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Tegan and Sara revisit ‘The Con’ on 10th anniversary acoustic tour

Pop wonder twins on touring with Katy Perry, their foundation, playing the Oscars and more

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Tegan Sara, gay news, Washington Blade

TEGAN AND SARA say injustices they’ve seen among their fans inspires their philanthropic work. (Photo by Pamela Littky; courtesy Warner Bros. Records)

Tegan and Sara

 

The Con 10th Anniversary Acoustic Tour

 

Saturday, Nov. 11

 

The Anthem

 

901 Wharf St., S.W.

 

8 p.m.

 

$50.50-76

 

theanthemdc.com

 

teganandsara.com

Tegan and Sara bring their acoustic tour, a 10th-anniversary commemoration of their breakthrough 2007 album “The Con,” to new Washington venue the Anthem next weekend. Sara, prepping for the sixth concert of the tour, spoke with the Blade by phone from Portland on Oct. 26

WASHINGTON BLADE: I’m told Portland has a large lesbian population. Are you aware of this?

SARA: I don’t know exactly but, um, we’ve spent a lot of time in Portland. We actually made “The Con,” the record that we’re touring on this anniversary, we actually made it in Portland but besides the lesbians who are in the band, we didn’t do a lot of socializing outside of the studio (laughs). But I love Portland. It’s a beautiful sunny day and it’s a little cooler than it was in California. I had a nice breakfast and walked around and it’s just a great town, I love it.

BLADE: Is this concept something you might also do for other albums when they turn 10 or is revisiting “The Con” different? If so, why?

SARA: You know, I think, first off, this record is incredibly special and just purely from a business perspective, you know, it was a big step for us. We moved over to Warner Brothers and there was a big push behind the album. It was really well received by the press and we saw our audience grow quite a bit and we started traveling more internationally. The reach of the album was pretty substantial and over the years, the record has been one of those signature pieces where even fans who discovered us on later albums generally find themselves back at “The Con” and love the songs. I think it’s a really cherished album within our community of fans so it felt really appropriate to go out and perform these songs again because for so many people, a lot of our fans tell us, “We were too young to see the show the first time around,” they were underage or they had yet to discover us, so it felt like the first album in our discography that felt like it had enough of an impact and that people liked enough that we could go out and do something like this. And then to be able to tie it to the launch of our foundation and be able to use it also as a fundraiser to try to raise money for some programming and grants we want to do next year, to have those two elements stitched together, that feels really special.

BLADE: Aside from being acoustic, how is this tour different from the original “Con” tour?

SARA: We didn’t want to just go out and do the album versions. We wanted to strip things back and make it more of an intimate show and allow for storytelling and really improvised moments even within the music itself. … The songs are very short. Even though there are 14 songs on the “The Con,” the whole album is only like 34 minutes or something. So we actually wanted to not feel completely beholden to the original recordings and wanted to be a little more flexible on the tour itself. So we’re playing them a bit more sparsely and we’ve slightly adjusted some of the arrangements, made some songs longer, changed keys, slowed things down, but the important thing for me was that none of the songs start and people go, “What is this?” We wanted it to be recognizable as the original song, just not boxed in to the way we recorded them.

BLADE: Are you playing the album through sequentially? What else are you playing?

SARA: Yeah, we are playing it through start to finish which takes roughly about an hour. … Then we have an eight-song set that follows “The Con” and that is also about an hour. As we’ve gotten older, our songs have gotten a bit longer so we don’t have to play as many to fill that second hour.

BLADE: I’ve been to shows where the band plays a classic album straight through and seen the audience kind of zone out on deeper cuts. Is that happening or was that a concern?

SARA: No, it really didn’t concern me. It’s one of those albums that our fans constantly reference and talk about so while there are definitely songs that are more popular, I actually think some of those deep cuts that weren’t singles are the songs people are more excited to hear. We still play “Call it Off,” “Nineteen,” “Back in Your Head,” “Dark Come Soon.” Those are songs that have been in our set list for 10 years, so people hear them a lot. I think for us to go into the deeper cuts was actually what fans wanted. They were always asking us to play, like, “Are You Ten Years Ago,” and I’d be like, “I don’t know how to play that, we’re not gonna do that.” So to go back and learn some of those songs again, that’s actually been the most thrilling part of the evening and the reception has just been wonderful. In fact, after L.A. we had done four shows and we added a song to the set because it almost felt too short. And that’s a two-hour show, but we still thought we could do one more song and people would be happy.

