A Single Man (1962)

I’ve written before about the film adaptation of this novel, and I know I’ve referenced the novel at different times, but I’ve never done a proper write-up of the novel itself. As much as a book can pull me in so utterly when I’m reading it, I can feel reluctant to write about it if too much time has passed since then. Movies, TV, and theatre stick with me with more immediacy, but with a book, even if I remember in detail what I love about it and how I felt reading it, I get this weird sense of there being a limited window in which it’s fresh enough in my mind to write about it. I’d missed my window on A Single Man and felt unqualified to do justice to a post about it, a situation that obviously had to be remedied. So, I read it again (premise spoilers.)

George is an Englishman working as a professor in California in the early ‘60s. Though he carries himself fairly well – a little sadly, but nothing beyond reason – no one can see how badly he’s broken inside. It’s been some time since the unexpected death of his longtime partner, Jim, and ever since, it’s been a struggle simply to “become George” every morning. The story takes place over a single day in George’s private grief. The plot wanders a little, but that’s all right, because George himself is wandering. We follow him to and from work, on errands, alone, with students, with neighbors, with friends, and into his remembrances.

I’m pretty sure I’ve said before (and if I haven’t, I should have) that Christopher Isherwood’s greatest asset as a writer is his raw humanity. There’s so much about A Single Man that’s exquisite, but most beautiful of all is the visceral intimacy of George’s continued grief. The opening pages, in which he describes the slow process of waking and becoming George, in which he paints a picture of all the faultlines of memories running through the house, remain my absolute favorite part of the book. In them, Isherwood does nothing less than produce a beating human heart and hold out it out in his hands to show it to us. Even though the premise of the book is admittedly “tragic gay,” it doesn’t feel stereotypical when Isherwood tells it, because the emotions are so honest and specific.

I also really like that, as heartbroken as George continues to be, that’s not all he is. He’s our sole window into the story, and as such, we spend a lot of time with him alone with his thoughts, and there’s so much else swirling in there amongst the grief. He’s a little vain about his appearance and finds aging to be more than a little undignified. He’s a British transplant in California, and he has a lot of thoughts about America, from the sunshine to the freeways to the euphemistic “blandness” of speech (warning: some of the latter point can get uncomfortable, such as when, in rolling his eyes over the term “senior citizen,” George reasons that “old” has become as verboten a word as anti-Black and anti-Semitic slurs.) He’s mourning Jim’s loss, but he’s also angry about it, and he rails against how a homophobic society tries to contextualize him.

Again, the plot is very meandering, but I really don’t mind it. We’re so thoroughly in George’s head that it’s enough just to follow him through his day, hearing his thoughts and observing his world through his eyes. The emotional and analytical themes keep everything cohesive, and there are enough threads of continuity to tie the story together.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements, language (including racial slurs,) drinking/smoking, drug references, and sexual references.