Gaywyck

Show Notes

Gaywyck was published by Avon in 1980. Set on the Long Island estate of the wealthy Gaylord family in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Gaywyck charts an inter-generational terror born of abuse, madness, and unrequited love. We follow the protagonist Robbie as he arrives at the estate as the librarian. Like most gothic romances of the era, Gaywyck is a book that takes a microscope to cruelty. Please join the Rakes as we discuss people’s obsession with “good representation”, the Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde aspect of twins, cyclical violence, war profiteering, and Virga’s many movie references.

Books Referenced

The Eden series by Marilyn Harris

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Twelfth Night by Shakespeare

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

The India Fan by Victoria Holt

Works Cited:

Vincent Virga Author’s Note

Transcript

[00:00:00.000] - Chels

Welcome to Reformed Rakes, a historical romance podcast that will haunt you like a specter. My name is Chels. I'm the writer of the romance Substack The Loose Cravat, a romance book collector and book talker under the username Chels_ebooks.

[00:00:10.060] - Beth

I'm Beth and I'm on Book Talk under the name Beth even reads.

[00:00:12.420] - Emma

I'm Emma, a law librarian and writing about justice and romance at the Substack Restorative Romance.

[00:00:15.960] - Chels

Gaywyck, which was published in 1980 by Vincent Virga, is often referred to as the first gay Gothic romance. In a world where Carmilla and other famous Homo erotic Gothic texts were published in centuries prior, it's more useful to view Gaywyck through a romance genre fiction lens, as making strides on that front is no small feat. Gaywyck was published by Avon after Virga pitched it to Gwen Edelman, who then sent it on to Avon's then-editor-in-chief, Robert Wyatt, a veteran of publishing who is also a gay man. The reception for Gaywyck was mostly positive, although Virga has noted that some bookstore displays would warn that this was a gay novel to make sure that people not inspecting the cover closely enough wouldn't accidentally purchase something that wasn't in line with their values. Virga has also recounted an incident with a bookstore in Texas who had a bullet shot through their window at a Gaywyck display. In his author's note, Virga quotes an Amazon review published in 1998 that states, "It is possible that this book, written before the onset of AIDS, is one of the final glimpses of the optimism that was part of the early gay movement."

[00:01:04.630] - Chels

Virga was inspired to write Gaywyck after he read one of his mother's Gothic novels. In this book, The Dirty Secret was not the woman and attic of Jane Eyre, but of the distant husband's concealed homosexuality. Virga wondered to himself, What if genre has no gender? Set on the Long Island estate of the wealthy Gaylord family in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Gaywyck charts an intergenerational terror born of abuse, madness, and unrequited love. Like most Gothic romances of the era, Gaywyck is a book that takes a microscope to cruelty. This will be a heavier discussion, so I want to issue content warnings for incest, child sexual abuse, rape, and mutilation. Before we get started, I will give a plot summary. The brief prologue set in 1969 is our first glimpse into Robert White who writes in his journal "I have just returned from a visit to Gaywyck. Memories and even tides sustain me. The wonder of my life and the passion of our love triumph over time's constraint." The book and the journal backs up to the events before the year 1899. Robbie is 17, and he describes himself as small, sickly, and painfully shy.

[00:02:04.240] - Chels

He's a voracious reader who was alarmed and startled by the outside world, confining himself to study in isolation. Robbie's father did not encourage his daydreaming, but his mother introduced him to community figures who procured him books like Ivanhoe, Mansfield, Park, Wuthering Heights, and David Copperfield. One day, Robbie finds his mother weeping at a kitchen table. She's crying, catatonic, and she won't stop. A frightened Robbie leaves her and goes back to his room to read. When his father returns, he calls a doctor. Days later, after her condition showed no sign of improvement, Robbie's father took to a mental hospital for examination. His father returned alone. This kills any rapport Robbie could have cultivated with his father, and Robbie rebuffs his father's plan to have him sit the entrance exam for Harvard. Instead, Robbie departs for what he calls the hermetic world of Gaywyck, a Long Island estate owned by the mysterious and handsome Donoughugh Gaylord. Thanks to a mutual connection, Father Howard, Robbie is able to secure the job of a state librarian. Before introducing him to his new employer, Howard tells Robbie about the Gaylord's family's sordid history. Donough's grandfather, Gaylord, was a wealthy merchant who fell in love with a Georgian Belle, Jenny Lee, and they were the reigning couple in New York society until the Civil War broke out.