BLADE: Last time we talked, Tegan told us you sometimes spent as much as 80 hours writing one song but she didn’t have the patience for that. Was she slightly exaggerating or is that true?

SARA: Sometimes certain compositions come together really quickly and that much time isn’t needed but there are other songs that yeah, I’ll spend like ridiculous amounts of time working on absolutely. Sometimes if you know you have something special you’re willing to invest a bunch of time into it. Or sometimes you’ll spend a bunch of time on it, send it out to everybody then you will get feedback and will go back to the drawing board and sort of dismantle it and put it back together again. I’m extremely methodical and I love to tinker and revise. I love sort of disappearing into those worlds when I’m recording. … I spend a lot of time programming, working on what I want the drums to sound like, what I want the bass to sound like so I’m not just sitting down with a guitar and spending 80 hours, I’m really looking at the song three dimensionally and creating something that will be like a blueprint once we’re in the studio.

BLADE: Some acts like the Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge, you look back and it’s kind of surprising they were out so early on. Do you feel they paved the way or is that kind of a trite, sentimental thing people say?

SARA: Oh yeah, I mean, absolutely like a hundred percent. You know, Melissa Etheridge, the Indigo Girls, k.d. lang, these artists were extremely brave and they were trailblazers. What’s interesting is that as a result there was almost like a gap generationally where, you know, while I totally respect and admire those artists, especially for what they did, in terms of, you know, laying down the ground work for the rest of us. But they were older so, I mean, my mom was listening to them. My mom loved Melissa Etheridge, she loved k.d. lang and I was a teenager listening to hip-hop and electronic music so I sort of missed the musical inspiration side of it because I was totally, you know, into what was relevant to me and my friends in high school. But in terms of the inspiration to live a life where you didn’t have to be in the closet or hide who you were, I think they are deeply important and what was difficult in the first 10 years or so of our career was that there didn’t seem to be those same type of artists anymore. I don’t know what exactly happened or what the reaction was about, but it felt like a lot of artists started being more closeted or felt, you know, they didn’t feel compelled to be out about their sexuality so it was a bit lonely and isolating for us. But now there’s this big wave of musicians coming out and starting their careers in their 20s and what’s inspiring about them is that they are very vocal and their identity and who they are as people is intrinsically linked with their music and they’re happy to talk about it and embrace it and challenge people who sort of push back against it and that inspires me.

BLADE: What’s the biggest difference that struck you being at the Academy Awards in person versus watching in on TV? (Tegan and Sara performed their song “Everything is Awesome” from “The Lego Movie” at the Academy Awards in 2015 when it was nominated for Best Original Song.)

SARA: It’s quite surreal and the space definitely looks smaller in person than on television. But just to know that everywhere your eyeballs go and rest it’s somebody crazily famous. But yeah, it was a really cool experience and I’m a Virgo, so I’m a very organized person and I love being in well-run organizations and man, the Academy Awards is just the top of the top. They have that thing dialed in so it was really inspiring to watch that whole thing come together in person. Very, very cool.

BLADE: You all have done a lot of cool things with merchandising and fan stuff and stuff for Record Store Day and so on. Who comes up with those ideas?

SARA: We have a really cool team of people we’ve been working with most of our career. Our art director has been with us since 2003 and, you know, we are always batting around ideas. We really see the band as a really creative and collaborative project and it’s not just for music. For us it’s really about making things that we love and that we care about and in a way if we were teenagers and we loved the band, these are things we would want. I loved the Smashing Pumpkins and when they would put out a box set or an unreleased song, I would be the first person in line at the store the day it came out and I think those are things, gestures to our audience, we know they desire a little more behind the scenes or a little more information and those are things they can tangibly interact with and we really enjoy making them as a group.

