Meanwhile, in Another Part of the Forest

Dennis Denisoff teaches English at McGill University, and is the author
of Dog Years and Tender Agencies.

This collection is packed with dozens of eloquent and entertaining short
stories written primarily by established authors, both Canadian (such as
Marie-Claire Blais, W.P. Kinsella, and Stan Persky) and others (such as
Truman Capote, Daphne du Maurier, and Edmund White). A number of authors
not known primarily for their gay concerns, such as Graham Greene,
Ernest Hemingway, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, have been included. The
decision to present writers not generally associated with gay literature
risks potential accusations of encroaching on the work of the
gay-identified ones; however, the strategy ultimately works by both
further deghettoizing gay literature and questioning the categorizing
methods often imposed on diverse and overlapping sexual identities.

Editor Alberto Manguel notes that he chose the title for this
collection from comic books, in which excitement and intrigue always
seemed to be taking place “in another part of the forest.” This
other part of the forest, he suggests, is literature by gays, about
gays, and about how non-gays perceive gays. As the subtitle to the
collection suggests, however, the editors have not gone too far off the
canonical path in their search for excitement.

While this judgment in no way reflects on the stories that the editors
did select, if the editors had turned over some newer leaves (and fewer
of the garden variety), the collection would have come closer to
addressing the vibrant and diverse literary production currently going
on around gay lives.