Relaxing with over three dozen gay romance novels this year, I’ve discovered that even in the world of beach literature, stark realities seep through
I may not be the “hopeful romantic” Joan Wilder is, but after watching the Hindi series The Railway Men, about rail workers risking both their careers and their lives to save victims of the Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, or reading books on the climate crisis such as We’re Doomed. Now What? I sometimes crave a bit of light reading. Relaxing with over three dozen gay romance novels this year, I’ve discovered that even in the world of beach literature, stark realities seep through. Again and again, no matter where in the world these stories are set, the cost of housing is so problematic that the only way protagonists can afford to survive is by inheriting wealth or receiving an insurance payout.
Sure, a few of the protagonists, despite growing up poor, are determined “to succeed” and somehow, through sheer grit, manage to become financially successful. Suspending disbelief, we accept the magic of grit as if it’s a viable solution to exploitation and income inequality. We take the author’s word that this is a realistic story, not fantasy fiction.
But even in these novels celebrating the miracle of soulmates, enduring love, and happily ever afters, most authors are forced to introduce literature’s latest deus ex machina—stable housing.
The authors I’ve read this year were both male and female, white and black, gay and straight (and possibly other variations). They were of different ages and nationalities. But despite the diversity, another consistent theme was the failure of capitalism as an economic system. Stories set in the 1950s and 1960s talked of McCarthyism, Marxism, and Communism. Protagonists came from socialist homes. Stories set in the present mentioned labor struggles.
Most authors went out of their way to show sensitivity to gender issues, sexual orientation, race, autism, PTSD, depression, and various other “differences” for which people suffer discrimination. Many characters even made statements such as, “Last night I looked online and discovered…” so that the authors could clumsily reveal their research.
But the anti-capitalist themes felt more organic. There seemed no attempt to be delicate or politically correct. The attitudes felt natural and unavoidable, like discussing record heat or rising fascism in U.S. politics. Not interpretations. “Just the facts.”
Here’s a snippet from a workplace conversation in the charming 10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall, set in the UK:
Tiff looks at me with more disappointment than you should be allowed to direct at somebody who’s nearly ten years older than you and also your boss. “This is exactly what is wrong with late-stage capitalism.”
“Y’know,” I say, “you’re very Marxist for a trainee hairdresser.”
“Hair and beauty consultant,” she corrects me, “and isn’t the whole point of Marxism that it’s a philosophy for ordinary working people?”
Later, as the main character, Sam, argues with his boss, Jonathan, over profit and the exploitation of workers, we get this exchange:
“It sounds like you’re saying you want me to treat the staff like crap.”
“I want you to prioritise targets.”
“I do prioritise targets,” I tell him. “I just don’t prioritise them over people.”
The expression on his face makes me want to shove a lot more than a pencil up a lot more than his nose. It’s the expression you get when your new puppy shits on the floor and you can’t be angry at it because you know it can’t help itself. “People don’t pay your salary. I do.”
It’s really tempting to point out he’s just said he isn’t a person. But I’m supposed to be saving my job, not scuppering it. “Well, I don’t want to teach my granny to suck eggs, but the people run the shop. The shop makes the money, and the money is how you pay me. So in a way they do.”
The novel is a comic romance, yet this battle over exploitation and capitalism is the main conflict throughout the story. And frankly, it rings true to the conversations I regularly hear in my own workplace.
From Marshall Thornton’s Sentenced to Christmas, another comic romance, we get a main character whose father has been on the run from authorities for decades because of his “radical” activity in the 1960s and 70s. The premise gives us a defendant who’s ordered to spend the holidays with a prosecuting attorney so he can learn the true meaning of Christmas:
“Judge Winthrop probably wants to hear something along the lines of Christianity being the best religion in the world, Jesus is White, Santa is too, the war on Christmas is real, throw in a dash of American exceptionalism, veiled racism, greed is good and God Bless America the most Christian country in the world.”
The story is a cross between The Importance of Being Earnest and La Cage aux Folles, a farce, and yet it’s set firmly in the real world of capitalism as religious dogma because nothing could be more ridiculous than seeing abuse as divine.
