cover image Broken Fever

Broken Fever

James Morrison. St. Martin's Press, $23.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-312-26129-0

""I do not remember a time in my life when I was not gay,"" writes Morrison in this elegantly crafted exploration of growing up homosexual and Catholic. His delicate, extended examination of difference--in the classroom, on the playground, in his family and even as a reader--should make this nuanced memoir resonate with a wide audience. Morrison deftly portrays how a child's furtive imagination can both create and expunge the daily trauma of difference: whether that difference means having to leave public school early for catechism classes, experiencing terrifying self-consciousness in the boy's gym locker room or worrying that God would not accept a coin dropped into a collection basket during Mass. While the memoir never becomes overtly sexual--a teenage wrestling match with a schoolmate and a close encounter with a fellow drama student are as close as it comes to an explicit scene--it is infused with sexual tension, desire and loss. Morrison is fearlessly overt and at times archaic with his literary allusions. At one point, he meditates on a short chapter from the novel Bambi, making reference to its translation into English by HUAC witness Whittaker Chambers and tying it together with thoughts about death and repressed male eroticism. Written in a poetic style that's reminiscent of the autobiographical writings of Mark Doty (Firebird) and Bernard Cooper (Guess What?), Morrison's memoir has a freshness and rich depth that set it apart. (Mar.)