[00:03:02.730] - Chels

Gaylord, quote, invested capital on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line and flourished as no others had done before. When things started to look bleak for the Confederacy, Gaylord's southern-born wife, Jenny Leigh Gaywyck, returned to Atlanta to coerce her parents to return north with her. And as they tried to cart off valuables from what is heavily implied to be a plantation, they are shot by, quote, Yankee soldiers. This enraged grandfather, Gaylord, who offered the Confederacy money and goods to slay the people who killed his wife. After he died, his son met an intense Bostonian woman at the opera named Mary Rose and took her to the Gaywyck estate. When Mary Rose became pregnant, she locked herself in her rooms at a fear of childbirth. Rather inexplicably, five days after sequestering herself, Mary Rose declared herself well and ready to give birth. She has twin boys, Donough, the current owner of Gaywyck, and Cormack. Their dynamic is established immediately after birth. Cormack is larger, and Mary Rose threats that he bullied Donough in the womb. Cormack crawled first, spoke first, stood first. The identical twins mirrored each other, eventually only becoming distinguishable through rings they wore on the opposite hand.

[00:03:57.640] - Chels

Mary Rose eventually hired Julian Denver as a tutor for young boys and Everard Keyes as a piano instructor. Keyes and Denvers, though opposite in physicality and spiritual temperament, became great friends. As the twins grew older, Cormack and Donough took New York society by storm as beautiful and wealthy whirlwinds. Mary Rose eventually grew ill and died from weakness of the lungs. A few short years later, she was followed by her husband and one of her sons, Cormack, who died in fire. When Robbie arrives at Gaywyck, he finds his job as a librarian, is fairly luxurious. He's gifted with clothing, allowed run of the estate, and is taken under the wing of both the rather eccentric, Keyes, who provides him with piano lessons and Denver, who guides him around literature. Robbie is immediately smitten with Donough, who has an extreme beauty and is also an introvert. Donough is also very kind to Robbie, but when Robbie remarks on this, Donough corrects him, saying that he is definitely not kind. While working on the estate, Robbie learns more about Donough's deceased twin, Cormack, who was noted to have a very violent temperament. It's heavily implied that Cormack attacked another young servant, Brian, leading to his near-castration, as well as being the cause of the loss of several of Denver's fingers.

[00:04:54.630] - Chels

When Robbie is in the library, he finds a small glass display case and 13 headless bees labeled La Vendetta, 13 Queens Revenge for one undeserved sting, signed by King Cormackk. Robbie sees that Cormack would have been 13 when he created the display, noting that it seems too old for childish cruelty. Robbie begins to have hallucinations about the Rosete portrait that was said to resemble Donough's mother, Mary Rose. He sees an image of his mother's face rapidly aged from his recent recollection of her and passes out. One night, he wakes up to find Donough in his room. They embrace and fall asleep. When he wakes up, Donough is fully dressed and leaves the room. Robbie tries to follow, but he's unable to locate him. Later, he finds Donough walking toward the sea outside the house. When Robbie runs to Donough, Donough is shocked and tells him that he was sleepwalking and that he had never visited Robbie in his room. Soon after, Danvers brings Robbie a book of Walt Whitman that he found on Donough's desk. There's a passage marked that praises the feeling of love, and Robbie hopes that it's a message from Donough. Then he finds another marked passage, and this one is more ominous, seemingly warning away the prospect of a new love interest.

[00:05:49.780] - Chels

Robbie is devastated, thinking that the shock was more than he could physically bear. Donough frequently leaves Gaywyck for his home in Gramercy Park, but Robbie continues to hold a candle for him. When Donough returns with two of his friends, Robbie is enveloped into their intimacy, and something seems to build between him and Donough. Robbie writes in his journal that, To deny any longer my love for him would have been an evil. To say I had dreamed of him is an understatement. That night, he came to dwell in my soul. One night, Robbie finds Donough's childhood entries. The sparse entries show that he and Cormack used to switch their rings, meaning they'd be mistaken for each other. Robbie considers reading the rest of the diary, but decides against it. Later, when curiosity overcomes him, he goes looking for it, but it's been removed. Robbie continues to have unsettling dreams. One day, Robbie comes across a hidden room in a library and hears a woman's voice. Later, he enters, finding a silver haired woman with a face of his mother if she had aged 20 years overnight. They have a friendly chat, and Robbie promises to return to her even though he's unsure of who she is.