BLADE: Yeah, the Pumpkins were great with that stuff. Remember “The Aeroplane Flies High”?

SARA: Yes, that black and white box! I loved that.

BLADE: You’ve toured with a lot of huge acts like Katy Perry and Gaga. Are y’all like hanging out backstage some or do they tend to pretty much keep to themselves?

SARA: Well, with Katy Perry, we know her, so she’s extremely kind and affable. She just sort of wanders around and you see her all the time. She’s a really down-to-earth person so that tour felt very inclusive and we were friends with a lot of people on the crew, the dancers were super nice and everybody was very friendly so it was a really integrated experience as the support band. But there are definitely other tours where you’re sort of lower down on the food chain and I never take it personally. Every artist is different. We’ve toured with other artists who are extremely shy, extremely nervous people and they sort of avoid that type of social interaction and I completely respect that. But we’ve been really lucky. We’ve had a lot of really positive touring experiences. Katy Perry was amazing, the Killers were amazing. Our very first tour in 2000, we opened for Neil Young for a summer. We went out for two months and really learned how to tour and we really watched closely how his business ran and how he interacted with people and the way he treated his fans and that was really instrumental in how we run our business.

BLADE: Can you give us any hint of what your next album might be like or roughly when we might hear it?

SARA: The truth is I can’t. I have no clue. I feel really hyper focused on the work we’re doing philanthropically and we always have a lot of irons in the fire, projects we’re working on and right now musically, I would say it’s likely people won’t hear anything new from us for at least a year or two. I think we’re pretty busy working on other stuff and you gotta kinda wait for for the inspiration to hit you. I song write every day and I work on new music all the time but something tells me right now these other areas are crucial and we should focus there instead.

BLADE: What’s going on with the Tegan and Sara Foundation and why are you passionate about this work?

SARA: It’s focused on women and girls in the LGBTQ community. We’re specifically working on building solidarity with organizations and groups that center on women and girls and we’re right now mostly writing out grants to people we think are doing great work in the community but we’re also fundraising to develop some of our own programming with health care and social justice and economic inequities that queer women face in our community. For us, it sort of feels like a no brainer. Obviously being gay ourselves and having a strong female queer following all thse years, it just sort of feels like an area of philanthropy that really makes sense for us. We understand it, we’ve experienced it personally and we’ve had a lot of interaction with people in our community. We’ve been extremely fortunate that we’ve had a lot of success over the years and we’re looking forward to using that success and privilege and visibility to redistribute some of that wealth and power back to the community.

Tegan and Sara, gay news, Washington Blade

SARA of Tegan and Sara says Katy Perry and Neil Young have been some of her band’s favorite artists for which to open. (Photo by Lindsey Byrnes; courtesy Warner Bros. Records)

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Doug Spearman takes his chance

‘Noah’s Arc: The Movie’ debuted on Paramount+ last month

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(Photo courtesy of Paramount+)

There’s no question that when Patrik-Ian Polk’s series “Noah’s Arc” premiered on Logo 20 years ago, it was a groundbreaking creation. The story of a group of Black gay men and their wonderful friendship. The titular arc was that of the cute main character, Noah (Darryl Stephens), and his close-knit circle of friends, including Chance played by gay actor Doug Spearman. This compelling and loving fraternity may, in fact, be what brought viewers back repeatedly, including a 2008 movie, “Noah’s Arc: Jumping the Broom,” as well as the 2020 “Noah’s Arc” short, and now, a new full-length feature “Noah’s Arc: The Movie,” debuting on Paramount+ on June 20. In the movie, filled with equal measures of laughs and tears, Chance, who has faced a devastating loss, finds his dependable friends there, ready to support and comfort him at a moment’s notice. I had the pleasure of speaking with Spearman the morning of the streaming premiere of “Noah’s Arc: The Movie.”

WASHINGTON BLADE: Doug, since the early 2000s, when the “Noah’s Arc” series premiered on Logo, you have been playing the character of Chance, including in the latest installment, “Noah’s Arc: The Movie.” What was it about Chance that appealed to you as an actor?

