5:20am
My day started with a simple question from my wife. "What time are you planning on leaving?"

"5:00."

"You better get up then."

I jump out of bed skip the shower, get dressed an head out the door. Stopping only because I forgot my Chris Cannon Breakfast pass.

6:00am (or there about)
Meet up with several people from the Chaffetz campaign who are there to put signs up. By this late time, most of it was done, so I did a lot of standing around. Until they finally opened the doors to let people into the halls.

I placed a couple of signs, but not really much. Eventually, I met up with a few campaign volunteers and I helped to put up a few large triangles to create a larger presence. It was good to see so many people involved and excited about the campaign.

7:00am
I was really starting to get bored at this point. It didn't seem like there was much going on, so I decided to take my t-shirts and start waiting in credentials line. My first impression was the poor kids who were handing out bags to the delegates for David Leavitt. No one seemed interested in their bags.

I myself didn't even bother to get one. Perhaps I should have had pitty on them, but I really didn't care to carry the bag around, and I didn't care for the "stuff" that was in the bag.

7:30am
Despite the fact that the credentials were supposed to be open at 7:00, the line didn't start moving until around 7:30. Once I got to the front of the line I realized that I (and a few of the men in front of me) was in the wrong line. Fortunately, the lady guarding the wall between the two areas had pitty on us, and let us in.

I quicking picked up my credentials and I almost walked out without my ballot, because the men checking me in forgot to give it to me. They caught their mistake before I got to far, and I received a ballot before leaving.

7:45am
Picked up a few more t-shirts and a few flyers to help hand out at the door. Most people were pretty receptive to receiving the information, but a few were rather rude. But so be it, I was happy to put up with a little crap to help support Chaffetz.

I really didn't like one of the flyers. Some of the statements seemed risky. But it appears that they were well substantiated (or verifiable). But it was an interesting statement about where David Leavitt stands on immigration. And if immigration is an important issue to a delegate, this could help them to make their decision.

9:00am
It's starting to get cold, and I am getting hungry, because I haven't taken advantage of the Cannon pass. However, the Huntsman booth was within sight of were I was, and the appeared to have some good stuff. So, I handed my flyers to some fellow volunteers, and I went to have some breakfast.

At breakfast, I had some good conversation with some fellow delegates on various candidates, and it was fun to talk to them. I also stopped and talked to Kent Winder from my old Stake to see how things were there. He didn't remember me, but he did recognize me. That's okay, because I really didn't have that much interaction with the Winder Family while I lived in the Stake they lived in.

9:30am
Went inside, because I needed to warm up. I manned some of the booths and helped hand out more t-shirts, button, and flyers about Chaffetz. It was great to see the group of delegates huddled around Chaffetz, asking him questions and learning what he stood for. You could see that there was a genuine interest in what Chaffetz was saying. Whether that interest translated into votes was soon to be shown.

This time was also the first that I heard about the possibility of Chaffetz to garner 60% in the convention. That struck me as a little ambitious, but I was hopeful to see it happen. Because based on past primaries, Chaffetz will have a tough time against Cannon.

10:00am
Found a seat in the Salt Lake County Section of the floor. I found a few Chaffetz supports to sit with, but I didn't know any of them, but they were friendly enough to sit with.

Eventually, they got to the point that I was eager to get too. We separated into our separate districts to hear from the candidates and to start casting ballots.

Stone Fonua was interesting. I can sum up his talk with one word. "Peacemaker." Ummm... Interesting talk, and not very inspiring. Seven minutes felt like a half hour.

Joe "NPC" Ferguson (can someone tell me what NPC means) was at least better to listen to. But frankly, you could tell the he was a one issue candidate, who didn't offer much in the name of a well-rounded candidate.

David Leavitt started with a syrupy video about dreams, values, family, and hope. Then he gave his "I am a Statesman" talk. That made one wonder if they had accidentally arrived at a Barrack Obama campaign. If one were to vote strictly on emotions, then they would have to vote for Leavitt. He really did a lot of work to pull at heart strings. But as usually there didn't seem to be a whole lot of substance to his talk. Just like all of the balloons that he dropped from the ceiling. Trust me the balloon drop was very anti-climatic.