[00:06:38.660] - Chels

He begins to visit her regularly. One night, he's alarmed to find the woman in his room holding a knitting needle as though it were a dagger. She confuses Robbie by saying, They're dead, and Denver's is mad. He's tormenting Cormack. She then leaves the room suddenly. Robbie goes to Gramercy Park to spend Christmas with Donough and his friends, and he has a wonderful time. When he returns to Gaywyck, he finds a new person there, Jones, the 13 year old son of Donough's deceased business partner. Robbie harbors an instant and intense dislike for Jones. To Robbie, he's uncouth, ill-mannered, and abhor. Both Keyes and Denvers are rather taken with Jones, and so the household starts to move along with Jones' whims. The household only eats food that Jones likes, and Jones' lessons take over the library where Robbie works. He becomes increasingly resentful of Jones, who taunts him and lets on that he's only pretended so far that he doesn't know how to read. But he's actually read both Robbie and Donough's diaries. I just want my share, Jones tells Robbie. You get the big fish. Can't I have the small fry? To his horror, Robbie realizes that Donough is the big fish and the small fries, Keyes and Denver's.

[00:07:33.040] - Chels

The reason the older men are indulging Jones is because they think they're in love with him. Robbie starts receiving orchids overnight, and he believes Jones is sending them. Jones makes a few offers of friendship to Robbie, but he rebuffs him. Jones tells Robbie that when Cormack was still alive, he castrated Brian, the young servant boy, for rebuffing him. He goes on to say that Cormack cut off Denver's fingers when Denver's came to his bed, mistaking him for Donough. Robbie is incensed to Jones for telling him this, but he's not sure if he believes him. Robbie gets a message from Donough telling him that his father has died. Robbie and Donough attend the funeral, and afterwards, Robbie is surprised to see his mother returned from the asylum. She stays on at the house and Robbie returns to Gaywyck while Donough goes back to Gramery Park. Robbie and Donough write each other letters that become increasingly intimate. One night when Donough returns, Jones says something to Donough at dinner that Robbie doesn't hear, but he notices everyone at the table get visibly uncomfortable. Later that evening, Jones returns to Robbie saying that he will be leaving soon and that his plan is almost set.

[00:08:22.620] - Chels

The next morning, Jones is gone. Donough tells Robbie he knows he's been visiting the old woman in the secret room and that the woman is actually Donough's mother. When she started to go mad, his father faked her death to save face, and she's been living and hiding ever since. Donough also tells Robbie the story of his and Cormack's first nanny, a woman who tortured and viciously punished them when they were less than four years old. Cormack beared the brunt of her ire until one day their father discovered what was going on and dismissed the nanny. Robbie finds another orchid in his room and wonders if Jones has returned. That night, Denver comes to his room and tells him there's something that he needs to see on the beach. Robbie is horrified when he realizes that it's Jones's body. Denver's accuses Donough of killing Jones because Jones was attempting to blackmail him. Donough and Robbie continue their relationship, which has become increasingly sexual. Robbie goes through Jones's belongings and finds a packet of photographs that are startling. One is of him and Donough in Robbie's bedroom. The night that Donough said Robbie was sleepwalking and dreaming.

[00:09:10.940] - Chels

The rest are pornographic images of Gaylord senior and his lover, Stephen, and one with his son, Cormack. Robbie finds Donough's diary among Jones's belongings, and it confirms that Gaylord abused Cormack, and Donough was jealous. Robbie thinks to himself that their sorrow is suffocating him. One night, Robbie is lured out to the cliffs by Keyes. It turns out the Keyes had been drugging him and planned to murder him. Donough rescues Robbie and tells Robbie that he has hanged himself shortly after. Robbie tells Donough that he will never leave him and is surprised when Donough begins to react angrily. Donough begins to beat Robbie, nearly killing him and leaves him alone on the beach. When Robbie encounters Donough later, he comes to the startling realization that he wasn't attacked by Donough, but by Cormack. Every time he was on an outdoor twist with Donough, it was really with his twin. When his father died, Cormack was told by Denver that he would be seen as responsible, so he went into hiding. When Robbie arrived at Gaywyck, Denver's told Cormack to kill Robbie so that he could save Donough from a schema. Cormack couldn't go through with it because he fell in love with Robbie.

[00:10:04.610] - Chels

Cormack lures Robbie out to the sea and they confess their love for each other, but Robbie refuses to leave with him on a boat. Cormack tells Robbie that they will have to die together then. And then just as he moves to kill him, Donough shoots and then kills Cormack. Donough later reveals that he has discovered that Robbie's mother and his mother are sisters, making them cousins, and that Danvers, embittered from his unproquited love for Donough's father and later Donough, ploted Robbie's death. Donough then adopts Robbie so that he will be named Robert White, Gaylord, and they move in together at Gramercy Park. The epilogue set in 1969 chronicles Donough's death with Robbie by his side. Bells tolled, the sea continued, our love endures.