SPEARMAN: When Patrik (-Ian Polk) called me to ask me to play him (Chance), I was at JFK airport in the baggage claim, waiting for a suitcase. He explained what the part was. The thing that stuck out to me was the fact that Chance was in a long-term relationship with another Black man. And, they had a child; they had a 4-year-old daughter named Kenya. I had never seen two Black gay men raise a child on TV before. I thought it was the most revolutionary thing I’d ever seen. I immediately thought I’ve got to do this because that was something nobody had seen. I thought it was incredibly important to take the part.

BLADE: “Noah’s Arc: The Movie” was, once again, written and directed by Patrik-Ian Polk, who you just mentioned, is the creator of the entire franchise. What’s the secret to your long-standing working relationship?

SPEARMAN: [Laughs] the whole team, all of us, are like a band of brothers. We fight like brothers, we come together like brothers, we hash things out, we talk, because we’re all very different from our characters. I think the challenge of playing these guys and then uplifting these men, playing a part, especially something written by Patrik, is like solving a math equation. There’s always a challenge that’s enjoyable for me as an actor: to try to find out what it is that Patrik wants, and then how do I do it.

BLADE: I think you do a very good job of it.

SPEARMAN: Thank you very much

BLADE: In the years between “Jumping the Broom” and the new full-length movie, many changes have occurred, and the story addresses some of them, including gay widowhood, which is something that the aging community is now confronting, as well as mental health issues. Please say a few words about how you approached those subjects in the new movie.

SPEARMAN: I had a lot of loss in my life, right before we started shooting. Two months before we started shooting the first series, my mother died. I was going through the grief process through that whole first season. Since then, I’ve lost a lot of people in my life. In fact, when we started shooting the second season, the second week we were shooting, my ex died of a heart attack. I was having to fold that into what I was doing with my life on the set and off the set. You’ve got to show up and you’ve got to do your work. The first two seasons of “Noah’s Arc” are always tinged with the memory of grief. So, when I had to deal with the death that Chance faces (in the new movie), which is a significant death in his life, it wasn’t that hard to reach back, especially the scene in the graveyard. It was something that I unfortunately could pull from personal experience.

BLADE: Shifting gears, the movie features delightful cast surprises, including Jasmine Guy and TS Madison. Did you have a chance to interact with either or both when they were on set?

SPEARMAN: No, I didn’t have any scenes with Jasmine, and I missed her. I wish I had gotten to see her because I actually got to direct Jasmine for a CBS promo shoot for “Queen,” back in the early ‘90s. I had a huge crush on her when she was on “A Different World.” So, I really would have liked to reconnect. But TS and I got to see each other every day because I was in all her scenes. It was extraordinary being around somebody like that. That is one outspoken woman!

BLADE: Even though Beyoncé never makes an appearance in the movie, there’s a lot of talk about her. Would you say you are a Beyoncé fan?

SPEARMAN: Yes! I’m breathing! Yes, I’m a Beyoncé fan. I actually got the chance to meet her. I knew her mom. Her mom was extraordinary to me. She is in the second movie I directed. She also gave us a wedding gown to use in the very first scene of the movie. That family is extraordinarily important to me. Not only just to be a fan, but to be somebody who’s gotten to know them and work with them and see how hard they work. I don’t think anybody works as hard as Tina or Beyoncé.

BLADE: There was a recent news item about gay actor Benito Skinner of the Amazon Prime series “Overcompensating” being told not to bother auditioning for straight roles. As an out actor yourself, how important do you think it is for queer characters to be portrayed by queer actors, and vice versa?

SPEARMAN: Being queer is a multifaceted identity. There’s no one kind of queer person. I think finding the best actor that’s your first circle of casting. I think one of the joys about being an actor is that you get to play different parts. I play straight guys all the time. Dads and husbands and things like that. I think a lot of people are told not to do it. In fact, I wouldn’t be Chance if the actor who was originally cast as Chance hadn’t been pulled out of the series by his agents because they didn’t want him to play a gay character.

BLADE: That’s amazing! Thank you for sharing that. Without giving away too much, the ending of the movie is a little ambiguous, even ending with a question mark. If there was a “Noah’s Arc: The Movie” sequel, would you come back for that?

