Philip Gambone, whose column, "The Writer in Mexico," appears every other week in Lokkal, has just come out with a new book, a collection of loosely interlinked short stories entitled Zigzag about the lives of older gay men. Set in Boston's many diverse neighborhoods, the stories have been compared to those by Christopher Isherwood, Maupassant, Chekhov, John Updike, and John Cheever. "Touchingly real, tender, and sexy," Lloyd Schwartz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, wrote of the new collection.

Zigzag is Phil's second collection of stories. His first, The Language We Use Up Here, received many accolades including a nomination for a Lambda Literary Award for fiction.

"Zigzag is a wonderful marvel of the literary imagination," notes Michael Bronski, the author of over a dozen books. "Gorgeously written but colloquial, witty but deeply felt, quotidian but wonderfully insightful – it is how gay men live today. Gambone is that person sitting next to you in a café observing, listening, and getting every detail, down to the smallest gesture and the slightest quivering of the voice, exactly right. These are men he knows, men that we know, and they come alive here as they grapple with love, loss, grief, and joy. Few writers can so accurately capture the tapestry of urban gay male life with such acuity and compassion."

And noted gay novelist Edmund White says, "People who complain that all gay fiction portrays hustlers, drag queens and sex machines have never read Philip Gambone, who writes with great clarity and fidelity about ordinary gay Americans."

My book explores many themes," Phil recently told Lokkal. "I suppose the major one is universal: that you are never too old to learn something new about yourself and to grow. These are men who have been through a lot; and yet they still hanker after something—connections, romance, adventure, vitality, and, most of all, a desire to stay awake and alive to all life has to offer.

"While none of the characters is conventionally religious, many are searching for an understanding of their place in a family, a community, and in the larger (gay and straight) world. Initially, gay men often feel alienated from the dominant culture and milieu they are born into. Part of their life's journey is to forge new connections, and perhaps to discover the connections they already had but discounted at first."

The stories in Zigzag are longer than in Phil's first collection. When asked about that, he said, "In writing about older gay men, I discovered that I had to account for their past history—their backstories. So you'll see that several of the stories in the new collection tick-tock back and forth between the present and flashbacks to their past, as I tried to account for what got them to the place they now find themselves in. That made for longer stories."

Phil's other books include a novel, Beijing; three books of nonfiction; and over a dozen personal essays in major anthologies. In addition, Phil is the editor of Breaking the Rules: The Intimate Diary of Ross Terrill, who was a leading scholar of modern Chinese politics and a professor at Harvard.

Phil has also published numerous essays, reviews, features pieces, and scholarly articles to several important journals including The New York Times Book Review and The Boston Globe. He has contributed three chapters on Chinese history to two textbooks published Cheng and Tsui.

Before he retired, Phil taught writing at the University of Massachusetts, Boston College, and in the freshman expository writing program at Harvard. He was twice awarded Distinguished Teaching Citations by Harvard. He also taught English at the Park School in Brookline, Massachusetts and, most recently, at Boston University Academy.

Phil will read from Zigzag twice this winter:
January 9 - Poetry and Prose Sala at Café Murmullo
February 14 - San Miguel Writer's Conference.

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