Hello and Greetings!
This may seem to be a message from the past, but not really.
The Gay History project for gay writers is perhaps the only venue
that would be appropriate for greetings from Barton Lewis,
since that writer only existed in the framework of the early 1980s
and the name was actually invented by the publisher of his books.
But the individual involved is still kicking and enjoying the side trip
to the past that this project affords. I can describe briefly how things
worked then, and then you can get on to enjoying (hopefully) the
product of those days for this writer.
Most of my time in those days was occupied with professional work,
some of which involved traveling long distances and many hours by
air, and it was common to pick up gay paperback novels to read while
~30,000 feet in the air. Repeatedly my reaction to most of those novels
was, "I can do better than that," but it was not until about 1980 that
I decided to use some unexpected leisure time to explore the possibilities.
As had many writers before me, I found Greenleaf Classics publisher
in San Diego as an outlet for my creativity. Perhaps the clue to Greenleaf
was from Richard Amory's famous "Song of the Loon," which is still a
masterpiece on its own platform, although my interest was in the much
more explicit. Greenleaf assigned me the pseudonym of Barton Lewis
and was helpful enough to send me an outline of attributes they wanted
to see in gay men's books; I haven't been able to find it now, but I
remember much of it: the cardinal rule was that at least 50% of the book
by page count (and believe me, they counted them!) must be sexual,
and that meant some sort of penetration. Masturbation didn't really
count. The first page was required to involve the full scene, which
almost always meant that some of the first chapter had to be handled
as a flashback in order for there to be a story for the first page to fit
into.
Another thing: there should be no women in the plot; mothers were
possibly OK as long as they stayed in the background and were only
sketched in as characters. And finally, no humor, please. They thought
that laughing or chuckling did not mix with one-handed reading. I
managed to avoid being caught in that trap by using double meanings
here and there which perhaps the editors did not spot or understand.
I don't think there was much in the way of editorial review after I
established my acceptable talent in the first few novels. My luck ended
when they refused to accept a bisexual novel (after all, that included
women); I decided to look elsewhere, and my tenure with Greenleaf
came to an end. It was not very long after that experience that Greenleaf
closed its doors, and I lost track of them. Another contributing element
to my
discontinuation of writing those books was the onset of AIDS in 1983-4,
and uncertainty (for a while) about ways of handling fiction that, if imitated,
might lead to infection. That turned off my fiction spigot for a while.
I understand that many of the contributing writers to the Greenleaf stable
resented the cavalier attitude of Greenleaf toward their writing skills,
at least in retrospect. It is certainly true that copyrights were fudged
or
ignored at times, and since every work (I believe) was handled as
Work For Hire (the work was bought outright by Greenleaf and the author
was largely publicly ignored), that was never the case with me. I knew
exactly where I stood and really didn't care because it was only an
enjoyable hobby with me anyway. I learned a lot from writing those books,
but not due to any effort by Greenleaf editors, that's for sure. And I
never
heard from a reader, pleased or irate; that was a mildly unpleasant side
effect of the situation.
The only pain I have felt in relation to this project is the need to
disassemble
the rare remaining books in order to scan the yellowed pages. That
produced a little sentimental pang of regret but probably more for the
"good old days" than for the actual book. By the way, even the titles were
supplied by the publisher; only a few of my titles were used, I think.
After 20 to 25 years, if those pages (now e-pages) may bring enjoyment
to people not familiar with that kind of writing, that brings a smile.
Enjoy, Barton Lewis
©Copyright 2005