Jason Chaffetz hit several balls out of the proverbial park. He started out very strong. His talk was by far the most issues based talk. He covered all of the bases (to continue to baseball metaphor): illegal immigration, fiscal responsibility, our national security and more. The audience was clapping and generally showing a lot of support for Chaffetz. The energy level went from a hum to an all out party during Chaffetz's speech.

Chris Cannon was better than Leavitt, but he couldn't compete with Chaffetz. Like Leavitt, Cannon started out with a video, but it wasn't sugary sweet. It was mostly filled with endorsements from various individuals included President Bush, Senator Hatch, and others. When Cannon spoke from the pulpit, he addressed a few issues, and did an okay job.

Round One Voting (Sorry, but I really started to lose track of time, but this was around 12:00pm)
I headed up the stares to cast my first ballot. It was obviously cast for Chaffetz, and I was great to place a ballot for someone I can honestly support.

The interesting thing about the voting was that after I had dropped by ballot in the box (I was little shocked to see that we are still using dangling chads), I walk directly passed Chris Cannon. He was talking to some reporter; I really wasn't paying attention to who. He stopped his conversation with the report, and turned to me and said, "When Chaffetz is out, I hope that I can get your vote."

Not grasping the full extent of what he said and being a little taken a back by any comment from Cannon, I stupidly replied, "We will have to see." I wish that I could have said something more along the lines of. "It won't come to that." Or better yet, "I hope that when you get out of the voting, that you will vote for Chaffetz." But it's too late now.

The wait for round 1 results, was bearable. There were several other candidates and issues to study up on and look over. However, it was starting to get hard to sit and wait. Especially after they announce the results:

It was exciting that not only did "my" candidate win the first round. He had a whopping 43% of the vote. The rumors that I heard about 60% were starting to look more realistic.

Round Two Voting
After hearing from candidate for the other offices, and make some informed (and some not-well informed) decisions. I cast my ballot again for Jason Chaffetz, and for the other varied candidates who I thought would do a the best job.

I was forced to walk by the concession stands, but I didn't give into temptation. I eventually went through the hall that didn't have the balloting booths, and there I found Chris Cannon dishing out Pizza. Thanks for the slice. It was good, and still very hot.

After the slice, I went over by the Chaffetz booth (which was close to one of the Leavitt booths, and I couldn't help but notice the face of dejection in the volunteers for Leavitt. I even saw Leavitt himself, and he too was cast down. He was trying to hold his head up, but you could just see that he couldn't believe the results.

I also took this down time to look up so old friends. I knew that KH was going to be there, so I asked several people if they knew her, but to no avail. Then I looked up at just the right time and found her. So, I made my way across the section of chairs, and we had a fun little how have you been chat.

I also saw some people who lived in my ward while growing up (then lived in my stake a few years back). So I took a moment to say hi to CP, LP, and DP. I couldn't help but notice that they were wearing David Leavitt t-shirts, so I boldly asked them to vote for Chaffetz, if Leavitt didn't survive round two. LP agreed that she absolutely would. Because she was completely against Cannon.

The wait to hear the results of round two seemed twice as long as for round one. But I gather that it really wasn't that bad. Just sitting through the debates about party constitution and bylaws was boring.

Fortunately, the monotony was broken by the violation of floor rules from Leavitt or Cannon or both. As has been well published on the Internet. Approx. 100 teenage volunteers from the Leavitt campaign came out onto the floor carrying Cannon signs. They were reminded of the rules, and then escorted politely off of the floor. In my opinion, it was a gross display of Leavitt's lack of statesmanship.

I was willing to give Cannon the benefit of the doubt and assume he had nothing to do with it. But that benefit was quickly removed when I saw Cannon and Leavitt walk onto the floor side-by-side shaking hands and I am assuming encouraging people to vote for Cannon. It was then that I was sure Cannon had shot himself in the foot, and I knew that Chaffetz had 60% of the vote.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, they announced the results of the the second round of voting:

Her question: “Carnal Sacraments could be marketed as a queer book, or as Science Fiction (SF). The cover makes it pretty clear that the publishers intend to market it as a queer book; there's hardly any hint that the contents are very much in the speculative realm. What are your thoughts on that? Do you have any plans to reach out to a more general SF reading audience? Do you think queer SF is its own subcategory, or are books that are both destined to be called one or the other? How do you draw from the queer tradition and from the SF tradition?"