M.A. Wardell’s Mistletoe & Mishigas is set in Portland, Maine, where housing isn’t typically as expensive as in many other parts of the country. Yet the main character, Sheldon, and his sister, Naomi, must share an apartment. “We can barely make our rent some months between our two paltry salaries.” He’s a schoolteacher and she’s a nurse, but their combined income is still not enough to make ends meet.
Even minor characters in these novels bring out the recurring issues. In Bryan T. Clark’s Hawthorne Manor, the protagonist asks his boyfriend about another couple he’s just met.
In the parking lot, Tucker and Dancer got into a black Porsche 911. He watched as Dancer dropped into the driver’s seat of the sports car.
“What does Dancer do for a living?” Elliot eyed the beautiful car.
“He works a lot with the homeless. His mother died. She was a famous author and left him everything. You know those yellow-and-green mobile shower trailers you see all around the city that the homeless use to shower and wash their clothes in? That’s all him. Dancer financed the whole project.”
At the end, one of the protagonists inherits $1,000,000 from the man he’s been working for. The other protagonist inherits $28,000,000. They then purchase the man’s home, located in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. Their former employer has also left money to support homeless shelters across the city and to construct and run an LGBTQ senior living facility.
We get miracles because increasing numbers of authors and readers understand that under late-stage capitalism, there’s no realistic way to solve these problems.
In Cat Sebastian’s We Could Be So Good, one of the main characters, Andy, inherits his job as owner and editor of a major New York newspaper in the late 1950s. Despite the privilege, Andy and his father are “progressive” and come from a family of Marxists. And despite the time period, when “affordable” housing was more accessible than it is today, the author still has Andy inherit property. The protagonist also receives a large payout from his mother’s life insurance. When he and Nick face an uncertain future after being targeted by the police because of their homosexuality, Andy resolves the problem by purchasing the four-story apartment building Nick lives in. You know, the way everyday gay couples avoid the risk of eviction.
That said, it’s one of the best gay romance novels of the year. Even the best authors are forced on some level to deal with the reality of unaffordable housing. After all, while the book is set in 1958, fans are reading it today.
In The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, set in England during the Napoleonic wars, author K.J. Charles has one protagonist, a poor clerk in London, inherit a country manor from his estranged father. Sir Gareth falls for a biracial smuggler, Josiah, who helps him see the world through a different lens.
He’d met plenty of radicals in London—men who wanted wealth redistributed, laws changed, the government made representative. Joss Doomsday, fervent patriot of a hundred square miles of marshland, was perhaps the most radical man he’d ever met.
Anachronistic or not, the same themes permeate this story as well.
With Bernie Sanders running for president twice, with the failure of corporations to address the climate crisis, with COVID forcing us to see universal healthcare as a basic human right, with the increasing number of labor strikes, with the unhoused population exploding in the U.S., with all the other political and economic crises compounding every struggle, there’s been a sea change in public consciousness regarding capitalism.
Even in Muscle Cub: A Bear Camp Novel by Slade James, set during a sex party weekend in rural Georgia, the formerly taboo word “socialism” pops up in casual conversation.
“You like to think there’s a sense of community the minute you set foot on the property, but after a whole weekend of partying together, it was a moment of, like…spontaneous democracy. Socialism, maybe?”
Several of the stories, including In the Gray by Christina Lee and Deep Dish by Lori Witt, went so far as to feature unhoused protagonists. Those who didn’t inherit wealth or rise to financial success through “hard work” simply ended up on the streets. And yet still found romance because these were, after all, romance novels.
Most of today’s older generation was raised to believe socialism was evil and Satanic, but younger Americans have a far more positive view. And the failures of capitalism have become so apparent that folks of all ages are rethinking our attitudes toward labor and economic equality.
If we don’t feel up to taking a class on the subject or attending a rally, we can still get an introduction into our new shared consciousness by picking up some light reading. The Art of Husbandry by Jay Hogan is a great place to start, where we can fantasize about inheriting several hundred acres of land in the Southern Alps of New Zealand and leaving the madness of urban housing prices behind.
As long as we don’t lose the farm.
