Book Review: “Blackouts” by Justin Torres
A Slang Vocabulary
If you don’t know this by now, Justin Torres’ novel Blackouts won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction. (Book awards don’t get too much bigger than that.) It also has a special place on Wikipedia: an entire page/entry dedicated to it. It is a novel that “tickles the brain,” as I’m wont to say lately. It’s historical fiction, but part of it is actual history. How much of it is true and how much of it is fiction is open-ended. Using the 1941 medical guide Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns as a jumping-off point, it tells the story of a man named Juan Gay who is nearing death and living in a kind of institution or hospice. An unnamed younger man who met Juan briefly when he was hospitalized in a mental institution as a teenager visits Juan’s bedside to learn more about Jan Gay (née Helen Reitman), whose case studies in New York City and Europe during the 1920s and ’30s formed the basis of the Sex Variants book. The novel oscillates between the narrator’s (nicknamed Nene) conversations with Juan and excerpts from Sex Variants that the author partially redacts. As a bonus, there’s a 32-page zine of homosexual slang illustrated with found photos and paintings appended to Blackouts — which is informative for how much homosexual slang has percolated into pop culture: ga-ga (as in Lady?) and mamas and papas (as in the musical group?) were gay slang at one point.
As I read Blackouts, I felt like I was watching a play. Since much of the narration is monologues and shared conversations, the text has a performative aspect. I could imagine a Christopher Plummer-like figure in the role of Juan, and perhaps the narrator would have his back turned to the audience. I also found the redacted pages of the Sex Variants study to read as poetry. And, of course, the added photographs and illustrations usually have faces scratched out, rendering the text and accompanying pictures almost anonymous. There’s so much going on here that having a bead on it or writing about it is hard. This is one of those innovative novels that are best experienced for oneself. To that end, I would implore you to go out and seek out this book. For the straight audience, it may open one’s eyes to just how much history about the queer community has been either forgotten about or dismissed as deviant. In addition, the main characters’ conversations turn into discussions about their past personal histories as if it were a film. Thus, one’s personal history as a gay man is something that is removed from oneself — as though the protagonist were watching the past unspool in thought detached from one’s viewpoint.
The novel also works as a collage (which is not an original thought; at least one other writer has pointed this out) in the same way that the musician Beck makes sonic pastiches out of genre. It’s bits and pieces that the reader must tease out and put together on their own. To me, though, this novel transcends the boundaries of what is a queer relationship. Unless I was sleeping, I didn’t quite catch if Juan and “Nene” were lovers in the past, but I imagined them as friends as Juan relates his past — very good, close friends. Thus, imagining how “Nene” seemingly knows this man fleetingly is hard. Reading Blackouts is like watching two close buddies catching up on the years behind them. It’s as delicious as eating scones and sipping tea as one reads on. You can see why this novel won a prestigious book award. If I may continue with the food metaphors, reading the book is a little like eating at a buffet. It has a little of everything to keep readers engaged and interested.
Overall, I found Blackouts to be a triumphant, important book. The way it tries to humanize relationships between the sexes, even as it is being dissected and condemned by the medical establishment of the World War II years, is striking. I know it’s a cliché in my writing, but there’s a lot on offer here to think about, and — another cliché — might be worth revisiting at some point in the future to see if this momentous work still stands up. Still, those who have yet to hear of this work should run out and get a copy of it — even if you’re not queer (and, perhaps, especially if you’re not queer). This treatise on longing and love transcends all gender boundaries and sexual preferences. It’s elegant and playful simultaneously — the endnotes wind up being a part of the narrative in a bold move. If you like thoughtful and sterling fiction, you must find Blackouts and add it to your life. It’s worth more than a cursory look; this is a treasure.
Justin Torres’ Blackouts was published by Picador on October 8, 2024.
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