GLR May-June 2024

in/ the thick of a shoot, or like he’s owed it,/ or even like a man. Is this what you want ?” The child in “Requiem” evokes the special relationship between a gay boy and his fa ther: “I’d see his/ Buick parked outside the apartment/ of the woman he left me for.” As a poet, Arriola-Headley displays a stunning breadth of form and talent. T REBOR H EALEY MORE THAN THESE BONES by Bebe Backhouse Magabala Books. 235 pages, $28. Bebe Backhouse is a gay Australian poet who has family ties in Aboriginal culture, not a common combination. The first part of this substantial collection might be called “Fifty Ways to Love Your Leaver,” with apologies to Paul Simon. It focuses, rather repetitively, on the ending of a relationship that seems, from the content of the poems, to have had quite a number of flaws, such as unclear expectations and poor communica tion on the part of both parties. Later in the collection are poems that are more distinc tive, such as this tense, lovely offering, L’amour sans paroles : “the words I wrote/ have served their purpose/ yet/ it’s the words I didn’t write/ that continue to haunt me./ so/ i wonder then/ of the love you handed me/ if you gave enough to serve your purpose/ or are you haunted/ by what you kept?”

The latter part of the book also includes some moving poems about Backhouse los ing his mother, including one about the call on his birthday that, having always come, this year did not. This bowerbird-like col lection is also distinctive in that it contains not only poetry, but also drawings and pho tos that offer some extended context but are also free-standing art in themselves. J. D. McClatchy wrote that the difference between a novelist and a poet is that a nov elist wants to flood while a poet wants to distill. This debut collection by a unique and potentially valuable voice is more flood than distillation, but one has a sense that much of the material had built up over many years and has finally burst forth, clearing the way for a new vision. With luck this new poetic talent will bring us some fine distillations in the future. A LAN C ONTRERAS IN THE SPIDER’S ROOM: A Novel by Muhammad Abdelnabi Hoopoe / The American Univ. in Cairo Press 264 pages, $16.95 Recently, while on a trip to Egypt and look ing to find a work reflecting LGBT themes, I stumbled upon this compelling, fictionalized memoir. Walking one evening near Tahrir Square with a friend, the narrator, Hani, is arrested as he reaches out to take his friend’s

hand. Accused of being a known homosex ual, he is held for seven months, though his friend, who has better connections, is re leased almost immediately. Regularly beaten, grilled constantly about being gay, and held in appalling conditions, the episode so traumatizes Hani that he loses his ability to speak, perceiving spiders as agents of the government, among other delusions. As backstory, we learn of the narrator’s initiation into sex at a young age by a coworker; his eventual (and risky) cruising in Cairo; and—to keep up appearances within a Muslim society—a marriage, dur ing which he cheats on his spouse regularly. After some years and the birth of a child, he falls in love with Abdel Aziz, the husband of his wife’s cousin, a man he immediately realizes “I would pursue ... to the end of the world.” Despite both of them being married, the two men do indeed consummate the af fair. During his incarceration, Hani fanta sizes that Abdel will come like a white knight to rescue him. While waiting for this to happen, he begins to write of his experi ences, which form the novel itself . In the Spider’s Room is a substantial, well-written and affecting story of one gay man’s jour ney to self-discovery. It also provides a good window into the realities and conse quences of being gay in Egypt today. D ALE B OYER

May–June 2024

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