[00:10:37.940] - Emma

That was a good plot summary.

[00:10:39.400] - Chels

Do you think so? I struggle. I don't know.

[00:10:42.250] - Emma

It was nice to hear it, too. It reminded me what happened, even though I finished it yesterday.

[00:10:46.240] - Chels

The ending just.

[00:10:47.090] - Beth

Slides off my brain.

[00:10:48.280] - Chels

The ending was like, I think I was getting tired when I was writing the ending again. I was just like, Sure. I think they're not the best for processing.

[00:10:55.280] - Emma

And Denver's and Hughes, I don't understand why they're two of them, but I couldn't keep track of which one was doing what for what reason. Also, sometimes they're doing the same thing.

[00:11:01.840] - Chels

That's also true. Yeah. Because Keyes was the one that was really love Jones, but they both love Jones, but Keyes would kill for him. But then then one of them killed.

[00:11:09.190] - Beth

Everyone else.

[00:11:09.970] - Chels

Yeah.

[00:11:10.440] - Beth

Yeah, My retention of this book was 50 %. Same with Stormfire. It was just a lot of plot happening and then a lot of doubles. There's just two of every person.

[00:11:17.920] - Chels

The names here are really too much.

[00:11:20.770] - Chels

We've all noted how the beginning of the story, particularly the backstory about Donough's family, is really compelling. The Gaylord family are on par with the Astors and the Vanderbilt as far as extreme wealth at the time. But Virga starts them off on a very sinister note, particularly with the story of Jenny Lee and the profiteering from the Civil War. We get a lot of what I sometimes call Vanderbilt heroes and historical romance, but they typically have this distance from the atrocities that no doubt got them there. What stood out to you about the characterization here?

[00:11:45.200] - Beth

I like that Virga had the Gaylord family wealth stem from War Profiteering. This is a Gothic story set in America. So referencing something so unique to our history and entwining it with the story, the family reinforces the sins of the father will be visited on the sons dynamic. What is the price other people paid for their wealth?

[00:12:00.940] - Emma

And I liked that there's the the curse generational stuff goes back to generations. In the story, we get the grandfather getting the fortune with Jenny Lee and the war profiteering. But then also the Cormack, the first Cormack, the father is connected to that. He's really the abuser of the family. But even the backstory, when we're getting the pre-stuff from the Gaylord family saga, the story of Cormack and Mary Rose is told in this idyllic way. I almost thought it was like, Oh, it's cute. And the tragedy is going to be coming from an early death of one of these people, and then that's going to be the source of some of the harm. I was not anticipating the first Cormack and being an abuser when I first read that saga. But those layers of the generational trauma become clear as the story continues to unfold. There were a lot of moments between Cormack and Mary Rose in the telling from Howard to Robbie, Father Howard, that I thought were charming. It's the this is what it seems like this the steely Bostonian woman falling in love with someone who's half from the south and they have this age gap, but it's charming.

[00:12:51.220] - Emma

But obviously both generations have this darkness attached to them that seems in part to come from the wealth itself, but then also the source of the wealth. So it's not just the war profiteering, it's the volume of wealth and that all gets wrapped up together.

[00:13:02.010] - Chels

I like that you mentioned Mary Rose and the... I struggle so much calling him Cormack, but the father's name is Cormack, too. But I like that you mentioned them together and then finding out later that the father was going to be an abuser. Because something that brings them together in a weird, almost circular way is Denvers. Because when Denvers is first introduced, he and Mary Rose are super tight. They have this really deep, intimate connection. But then we later find out that Denver's is obsessed with her husband and that her husband has kept him dangling on a string. And that created this ripple effect of terror and abuse, which is definitely not something that I saw coming. The backstory was so clever. First of all, because you, of course, don't get the entire truth, which is so much more horrifying upfront. But Virga is still able to create a sense of foreboding. And then he lays the groundwork for that intergenerational trauma that will become the main focus of the book. So introducing these key players in ways where you see them as human beings and then their propensity for cruelty later will have more of an impact.

