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Queering the grammar school boy: class, sexuality and authenticity in the works of Colin MacInnes and Ray Gosling

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posted on 2023-06-09, 03:49 authored by Lucy RobinsonLucy Robinson, Benjamin Jones
In 1959 Colin MacInnes published the fourth in his series of social issue novels, Absolute Beginners. In it the unnamed protagonist is constructed as the iconic teenager, slick, cool, creative, with his ex-lover Crépe Suzette as the object of his art and as his Achilles heel. The novel is framed over one summer, against a backdrop of racial tension, which ultimately led the Boy towards adulthood. MacInnes’s protagonist has been dismissed as an emblem rather than a character, and MacInnes himself derided by George Melly as a perpetual teenager. However in this chapter, we will suggest that taken as a whole MacInnes’ work constructs a complex understanding of The Boy’s political possibilities intersecting with sexuality, gender, race and class. By integrating his novelistic work with his journalistic and activist writing, we will demonstrate the complexity of MacInnes’ Boy as an autonomous, queer political agent, embodied in the ultimate Boy; Ray Gosling. Gosling’s own writing becomes a lens through which to root historical understanding of teenagers and teenage cultures as sexual and racial constructs.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Publisher

Palgrave Macmillan

Page range

23-40

Pages

292.0

Book title

Youth subcultures in fiction, film and other media: teenage dreams

Place of publication

Basingstoke

ISBN

978-3319731889

Series

Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music

Department affiliated with

  • History Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

Beth Johnson, Andrzej Zieleniec, Nick Bentley

Legacy Posted Date

2016-11-01

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2019-07-10

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2017-04-21

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