a way of love

A Way of Love by James Courage (Jonathan Cape, 1959)

I bought this book on Ebay, the result of a “gay interest” search.  A Way of Love is a modest and conventional novel with a daringly bold agenda: to render the love affair of two men with objectivity and sensitivity, and as a result show that homosexual love is not so very different from heterosexual.  It succeeds admirably in doing this.  Our first-person narrator is Bruce, a middle-aged man living alone in London.  Although he comes from rural and humble origins, he is a successful architect and a wealthy man.  He’s had a series of relationships with other men and “boys”, and is friends with a coterie of men of his kind, whose camp behavior sometimes offends him —  he holds himself above the gay world, but visits it when the need arises.  At a concert he meets a younger man named Philip who is at that time dating a woman named Bronwen.  Later they meet again, and Philip reluctantly and hesitantly begins a relationship with Bruce which flowers fully and quickly.  Philip moves into Bruce’s home and they live happily together (although in separate bedrooms) for a couple of years, until Philip decides  he doesn’t want the life of a homosexual, and leaves Bruce to marry.  Bruce is devastated by the loss and is urged by a writer acquaintance to write a history of his relationship with Philip, illustrating its normalcy.  Bruce complies and writes the text we are reading.                                                                     

The two men are sympathetic and vividly depicted, as are several other characters: Rose, Bruce’s daily housekeeper; Louise, his distant but affectionate sister; and several of Bruce’s friends and clients and old lovers, who all offer glimpses into other lives, other choices and bargains made.  This is a calm, unsentimental and honest book, unapologetic and elegantly composed.  A pleasure to read.  (The photograph above is  of the American edition, published by Putnam in 1959.)