[00:13:58.230] - Chels

I keep thinking of the Eden series by Marilyn Harris, which are also family sagas and Gothic romances centered around a family with extreme wealth and privilege. And it was also published by Avon starting in the late 1970s, then I think through the early 1990s, both Gaywyck and the Eden series lean into the idea that power is born of cruelty and that even ostensibly good actors like Donough, Gaylord or Edward Eden, who suffer greatly under the cruelty of their forbears, are still complicit in the misery of others. So Donough rarely does something outright unkind or cruel in the book. But you find out Jones's dad was murdered for trying to union bust, thinking that Donough would approve. So even though Donough makes clear that he did not approve, it's not a great leap when you realize his entire family's empire was built on misery.

[00:14:35.840] - Emma

I think eventually we just need to do episodes about the Eden series.

[00:14:38.230] - Chels

Yeah. Oh, because I bring it up so often? It's really become like.

[00:14:41.270] - Emma

It's become Reformed Rakes canon, like Chels has to mention Marilyn Harris.

[00:14:44.010] - Beth

Chels is big on comparing, contrast two different stories.

[00:14:47.680] - Chels

They're just so good. I think there's so much... And these were published around the same time by Avon. And they're very much in communication with each other. I can absolutely see Avon being like, Oh, yeah, we'll take both of these. Just different types of intergenerational trauma. Marilyn Harris is much meaner.

[00:15:06.380] - Beth

I did like something both of you said where we get the backstory initially and we get the sunnier version. I feel like this is consistent throughout the book where you get the utopian version of the story and then the seedy underbelly of the story comes later. Then that reframes everything that you saw earlier when you first got the story.

[00:15:26.600] - Emma

Yeah, and I think the connection that the... There's some of the curse of Gaywyck is connected to the wealth and war profiteering and not the queerness. It's almost like the abuse between queer characters is a result of the curse of the profit, rather than the queerness as inherently bad or sinister, which I think would be easy to collapse. I think maybe we're going to talk about this later with how does this represent queer people in 1980, I think that's an important point to say, queerness is not inherently destructive. It's just it's manifesting for these characters in this house, making money or living off the profits of this person who played both sides of the Civil War, this wound of America.

[00:15:59.850] - Emma

I think makes sense that he's thinking about that because of how often Whitman is referenced. This is not someone who is pulling this as just the trauma that is happening at this time in America. He's thinking about the Civil War and how it plays out for multiple generations afterwards. So it's not happening in a vacuum. But I think that the backstory is really informative and how Virga thinks about queerness in this book because it's separate from the queer identities of characters.

[00:16:19.990] - Chels

As we've discussed before, it's pretty common for Gothic romance to be single POV. But an interesting choice here is that Virga is telling the story through Robbie's journal slash memoir. They're not dated journal entries, but sometimes future Robbie will make corrections or even make fun of a thought he just wrote in the journal, which pulls you out a little bit and reminds you that this is a recollection. What stood out to you about this narrative choice?

[00:16:38.620] - Emma

This is by far my favorite part of the book. I do love POV structure things. It links Robbie pretty directly to a few of the heroes of the books that he loves so much. There are multiple references in Gaywyck to David Copperfield and Jane Eyre, who are two of the most famous first person with some distance narrators in Victorian lit. David Copperfield from Dickens very specifically is a man looking back on his past from a specific point in his life. There's frequent gaps in that novel between David's feelings at the time and his feelings and the retelling. Jane Eyre is more directly in the lineage of Gothic novels than David Copperfield, and Jane similarly has that distance between herself and the moment and herself and the retelling. Robbie makes this a little bit more explicit even, since he's often rereading his own journals. The structure is never too far from the mind of the reader, which I feel like happens when you read David Copperfield or Jane Eyre. Sometimes you forget that the person telling you the story has a distance. The journals and the documentations are also really important to other characters as well.

[00:17:19.690] - Emma

Jones even points out this importance of documentation, and he's noticing that everyone's always writing things down in this house because he references both Donough's and Robbie's journals, which are sources of some of his sinister machinations that he reads these journals.

[00:17:30.720] - Beth

Yeah, I think we all enjoyed future Robbie's little asides, and he's like, Why did I use that word here? Virga controls what information we know because it's all filtered through Robbie. So we got, again, a single POV. And as always, there's that tension of how reliable is the storyteller.

