I Am Not Raymond Wallace

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Delightfully chosen adjectives skilfully woven into a tale of hard choices in a difficult time, loss and being found. Witty, touching and hopeful, it’s an absorbing novel which ends with a sentence that brought tears to my eyes. Raymond Wallace, a recent graduate of Cambridge of age 21, arrives in NYC in the summer of 1963 for a 3-month internship with the NY Times. What continues for the rest of the 300 plus pages of this debut novel has got to be the most beautifully written account of a 21 year old mans 'Sexual Awakenings' as I have ever read.

He’s told to go undercover, tasked with providing Doty with salacious details for the piece, something which both unsettles and excites him as he wrestles with a sexuality which has been kept firmly buttoned up. The decision he makes will ricochet destructively through lives and decades until―in another time, another city; in Paris, 2003―Raymond’s son Joe finally meets Joey. year old Raymond Wallace is going to Cambridge University and is sent to New York for a 3 month internship at the New York Times, and he has no idea that he is gay. It tells important history of what it was like to be homosexual in the 1950s and 1960s - fear of losing job, being blackmailed, thought to be sick, etc, etc. I am not Raymond Wallace is a multi-stranded story of queer redemption spanning multiple generations, told with precision-tooled prose, sharply-imagined settings and compassionately-observed characterisation.He’s told to wait for Dolores, the editor’s secretary, who sizes him up before introducing him to Bukowski, her boss.

He soon discovers his elusive boss, Bukowski, is being covertly blackmailed by an estranged wife, and that he himself is to assist the straight-laced Doty on an article about the ‘explosion of overt homosexuality’ in the city. The story is highly evocative of Manhattan in 1963 at the start and written in a traditional novel style. Raymond cuts a sad figure, liberated by his three months in New York only to be pushed back into the closet by his conventional family who want him to replicate their lives. I Am not Raymond Wallace is a multi-stranded story of queer redemption spanning multiple generations, told with precision-tooled prose, sharply-imagined settings and compassionately-observed characterisation.

There has been a much-deserved revision of Stonewall and pre-Stonewall history in recent years, shifting focus from white men to people of color - and in particular, trans people of color - who bore the brunt of police violence and who played an outsized role in activist circles. I feel that if you enjoyed books like Lie with Me or Swimming in the Dark (two of my absolute favourite books) you'll also love this book.

Jetlagged and excited, Raymond makes his way to the newspaper’s office wearing one of his late father’s suits. There are some lovely major and minor characters - I particularly liked Dolores of the major characters and of the minor characters, Joshua (thrilled to be immortalised) and Sonia (70 but still sure of her sex appeal). Joey is the opposite, accepted by a father who doesn’t understand his son’s inclinations but adores him regardless, welcoming Raymond into his family. As my self a gay boy growing up in the early 60's and knowing it at the age of 6, I could relate to SO MUCH of what was going on in this book made this THE story that i will NEVER ever forget, nor will I forget Raymond Wallace. Although I needed to take a break during the Paris visit, and I wiped tears from my eyes more than once, it was a beautiful story crafted artfully.

Kenyon does a nice job recreating the pre-Stonewall milieu and there are some nice touches to the story. Opening in 1963, it follows a Cambridge undergraduate, fresh out of college, who’s won a three-month bursary at The New York Times and meets the love of his life. The rest of his life will be spent yearning for the love he found in New York, later writing about the pain of loss and repression.

When Raymond takes this 'job' and is told that he needs more 'appropriate for the times' clothing to fit in to the group that he is going to be doing undercover writing for; he has no idea that he is going to fall in love whole heartedly for the first time in his life with the young man at the clothier. As his bursary draws to a close, he’s faced with a choice which we know from the start he will regret. PLEASE NOTE: From 1st of July 2021, shipments from the UK to EU countries will be subject to Value Added Tax (VAT) charges. It’s shocking to remember that Raymond had come from a country four years away from decriminalising his sexuality, and, of course, it would be many more years before same sex relationships could be both celebrated and recognised in law.

Raymond is assigned to Doty, a journalist who has piece planned on the ‘overt homosexuality’ which apparently has New York in its grip. It reminds us how bad things were for LGBT+ people within living memory - and indeed continue to be in many countries around the world. On an undercover assignment, a secret world is revealed to Raymond: a world in which he need no longer pretend to be something or someone he cannot be; a world in which he meets Joey.