I was a little lost about this “queer tradition” of books reference, considering that up to 1960 the U.S. Post Office could stop any book espousing homosexuality in the mails on the basis of “obscenity.” So if it was queer, you couldn’t mail it; ergo, was the “queer tradition” to be stopped at the P.O.?

But I answered:

“Carnal Sacraments is a literary novel, not an SF novel. What drives it is basic human impulse and conflict, not the hardware and software that drives, too often, SF. The 'marketing' of the book was to get people interested in it, which a hot cover does. I don’t think of myself as an SF author, but a storyteller who uses some science fiction elements—mostly because I like the richness of them: the idea of imagining inaccessible places and times, a concept which goes back to The Arabian Nights.”

I knew I was in bad shape with Ms. Fox from the very onset of that interview, but had no inkling that her 550-word review would spend 20% of its ink “reviewing” the cover.

“The cover of this paperback,” she begins, “is mostly occupied by a photograph of a buff, shirtless man staring coolly at the camera as he eases down his unzipped jeans. Next to his head are the words “a historical novel of the future.” The juxtaposition of gay lust and science fiction is not an entirely comfortable one, which neatly sets the tone for the story. Mr. Shirtless is presumably meant to represent Jeffrey Cooper, an American septuagenarian living in a near-future Germany. As long as he retains his ability to package and sell just about any thing, the network of conglomerates known as ‘the system’ finds him useful enough to provide him with anti-aging treatments. Driven to the brink of breakdown by job stress, Jeffrey struggles to hide his anxiety from his colleagues and system-mandated therapist; he knows any sign of weakness will see him culled from the herd.”

How she got the idea that the cover model, “Mr. Shirtless,” is Jeffrey Cooper is anyone’s guess. There are other male characters in the book the cover model might have represented, or he might have simply been put there to entice people to buy the book (an idea I’m sure has never happened before in publishing). It didn’t take me very long to see that Ms. Fox was simply prejudiced against the book by the cover; she did not like it and it offended her idea of the kind of moral “purity” good Science Fiction books should have. In other words, getting her to review my book was like having a woman from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union review a guide to bartending.

This brought to mind what has perhaps become one of the most celebrated examples in publishing of a book both epitomized and overshadowed by its cover: the notorious Bantam mass-market paperback edition of James Purdy’s Eustace Chisholm and the Works, from 1968—it’s almost impossible to find this book on the Web now but it must be out there. Bantam got a young gorgeous Italian ragazzo with, in some opinions, the world’s most beautiful ass, to pose exposing all of his rear end in profile-view to the camera. The book sold half a million copies, and put Purdy’s name on the popular map. As far as anyone could see, the model “represented” no one in the book, but just made a lot of people very happy, and did alert the “normal” bookbuyer that he/she was in a for a hot time in the Old Town tonight, just from the cover of the book.

In her wrap-up (of Carnal), Fox goes on to say:

“Jeffrey’s story is emphatically a gay narrative and also emphatically science fiction of the Huxley and Orwell school. As on the cover, the two look for ways to coexist, but they don't always find them.”

Again she judges the book by its cover, and she ends up hacking the book to pieces in a way that’s so clumsy it’s hard for me to quote it here (please go to the Lambda Literary Foundation to find the review). The real shock of this story was that I had never a book so harshly judged, so reviewed by its cover. I always thought reviewers were sophisticated enough to know (certainly book buyers are) that the basic role of a cover is 1) to entice people to buy the book, and 2), of course, get past the various censors who will stop the book if the cover is too suggestive (the Post Office; customs agents in certain parts of Canada, Iran, or Saudi Arabia; book buyers at Walmart). But I never had the cover reviewed, and felt very bad about that until I learned of David Leavitt’s recent review in the New York Times Sunday Book Section of John Rechy’s memoir About My Life and the Kept Woman.

In his review of the book, Leavitt doesn’t just review the cover of the Rechy’s book, but reviews Rechy’s “cover” as well: the photos of himself that Rechy has placed on his website, that show him as a hunky, well-muscled young man and hustler. Leavitt stays fixated on the “beefcake” aspect of these earlier, and often famous shots of Rechy, and says he associates these kind of photos [with] “different kinds of websites,” i.e. porn. Leavitt laments that there is not one “typical author photo” on the site, again, a desire to maintain that squeaky-clean, Gap-khaki image so beloved now by younger queer men and the older late-bloomer generation (Leavitt’s) who love them.