SPEARMAN: Yeah! A lot of it would depend on what Chance’s journey is going to be like. Patrik and I have conversations like that all the time. He’s very interested and supportive of input. I hope I would be, as we all would be, part of the creative growth with these characters. They live in Patrik’s head, and he writes them, but we’re the ones who have to flesh them out. It’s a conversation, it’s always a conversation.

BLADE: You are currently performing in Molière’s “The Imaginary Invalid” as part of the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane. What has this experience been like for you?

SPEARMAN: It’s extraordinary! I started on stage when I was seven. There’s nothing like working with a live audience and having that immediacy. I’m working with an extraordinarily talented cast in a really great play, and I have some of the best scene partners I could ever want.

BLADE: Are there any upcoming film or TV projects you’d like to mention?

SPEARMAN: I’m still a writer, and I’m still a director, and I’ve still got scripts that I would like to make. I have a little something that’s a cross between “Treme” and “Bridgerton” that I want to do. I’m always trying to figure out what the next thing is.

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Visit Cambridge, a ‘beautiful secret’ on Maryland’s Eastern Shore

New organization promotes town’s welcoming vibe, LGBTQ inclusion

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Cambridge, Md., is home to quaint shops, restaurants, and Victorian homes on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. (Photo courtesy James Lumalcuri)

CAMBRIDGE, Md. — Driving through this scenic, historic town on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, you’ll be charmed by streets lined with unique shops, restaurants, and beautifully restored Victorian homes. You’ll also be struck by the number of LGBTQ Pride flags flying throughout the town.

The flags are a reassuring signal that everyone is welcome here, despite the town’s location in ruby red Dorchester County, which voted for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris by a lopsided margin. But don’t let that deter you from visiting. A new organization, Proudly Cambridge, is holding its debut Pride event this weekend, touting the town’s welcoming, inclusive culture.

“We stumbled on a beautiful secret and we wanted to help get the word out,” said James Lumalcuri of the effort to create Proudly Cambridge.

The organization celebrates diversity, enhances public spaces, and seeks to uplift all that Cambridge has to share, according to its mission statement, under the tagline “You Belong Here.”

The group has so far held informal movie nights and a picnic and garden party; the launch party is June 28 at the Cambridge Yacht Club, which will feature a Pride celebration and tea dance. The event’s 75 tickets sold out quickly and proceeds benefit DoCo Pride.

“Tickets went faster than we imagined and we’re bummed we can’t welcome everyone who wanted to come,” Lumalcuri said, adding that organizers plan to make “Cheers on the Choptank” an annual event with added capacity next year.

One of the group’s first projects was to distribute free Pride flags to anyone who requested one and the result is a visually striking display of a large number of flags flying all over town. Up next: Proudly Cambridge plans to roll out a program offering affirming businesses rainbow crab stickers to show their inclusiveness and LGBTQ support. The group also wants to engage with potential visitors and homebuyers.

“We want to spread the word outside of Cambridge — in D.C. and Baltimore — who don’t know about Cambridge,” Lumalcuri said. “We want them to come and know we are a safe haven. You can exist here and feel comfortable and supported by neighbors in a way that we didn’t anticipate when we moved here.”

James Lumalcuri and Lou Cardenas sailing in Cambridge, Md. The couple bought a second home there and are spreading the word about the town’s pro-LGBTQ culture. (Photo courtesy the couple)

Lumalcuri, 53, a federal government employee, and his husband, Lou Cardenas, 62, a Realtor, purchased a Victorian house in Cambridge in 2021 and embarked on an extensive renovation. The couple also owns a home in Adams Morgan in D.C.

“We saw the opportunity here and wanted to share it with others,” Cardenas said. “There’s lots of housing inventory in the $300-400,000 range … we’re not here to gentrify people out of town because a lot of these homes are just empty and need to be fixed up and we’re happy to be a part of that.”

Lumalcuri was talking with friends one Sunday last year at the gazebo (affectionately known as the “gayzebo” by locals) at the Yacht Club and the idea for Proudly Cambridge was born. The founding board members are Lumalcuri, Corey van Vlymen, Brian Orjuela, Lauren Mross, and Caleb Holland. The group is currently working toward forming a 501(c)3.

