Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 175: Young, Black and Gay (1968)

Is this Ed Wood's most incendiary novel?

Nowadays, we would probably demand that the author of a book called Young, Black and Gay be at least two of those adjectives. But I guess authenticity wasn't as important back in 1968, when Edward D. Wood, Jr. penned a novel with that bold title for a company called P.E.C., which published it as part of its French Line imprint with the catalog number FL-38.

I'd say the author of this novel was zero for three. At 44, Ed Wood wasn't terribly young when he wrote Young, Black and Gay. He was decidedly not Black either. As for being gay, while Eddie's sexuality was labyrinthine to say the least, I would never be comfortable calling him strictly homosexual. If you've read A Fuller Life (2008), the autobiography of Eddie's live-in lover and leading lady Dolores Fuller,  you'll know just what I mean. In that book, Dolores is quite candid in describing her intense physical relationship with Ed. 

Was Ed Wood qualified to write this?

So maybe Ed wasn't the most qualified author for Young, Black and Gay (hereafter YB&G), but he must have taken some pride in his work since this is one of the novels he wrote under his own name. It comes from what I'd call the most productive era of Ed Wood's life: 1968 to 1972. (If you want to expand that from 1967 to 1973, I wouldn't argue.) Simply put, Eddie was writing like a madman during these years, churning out books, articles, and film scripts at a pace that is superhuman. And yet, most of this material (including YB&G) is highly indicative of Eddie's signature style. Hurried though he was, Ed Wood usually found time to work his own obsessions, kinks, and quirks into what he wrote.

I suppose we could categorize this novel as one of Ed Wood's "Black" books and file it alongside Black Myth (1971, written under the pseudonym Dick Trent), Toni: Black Tigress (1969), and the two Rocky Alley novels, Watts... The Difference (1966) and Watts... After (1967). And indeed, YB&G has much in common with them, stylistically and thematically, even referencing the Watts riots. But what this novel really reminded me of was Ed's 1967 book Drag Trade, his rambling treatise on transvestism and crime. If you took one of the (manufactured) case studies from that book and expanded it to novel-length, you'd get YB&G.

What we have here is the turbulent, violence-plagued story of Charles Sttanze (yes, that's how his last name is spelled for some reason), a young Black man who grows up in abject Southern poverty in a world that seems little changed from the days of antebellum slavery. He and his family pick cotton and live together in a foul-smelling, barely-furnished shack. Charles learns about the facts of life very early, since his parents unashamedly make love in front of their children. His sisters go naked at home on hot days, so he's well-acquainted with female anatomy.

Charles' life takes a turn when, as a teenager, he meets a field worker named Clyde. Initially rivals, Charles and Clyde are thrown into confinement together after getting into a fistfight and soon embark upon an intense homosexual relationship. Under Clyde's tutelage, Charles develops a female alter ego named Charlene. (Compare this to the case of Charles/Charlotte in Drag Trade.) Eventually, our protagonist identifies as female and uses the name Charlene exclusively. And here, Ed Wood does something subtly revolutionary. After a few chapters, he consistently refers to his main character as Charlene and switches the character's pronouns from he/him to she/her. And this is in 1968!

But let's not go overboard praising Ed Wood for his progressive politics. Charles/Charlene is a largely negative character, and there is little doubt that YB&G is tainted by Wood's own deeply-ingrained racism. Once he escapes from his family, the work-averse Charles embarks upon a life of petty crime and spends much of his time in jail.  He begins a relationship with a white cellmate named Bobert, and when Bobert is killed by another white prisoner, Rance (one of Ed's favorite character names), our hero switches allegiances without too much hesitation. His only real complaint is that Rance is a quickie artist (another major sin in the Wood-iverse).

Once on the outside and living completely as a woman, Charlene reunites with Rance, and together, they form a sort of interracial, transgender Bonnie-and-Clyde-type duo, robbing liquor stores and killing whenever they need to. Ultimately, they arrive in Los Angeles and plan a big-time caper that will finally bring in some real money. But this job will require bringing in a third party, possibly jeopardizing the special chemistry between Charlene and Rance. It doesn't help that the experienced crook that Rance recruits, Moe, is a crude, ill-tempered, mean-spirited brute who immediately antagonizes Charlene.

