Let’s get this out of the way: Disorderly Men is an astonishingly good debut novel. But even this sentence doesn’t do it justice. Because the term “debut novel” implies something that is not quite complete—a good first try. Edward Cahill’s novel, though, arrives fully-formed: expertly crafted, painstakingly detailed—with characters who are three-dimensional, believable, even when they’re not entirely sympathetic. Simply put, this is a beautiful novel. And it also provides us with an important, largely unexplored chapter in Queer History.
Not since the publication of Edmund White’s The Beautiful Room is Empty has pre-Stonewall queer New York been so expertly rendered. But while Mr. White’s novel was first person—deeply personal, Mr. Cahill’s is third person—methodical. Disorderly Men tells us the stories of how several gay men’s lives are changed after a “routine” raid on a gay bar in the early nineteen-sixties.
Perhaps the most common mistake first novelists make is the insidious usage of cliches. It says something about the discipline of Mr. Cahill that he never says, for example, that this raid “ruined their lives”. Nor does he insert a mouthpiece character to tell us how it’s unfair and “someday queers will rise up…”. No, Mr. Cahill is up to something much more serious here. Namely, rendering the life stories of queers from a variety of social and economic stratas: a manager at Sloan’s grocery store, a professor at Columbia, a vice president at Chemical Bank, an aspiring artist. All of these individuals have something to lose. Whether it’s the dreaded tabloid newspaper list of the raid victims or the inevitable blackmailer lurking in the shadows, the future is bleak. But Mr. Cahill never lets the reader forget that it all begins with a police action that is at once unjust and shockingly violent.
“Unbuttoning his shirt, he saw the bruises on his right side, which had spread like a bouquet of roses against his pale skin. Then he slowly unzipped his pants and tugged on his briefs. His dick was normally a pink, sprightly thing, a little bigger than average. Now it was dappled in dark reds, blues, and browns and swollen in the middle like a sweet potato. He could almost see the mark of the hand that had done the damage, and when he cupped it in his palm, he felt sick and sorry the way you do when you look at a dead baby animal.”
For this Queer Reader, the most poignant part of this novel was the story of two queer men who dare to identify themselves as a couple. In this context their conspiracy of two seems almost impossible. And yet, their determination gives this novel gives a ray of hope in these dark times.
Needless to say, Queer Reader strongly recommends this magnificent debut novel.
Disorderly Men is published by Empire State Editions: An imprint of Fordham University Press.