“We need visibility and support for those who need it,” Mross said. “We started making lists of what we wanted to do and the five of us ran with it. We started meeting weekly and solidified what we wanted to do.”

Mross, 50, a brand strategist and web designer, moved to Cambridge from Atlanta with her wife three years ago. They knew they wanted to be near the water and farther north and began researching their options when they discovered Cambridge.

“I had not heard of Cambridge but the location seemed perfect,” she said. “I pointed on a map and said this is where we’re going to move.”

The couple packed up, bought a camper trailer and parked it in different campsites but kept coming back to Cambridge. 

“I didn’t know how right it was until we moved here,” she said. “It’s the most welcoming place … there’s an energy vortex here – how did so many cool, progressive people end up in one place?” 

Corey van Vlymen and his husband live in D.C. and were looking for a second home. They considered Lost River, W.Va., but decided they preferred to be on the water.

“We looked at a map on both sides of the bay and came to Cambridge on a Saturday and bought a house that day,” said van Vlymen, 39, a senior scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton. They’ve owned in Cambridge for two years.

They were drawn to Cambridge due to its location on the water, the affordable housing inventory, and its proximity to D.C.; it’s about an hour and 20 minutes away.

Now, through the work of Proudly Cambridge, they hope to highlight the town’s many attributes to residents and visitors alike.

“Something we all agree on is there’s a perception problem for Cambridge and a lack of awareness,” van Vlymen said. “If you tell someone you’re going to Cambridge, chances are they think, ‘England or Massachusetts?’”

He cited the affordability and the opportunity to save older, historic homes as a big draw for buyers.

“It’s all about celebrating all the things that make Cambridge great,” Mross added. “Our monthly social events are joyful and celebratory.” A recent game night drew about 70 people.

She noted that the goal is not to gentrify the town and push longtime residents out, but to uplift all the people who are already there while welcoming new visitors and future residents. 

They also noted that Proudly Cambridge does not seek to supplant existing Pride-focused organizations. Dorchester County Pride organizes countywide Pride events and Delmarva Pride was held in nearby Easton two weeks ago.

“We celebrate all diversity but are gay powered and gay led,” Mross noted.  

To learn more about Proudly Cambridge, visit the group on Facebook and Instagram.

What to see and do

Cambridge, located 13 miles up the Choptank River from the Chesapeake Bay, has a population of roughly 15,000. It was settled in 1684 and named for the English university town in 1686. It is home to the Harriet Tubman Museum, mural, and monument. Its proximity to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge makes it a popular stop for birders, drawn to more than 27,000 acres of marshland dubbed “the Everglades of the north.”

The refuge is walkable, bikeable, and driveable, making it an accessible attraction for all. There are kayaking and biking tours through Blackwater Adventures (blackwateradventuresmd.com).

Back in town, take a stroll along the water and through historic downtown and admire the architecture. Take in the striking Harriet Tubman mural (424 Race St.). Shop in the many local boutiques, and don’t miss the gay-owned Shorelife Home and Gifts (421 Race St.), filled with stylish coastal décor items. 

Stop for breakfast or lunch at Black Water Bakery (429 Race St.), which offers a full compliment of coffee drinks along with a build-your-own mimosa bar and a full menu of creative cocktails.

The Cambridge Yacht Club (1 Mill St.) is always bustling but you need to be a member to get in. Snapper’s on the water is temporarily closed for renovations. RaR Brewing (rarbrewing.com) is popular for craft beers served in an 80-year-old former pool hall and bowling alley. The menu offers burgers, wings, and other bar fare.

For dinner or wine, don’t miss the fantastic Vintage 414 (414 Race St.), which offers lunch, dinner, wine tasting events, specialty foods, and a large selection of wines. The homemade cheddar crackers, inventive flatbreads, and creative desserts (citrus olive oil cake, carrot cake trifle) were a hit on a recent visit.

Also nearby is Ava’s (305 High St.), a regional chain offering outstanding Italian dishes, pizzas, and more.  

