplace, and move. With our stuff in the moving trucks, we haded north with five cats and one dog - the cats drugged and in travel crates. It was November 1st, 2003.
The first snowfall of the year arrived the following week; the house next door was raided as a "grow-op" a few days after.
We were home...
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