“Leaning in classic muscle queen posture against an invisible wall,” he complains. It’s the very opposite of a typical author photo.” Later he goes into a diatribe against Rechy that reminded me of Fox’s barbs about Mr. Shirtless on my book cover: “Literary ineptitude is as much a part of Rechy’s persona as the oiled chest and the jeans unbuttoned to the top.”

Perhaps Rose Fox and David Leavitt are one person, railing against the enticements of those unzipped jeans, those shirtless models and authors, those reasons why the unwashed masses still buy books thought too worthless by the Fox y Leavitts.

(Leavitt also jumped, too early, on the grave of Oscar Wilde Bookstore in New York, when the tiny venerable old bookstore was about to go under, and Leavitt said in another NY Times piece that he was sick of having his books stuck in queer bookstores, instead of the mainstream where they deserved to be; Oscar Wilde got a reprieve. It’s still open, and probably still sells David Leavitt books to the “beefcake” types who shop there.)

All of this has made me wonder, now that we live in an age when almost every image is available and can be instantly zipped back and forth through time and space, what do covers and author photos actually mean? Do they mean this book is meant to entice and seduce us, or brands us as being “queer,” and therefore, without any qualities of depth or meaning? (As in Rose Fox’s strange dichotomy between queer books and Science Fiction books—as if one group of qualities and ideas can’t possibly bleed on to another.) And when people are “caught” having undesirable images in their possession, such as “porn” on their hard drives, does it mean the images themselves are evidence of “unspeakable acts,” or is it that the images simply speak for what they are: enticements for us to think on our own?

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Perry Brass’s newest book Carnal Sacraments, A Historical Novel of the Future has just been named a finalist in gay and lesbian fiction for ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award. He can be reached through www.perrybrass.com. His website does not take PayPal payments.

In the Writer's World appears the last Thursday of every month. More about Perry Brass

Leading the naysayers ten years ago was Leon Edel, who wrote a five-volume biography of James for which he won a Pulitzer in 1963, and who said of Novick's work: "[Novick] attempts to turn certain of his fancies into fact--but his data is simply too vague for him to get away with it." Though we can be encouraged that Edel is now dead, we are somewhat disappointed to learn that -- and here we quote from David Leavitt's excellent review of the book in today's Times -- "[r]ather than directly stating that James had sex with any of the young men for whom he developed such passionate feelings, Novick relies on euphemisms to get his point across. Indeed, he inundates the reader with euphemisms. On Jonathan Sturges: 'Their long visit in Torquay marked a new intimacy in their relations, ... an intimacy that presaged regular visits and long stays in James’s house.' On Arthur Benson: 'It was the first of many overnight visits and marked a new stage of intimacy in their relations.' On Hendrik Andersen: 'Visit would follow visit, and Andersen would be a most intimate friend.'"

Leavitt titles his book review "A Beast in the Jungle" after one of James' short stories, which -- in case you haven't read it (and we highly recommend you do) -- presents an agonizing description of a man possessed by (unspecified, at least to the reader) desires that cannot be expressed; in short, it is (at least as we read it) a definitive treatment on the angst of the "closet-case," which resonates as much today as when (or so we imagine) it was written 100 years ago.

What this means about James -- as Leavitt points out -- is anybody's guess; but for the record, knowing that James was a famous literary figure who spent a lot of time in the company of similarly inclined queens (and the photographs are quite convincing on this point), we think the matter is barely worthy of debate, given that 1) men having sex with men -- however you label it -- is a historical certainty in the same way it is a geographical one today (even in Iran); and 2) James' writing seethes with a mature, sophisticated sensuality and heartbroken wit that speaks of having lived thousands of lives and having died an equal number of deaths, which begs the question of why -- unless you're somehow against sex -- would you ever want to imagine him otherwise?

Henry James and "friend" Hendrik Andersen in Rome, 1907.

(Photograph modified from “Henry James: The Mature Master.)

