GLR January-February 2025

ESSAY

A Novel from a Darkening Time R ONALD V ALDISERRI

I N THE WORDS of the English author G. K. Chester ton: “A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” This adage comes to mind after reading Lew Levenson’s novel, Butterfly Man . The book was first published by the Macaulay Company in 1934 and reprinted by Cas tle Books in the 1950s. While details about Levenson’s busy life remain a little sketchy, he left a trail of credits as a writer that include a stint in Hollywood as a screenwriter for the early talkies (1933–34) and a much longer career as a journalist. Although he con tributed articles to a number of mainstream publications such as McCall’s , The New York Times , and The Nation , he was a committed communist who became a baseball reporter for The Daily Worker under the byline Charles Dexter. Butterfly Man would seem to be his only published novel. Despite the paucity of personal information about the author, the novel makes it clear that Levenson must have been entirely familiar with the gay demimonde that it depicts. Given its age and copyright status, curious readers can find the novel in the public domain and make their own assessment urban America. When the novel begins, the protagonist is sev enteen years old and newly graduated from high school. The story ends in 1930, when he’s 26. This timeframe roughly co incides with the so-called “Pansy Craze” era. Butterfly Man opens up an LGBT time capsule with its descriptions of after hours gay clubs, drag balls, and a diverse array of gay charac ters. But the novel’s primary focus is on the circumstances encountered by its central character, Kenneth Gracey, a naïve boy from a small town in Texas who has a gift for dancing. § A LTHOUGH K EN DOES ACHIEVE a short-lived success on Broad way, his career—and his life—ultimately succumb to alco holism and self-loathing. But more about that later. To begin at the beginning: Soon after graduating from high school, Ken leaves Selma, Texas, in the care of a “mysterious” oil million aire to whom his father is in financial debt. The older man, Mr. Lowell, tells Ken that “You shall give me youth—I shall give Ronald Valdiserri, MD, is a professor of epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. of its quality. But there is little doubt that most literati would regard Butterfly Man a mediocre novel at best, and few would dis agree with an unreferenced review in the Galustian catalogue characterizing the book as “anti-faggot trash.” While lacking literary gravitas, Levenson’s novel does provide a closeup look at the gay underworld of 1920s

you wisdom” as they travel to Star Ridge, the name of Lowell’s villa in Malibu. Like many of the players who inhabit the novel, Lowell’s character lacks subtlety; readers are hit with repeated hints about the older man’s predatory sexual nature—a chicken hawk par excellence. Predictably, Mr. Lowell gets Ken drunk one night, and this leads to a sexual encounter. Indeed Ken gets so drunk that later he isn’t sure if the event really happened or if it was all just a dream. Later on in the novel, we’re told that Ken’s face becomes a “study in hatred” when he recalls “the obscure memory of an unforgettable night at Malibu.” Prior to this encounter with Mr. Lowell, readers have only a vague indication of Ken’s sexual orientation. Recalling a boozy high school hayride during which he was fondled by a sixteen-year-old girl—“She did that curious thing. He felt the cleverness of it, the perfected rhythm, the knowing pulse”— we’re told that the episode made Ken “a little ill,” as when “smelling sulphur” or “tasting cold fried mush.” When he’s taken to a Hollywood Boulevard bar by his dance instructor (lessons paid for courtesy of Mr. Lowell), an incredulous Ken slowly realizes that the male patrons are gay, though as a youth in Texas “he had never conceived the possible existence of such coteries.” Afterwards, Ken teams up with Anita Rogers, an older, been around-the-block vaudevillian whom he meets at dance school. The two form a dance act, performing first in a third rate theater in San Bernardino and then, after Anita fails to ap pear for an evening performance at a legitimate venue in San Francisco, in a “gaudy and noisy” dance hall cum pick-up joint in Tijuana, Mexico. Initially grateful to Anita for encouraging and honing his dancing skills, Ken later grows to hate her be cause of her drunkenness and her repeated sexual advances. Eventually, Ken leaves Mexico and makes his way to Man hattan, where he lands a role in a new musical called “Sweeter than Sweet.” Now recognized as a gifted dancer, he begins a relationship of sorts with the show’s producer and director, Howard Vee. Details about Ken’s sexual activities are largely withheld, implied rather than described. Readers are meant to understand that once Ken finally accepts his true feelings for Howard (“I can drop all the sham—you’ll let me be myself, won’t you?”), physical intimacy follows. This is confirmed in a subsequent chapter, again via allusion, when Ken reflects that “nothing could make him forget the perfection of the last two weeks.” After his visit to the gay bar and his be lated realization of Lowell’s interest in him, Ken determines to leave Malibu, and in lan guage worthy of any penny dreadful: “The horrible old man was spidery. He sat in verted in the midst of this, his web, and lured innocent boys into his gaping maw.”

Bu tt erflyMan makes it clear that Levenson must have been en ti rely familiar with the gay demimonde that it depicts.

TheG & LR

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