The He and She of It by Barry Spacks
A ’50s tale, seen from today, of two male poets in love with a demanding muse, both willing to do whatever her Dionysian heart desires ~ three gleeful and wounded hearts at play, sympathetic, ambiguous, engagingly human.
For some, the decade of the ’50s played out as an erotically turbulent era.
So it was, for noted poet Elton Gold, who looks back on a life-forming affair in the with intense, queenly Gloria Zissic, a generative figure to him and to his British fellow-poet Andrew Norton as well.
These three gradually find themselves experimenting with combinations and cohabitations that their conservative university can't allow, as they grow in strength, affection, and wit by insisting on being who they are: a literary-savvy folie-a-trois.
Digital Novella
Praise for The He and She of It
“I loved this novella from start to finish. It has tremendous zest and lift, the embedded poems enriching the story, le mot juste at every turn, the voice never flagging in its convincing recreation of the ’50s, seen both as happening in real time and in retrospect from the present day. This is inspired work.”
— Bob Brill, author of Hibiscus Sex and Old Man on a Tricycle
"A daring confession of relations between two young poets and a sexually liberated 1950s-era feminist provocateur, this story takes us on quite a trip through a labyrinth of youthful Eros and bravado. Marked by taut and shimmering prose, The He and She of It is wise, witty and wondrous."
— Tai Carmen Warner, author of the prize-winning poetry collection Pollen