The novel covers Ramanujan's stay in England without going much into the hidden genesis of his talent in India. We get the interior life of Hardy; The Indian Clerk is told chiefly from Hardy's view, and concerns Hardy as much as his nominal subject, who is to me as enigmatic at the end of the novel as the start. In part this is because Hardy is neither interpersonally nor emotionally perspicacious, English/Indian cultural barriers are never fully surmounted, and, in a clever twist on unlike people forced together, mathematician culture emphasizes the quality and quantity of work above other considerations. As told through the fictional Hardy, the culture of mathematicians encourages the necessary but, it is implied, false belief that social culture matters not at all. The epigraph acknowledges the issue: "Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. 'Immorality' may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean." But the story of Ramanujan and Hardy fascinates enough to drive a wonderful novel more for the unprecedented circumstances surrounding their collaboration than for purely technical achievements. To be sure, the former cannot exist without the latter, but it is the latter that most inspires.

Explaining technical and other issues is part of what Hardy, like any scientist or mathematician, must do. Much of the novel concerns the difficulty of relationships and expression, and statements like this early one are common: "Hardy tried to put his position in a language O.B. would understand." Or, a few pages later, "For [Hardy], goodness was indefinable, yet also fundamental, the only soil in which a theory of ethics could take root. And where did goodness lie? In love and beauty." Math is what he most often perceives as beautiful, as when he says, "I cannot tell you what pleasure I continue to take, even today, in the beauty of this proof; in the brief yet extraordinary journey it represents, from a seemingly reasonable proposition (that there is a greatest prime) to the inevitable yet utterly unexpected conclusion that the proposition is false." These passages also demonstrate the myriad of math metaphors explaining the ideas of the characters; it's a worthy method too infrequently used in novels, and Cryptonomicon's similar usage made it far more successful.

Still, math is only an aid to understanding the world and not understanding itself. The racism of Hardy's colleagues against Ramanujan reminds us of prejudices among those in technical fields. It's facile but true to lament that more people aren't judged by ability or knowledge rather than appearance, but while I couldn't help perceiving that idea, Leavitt is far too deft a writer to make banal if true statements in the fashion of Harper Lee. Hardy attacks the discrimination problem like a technical one, and successfully, even when similar approaches fail in other domains. Being a homosexual, Hardy faces problems like Ramanjuan's, as homosexuals long have in Western society. This makes another parallel is laid between him and Ramanujan. Hardy's outsider status, both in terms of financial upbringing and sexuality, helps explain his willingness to overlook Ramanujan's native country and at his math.

The puzzle comes together from multiple sources: Hardy as a younger man, Hardy as an old man, and occasionally from minor characters. This structure suits a novel with historical figures and uncertainty; anyone who wishes to know the end of Hardy or Ramanujan can easily do so just by typing either's name in a search engine. Leavitt uses a dual structure, with a present-tense timeline beginning in 1913 and a later, past-tense timeline in which Hardy is giving a mostly imaginary lecture at Harvard in 1936. Thus, he incorporates both the rush of events happening as well as the melancholy of things remembered. The things remembered include Britain before the devastation from World War I and Ramanujan before the mystery illness that took his life. The hints of what will happen never go beyond foreshadowing, giving the narrative fresh urgency instead of muted elegy.

The Indian Clerk has tremendous depth that I've only accounted for in small part because it is bigger than many critically esteemed works, and I suspect that many critics will try in vain to plumb its depths for a long time to come. Whole sections involving important characters have been left out. The Indian Clerk provides much pleasure and imparts much wisdom, even if too many subplots in the latter half sometimes flatten the effects. But I do not hesitate to call it the best novel published this year, and it is the kind of book that should narrow the artificial, academic rift between science and art. Commentary on both subjects and many others fill it without impeding the action, and one of the larger subjects is uncertainty, as at the end of part three when Hardy says, "One wonders what would have happened had the war not broken out. many wonder this, for all sorts of reasons. There is of course no answer." It must be a painful thing for a mathematician to exist, especially in an era before or near the time of Godel's Incompleteness Theorum. Just as it appears that mathematical discoveries will go on forever, so too will attempts to understand great art, of which math is a subset. The Indian Clerk concerns itself with the inability to know what others think and what causes history's lunatic journey, and that uncertainty, about racism, about the relationship of abstract math to life, about life itself, will keep me interested in The Indian Clerk for a long time.