Saks on Wilshire: Charlene's happy place.

Meanwhile, Charlene starts frequenting a Black gay bar called the Joint Affair and meets a mysterious man named Jeff, who represents a Black Power group known only as "the organization." This is the same name Ed Wood gave to a very similar group in Toni: Black Tigress, and his views on the subject of Black Power are identical in both novels. Charlene seems to have no particular political ideas but is drawn to Jeff because she likes the way he talks. Like all Black organizers in Ed Wood novels, Jeff is selfish and untrustworthy, but our protagonist barely seems to notice his flaws. In the latter stages of the book, Charlene bounces back and forth between Rance and Jeff until YB&G reaches its violent apotheosis.

If Wood depicts his Black characters like Charlene and Jeff negatively, does that mean the novel's white characters are the true heroes? Nope. All through the novel, Charlene is plagued by racist vigilantes, many of them members of the Ku Klux Klan, and Wood depicts these characters as violent, cruel, and hateful. Arguably, the book's most shocking passage comes when the KKK kidnaps and tortures a fairly benign Black character, a genial ex-con turned flophouse owner. They even nail the man's testicles to a tree trunk. Fearing reprisal, Charlene does nothing to help. So it's safe to say that YB&G depicts a world without heroes. The best one can do here is survive.

Like Rocky Alley in the Watts books, Charles does wonder why Blacks are so stigmatized in society. After witnessing the Klan attack, he ponders the issue at some length:

Long ago his aged grandmother had told him white was for purity and good. After that he couldn’t help but wonder if that meant black was vile and bad. The few times, after leaving the plantation that he had seen a cowboy movie on some store window television set, he’d always found the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats.

But these thoughts do not occupy Charles' mind for long. After all, there are crimes to commit and money to be made. The character seems to have no moral compass whatsoever.

Earlier, I mentioned Ed Wood's personal obsessions and stylistic quirks. They're all over YB&G, even though this novel is one of his more disciplined long-form works. This book is not laden with Eddie's trademark ellipses, and it lacks the dreamy, free-associative quality of some of Ed's weirdest and most extreme writing. For the most part, he avoids the lengthy flashbacks and philosophical asides that often clutter up (or enhance) his fiction. Who knows? Eddie may have been semi-sober when he spent a day or two typing this book. He tends to stick to the main storyline and keep the plot moving forward.

And yet, all of Eddie's main motifs are present here, including his four principal muses: sex, death, booze, and women's clothing. There is no angora in YB&G, sadly, but there are plenty of sweaters and nightgowns, and seemingly everything Charlene wears is described in excruciating detail. It's treated as a major event when she's finally able to buy an outfit at Saks Fifth Avenue on Wilshire Blvd. And there's plenty of alcohol consumption here, too. In particular, Charlene develops a taste for gin before Jeff angrily informs her, "Gin is a n----r drink!" Not coincidentally, this same exact issue arises in the Watts novels. Ed Wood definitely had some thoughts on the racial implications of drinking gin.

By the way, if you're wondering whether Ed Wood uses the n-word in YB&G, please be aware that this infamous racial slur appears (by my count) 43 times in the text. Four of those are in the very first paragraph, so Ed Wood was clearly looking to shock readers with his use of extremely harsh language. One wonders who the intended audience for this book was. Gay people? Black people? Or straight white men looking for something exotic? Try as I might, I can't imagine anyone finding this book remotely erotic, even though the frequent gay sex scenes are written with Ed's usual passion.

Today, even though it bears the man's own name on the cover, Young, Black and Gay is among the least-known of Ed Wood's novels. As I read it (twice!), I found myself asking if the book could ever find a larger audience if it were reissued today. Frankly, I have grave doubts. The novel's crossdressing angle will make it interesting to fans of Ed's film Glen or Glenda (1953), and Woodologists will find numerous parallels between the two works. But the ugly racism of the book makes it a tough sell to modern readers, especially those outside the cult of diehard Wood fans. It seems destined to remain an obscurity among obscurities.