For something off the beaten path, visit Emily’s Produce (22143 Church Creek Rd.) for its nursery, produce, and prepared meals.

“Ten minutes into the sticks there’s a place called Emily’s Produce, where you can pay $5 and walk through a field and pick sunflowers, blueberries, you can feed the goats … and they have great food,” van Vlymen said.

As for accommodations, there’s the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay (100 Heron Blvd. at Route 50), a resort complex with golf course, spa, and marina. Otherwise, check out Airbnb and VRBO for short-term rentals closer to downtown.

Its proximity to D.C. and Baltimore makes Cambridge an ideal weekend getaway. The large LGBTQ population is welcoming and they are happy to talk up their town and show you around. 

“There’s a closeness among the neighbors that I wasn’t feeling in D.C.,” Lumalcuri said. “We look after each other.”

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James Baldwin bio shows how much of his life is revealed in his work

‘A Love Story’ is first major book on acclaimed author’s life in 30 years

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(Book cover image courtesy of FSG)

‘Baldwin: A Love Story’
By Nicholas Boggs
c.2025, FSG
$35/704 pages

“Baldwin: A Love Story” is a sympathetic biography, the first major one in 30 years, of acclaimed Black gay writer James Baldwin. Drawing on Baldwin’s fiction, essays, and letters, Nicolas Boggs, a white writer who rediscovered and co-edited a new edition of a long-lost Baldwin book, explores Baldwin’s life and work through focusing on his lovers, mentors, and inspirations.

The book begins with a quick look at Baldwin’s childhood in Harlem, and his difficult relationship with his religious, angry stepfather. Baldwin’s experience with Orilla Miller, a white teacher who encouraged the boy’s writing and took him to plays and movies, even against his father’s wishes, helped shape his life and tempered his feelings toward white people. When Baldwin later joined a church and became a child preacher, though, he felt conflicted between academic success and religious demands, even denouncing Miller at one point. In a fascinating late essay, Baldwin also described his teenage sexual relationship with a mobster, who showed him off in public.

Baldwin’s romantic life was complicated, as he preferred men who were not outwardly gay. Indeed, many would marry women and have children while also involved with Baldwin. Still, they would often remain friends and enabled Baldwin’s work. Lucien Happersberger, who met Baldwin while both were living in Paris, sent him to a Swiss village, where he wrote his first novel, “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” as well as an essay, “Stranger in the Village,” about the oddness of being the first Black person many villagers had ever seen. Baldwin met Turkish actor Engin Cezzar in New York at the Actors’ Studio; Baldwin later spent time in Istanbul with Cezzar and his wife, finishing “Another Country” and directing a controversial play about Turkish prisoners that depicted sexuality and gender. 

Baldwin collaborated with French artist Yoran Cazac on a children’s book, which later vanished. Boggs writes of his excitement about coming across this book while a student at Yale and how he later interviewed Cazac and his wife while also republishing the book. Baldwin also had many tumultuous sexual relationships with young men whom he tried to mentor and shape, most of which led to drama and despair.

The book carefully examines Baldwin’s development as a writer. “Go Tell It on the Mountain” draws heavily on his early life, giving subtle signs of the main character John’s sexuality, while “Giovanni’s Room” bravely and openly shows a homosexual relationship, highly controversial at the time. “If Beale Street Could Talk” features a woman as its main character and narrator, the first time Baldwin wrote fully through a woman’s perspective. His essays feel deeply personal, even if they do not reveal everything; Lucian is the unnamed visiting friend in one who the police briefly detained along with Baldwin. He found New York too distracting to write, spending his time there with friends and family or on business. He was close friends with modernist painter Beauford Delaney, also gay, who helped Baldwin see that a Black man could thrive as an artist. Delaney would later move to France, staying near Baldwin’s home.

An epilogue has Boggs writing about encountering Baldwin’s work as one of the few white students in a majority-Black school. It helpfully reminds us that Baldwin connects to all who feel different, no matter their race, sexuality, gender, or class. A well-written, easy-flowing biography, with many excerpts from Baldwin’s writing, it shows how much of his life is revealed in his work. Let’s hope it encourages reading the work, either again or for the first time.

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