GLR September-October 2025

bizarre need to ape men in all their clumsy, wasteful, unobser vant ease.” Vivian is clearly the central character, with her story beginning and ending the novel, though Oscar and Squire oc cupy key roles in the structure and action, Part Two introduces several new subplots and secondary characters. Among them are Squire’s widowed mother Mrs. Clancey, the firm’s business manager Elias Knox, and Rebecca Van Beek, a painter and widow who ultimately marries Elias. Electra Blake Stevens, Vivian’s early lover from Part One, also emerges to temporary prominence. These colorful presences, with their own dramas and concerns, generally provide humor ous additions to the story and, in Electra’s case, deepen the plot considerably. Several key scenes are presented hilariously. One involves the unlikely business alliance between Oscar and Squire, forged when they are secretly pushed by Vivian into a walrus tank at the New York Aquarium. During an awkward gathering in Squire’s apartment immediately after this episode, Wolfgang

Smith describes the aftermath of a disagreement about the fra grance of a bouquet in the room as follows: “And then, the in evitable orchestration: all three noses pressed to the blooms.” In a similar vein, the narrator observes of the ordering ritual at an exclusive French restaurant Squire and Oscar frequent: “Squire had a ridiculous bit of eyebrow choreography that ac companied this particular order, each time.” These droll depic tions hint that in the end the comedic perspective of the narrator prevails, propelling the story forward at a fast pace and in de lightful directions. While Wolfgang-Smith touches upon serious themes, and the novel’s conclusion is both resolved and open-ended, sug gesting thematic and generic complexity, direct addresses to the reader and countless asides deepen insights and inject disarm ing commentary about the characters’ motivations and the sometimes serendipitous outcomes that ensue. Mutual Interest is a novel of manners at its finest, an ideal antidote to our diffi cult times.

Martin Sherman on Bent and Its Relevance ARTIST’S PROFILE

Tim Miller: Your memoir is such a total de light, Martin. It seems you were everywhere and worked with everyone, from being at the MLK March on Washington, to Woodstock, to Stonewall, to working with the Bee Gees, Rosalind Russell, Mama Cass Elliott, and Ian McKellen in the premiere production of Bent . You even grew up a few blocks from Walt Whitman’s tomb in Camden, New Jersey! You so beautifully conjure yourself as a Zelig,

but virtually tripped backwards into it and did n’t at the time feel that I should be there; I felt like an imposter. Years later, looking back, I thought: okay, good for you, but I had to grow into that. During those periods of anonymity, it did allow me to interact with icons like the Bee Gees, Martin Scorsese, Cass Elliot, and the glorious Rosalind Russell, and often in hi larious ways. In retrospective, I’m bemused. How did I get there? TM: On the Boardwalk is so intensely frank and fiercely unflinching around family, self image, and the body. You wrote so intimately about your mother’s battle with Huntington’s disease and how this hung over your own feeling of mortality for decades. It strikes me as a major heart pulse in your memoir. How did the family history of Huntington’s change your life and your work as a playwright? MS: My family’s history meant I was always existing under a subconscious cloud. I thought I possibly had a gruesome fate in store for me. In an old-fashioned movie, the madcap heroine under a cloud would try to live life to the fullest, thinking every minute might be her last. That’s not exactly how it was with me. Actually, I don’t know how it was. The book is trying to figure it out. It’s all lying there somewhere at the back of your brain. Also, I was caught between my mother’s Huntington’s and my father’s nar cissistic complex. God, this book sounds dreary! I promise you it’s not. Remember, it’s a bit rich to write about someone’s narcissism when you are writing a memoir, which is in itself a narcissistic act. I was worried about inheriting my mother’s diseases, but maybe it’s my father’s I got.

T IM M ILLER L the first time (at age 21) to see playwright Martin Sherman’s world-changing play Bent . My Jewish boyfriend Peter’s aunt took us to the New Apollo Theater in 1980 to see Richard Gere in Bent as it uncovered the hid den history of the Nazi genocide against gay people and both the oppressive and liberatory meaning of the pink triangle. In a fierce play about love, politics, and shameless queer sex uality, Sherman deepened and opened up the sense of what was possible to me as a young queer artist. Indeed, Bent prepared us for the challenges of the AIDS crisis only a little over a year away, and that same pink triangle re claimed in Bent would soon become the sym bol of AIDS activism with ACT UP. In his memoir On the Boardwalk (Inkan descent), Sherman invites us with incredible humor, frankness, and insight into his journey through the first forty years of his life, includ ing four years in Boston as an undergraduate at Boston University, culminating in the West End and Broadway premieres of Bent in1979. As Ian McKellen, who starred in the first pro duction in London, writes in his moving fore word to Sherman’s memoir: “His play Bent has educated our world about prej udice and cruelty, and given us one of our most imposing declarations for human rights in dramatic literature.” I caught up with Martin Sherman in June to talk about his wonderful new memoir and the power of theater. IKE MANY OF US of a certain age, my life as a young gay man was trans formed when I went to Broadway for

someone who manages to shape-shift and show up everywhere. Did that archetype help you tell your story? Martin Sherman: I sometimes had a startling life and was present at events in ways that ex ceeded my station. I stumbled on Stonewall (and had no idea that it was a life-changing event). I went on the March on Washington along with thousands of other people, but only pure fluke led me to actually stand on the plat form. I was anonymous but fortunate. I was sometimes in “the room where it happens,”

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