[00:17:43.930] - Chels

I think at one point, Robbie writes, Reader, I was dumbfounded. And I think you laugh so hard. What a sharp reminder of whose point of view this is from. But yeah, I also like how Virga used this to lampshade young Robbie's naivete. At the end of the book, Robbie remarks that he and common sense do not always go hand in hand, which is a criticism that a lot of Gothic heroines are the recipient of. But he was like him making that critique of his in the moment decisions. It wasn't necessarily young Robbie thinking that. I like that you mentioned Jones earlier here, too, for a few different reasons. The first is I think the descriptions of Jones were always the clearest that I'm reading young Robbie's thoughts because they are so clearly a young man who sees another person as an interloper and competition. And they almost feel uncharacteristically cruel because Robbie doesn't really have... His older brother was also a bit of a bumbler, Jones's older brother, but Robbie was kind to him. But Jones, in particular, is the source of his ire. And I think there's a competitive nature there. But Jones is also right.

[00:18:36.710] - Chels

If you're a family of secret keepers, maybe writing every little thought you had down and storing it away is maybe not the best move.

[00:18:42.740] - Emma

Or not keeping track of your journals. Things are always going missing in this house, and they're like, Oh, it went missing. I wonder who took it. Probably someone who's plotting your doom. There's so many options, Robbie.

[00:18:53.610] - Chels

Honestly it was Jones's responsibility to blackmail, I think. Everybody's leaving all this evidence around.

[00:19:00.810] - Beth

That's fit with Birga's style, too, because he references so many different books in this book. So it makes sense to me that he'd have a narrator who's just constantly commenting on his previous life and yeah.

[00:19:12.290] - Emma

It reads like a commonplace book for just a queer man in 1980. I imagine Virga collecting things, collecting little quotes and turns of phrases from all the media that he's experiencing. So it's almost like Virga is also keeping a cultural journal of what gay men are watching or talking about, gay men who enjoy early 20th century movies and 19th century novels.

[00:19:28.990] - Chels

Yeah, there. Beth, didn't you say that Virga said on his website or something that nobody has ever found all of the references sprinkled throughout the book?

[00:19:37.510] - Beth

Yeah. And then he mentioned one reader, he said, I think 70 % had found 70 % of the references. There's a lot in here too. So then I'm like, There's got to be way more subtle ones that we just are not picking up on.

[00:19:47.610] - Chels

Yeah. Me catching the most famous quote from Wuthering Heights, but "that's from Wuthering Heights" pat on the back.

[00:19:54.110] - Beth

Sometimes he is directly quoting things. He's pretty obviously quoting Shakespeare at the end. But it's building to the characterization, and he's obviously referencing those things for a reason. It's not just for like... I feel like it's both what Emma said. It's a cultural journal, but it also is like, I don't know, Robbie would quote Shakespeare.

[00:20:09.960] - Emma

It's just like the quotes that Robbie is making. It's like Ewan MacGregor and Moulin Rogue, he has a preternatural ability to write music because he's actually writing music from the 20th century. Robbie is quoting things that are from... He quotes Breakfast at Tiffany's. He's like Merlin. He knows what Audrey Hepburn is going to say in Breakfast at Tiffany's or How to Steal a Million. He's seen all these movies that Virga is obviously a fan.

[00:20:31.510] - Chels

So before Robbie goes to Gaywyck, he notes that, quote, I was menaced by every other human being. I saw everyone's capacity to inflict pain and expected every intimacy to bring disaster, shattering my inner balance irrevocably. I knew myself capable of such horrors. Is terrified of myself, I became terrified of others. When he meets Donough, he recognizes a kinship and that they're both introverts. But do you think that Robbie's description of himself is also applicable to Donough? So some.

[00:20:55.980] - Emma

Of the parallels between Robbie and Donough made me feel like, I'll take your word for it, Robbie. I think there's an alignment of queerness that Robbie sees in Donough. But to be fair, almost all the characters in the book are gay. But there's this moment of recognition that seems to be a common structure between two queer characters, especially in historical settings. I think we saw that in Unmasked by the Marquess. In our tactile of Raikes episode, which I just listened for this transcript purposes, so it's right on the front of my mind, Chels has talked about the queer appeal of a rake character where a reader might experience both attraction to and envy of the rake's identity. Do I want to date you or do I want to be you? But Donough's personality is characterized in the negative. He's not like Cormack, he's not like his father. He's not like Robbie's father. And to remember that Robbie is the one doing the characterizing, Donough is the perfect screen to project onto.

[00:21:32.360] - Beth

Right, jumping on what you said, Emma, where Donough's characterization leads heavily on Cormack. Well, even though they're twins, Cormack feels much more like an older brother. He did everything first, like walking and talking. He's dominant and violent. And so Virga piles all the passive character traits onto Donough. Robbie starts off the book quite introverted and admires this in Donough. And then by the end of the book, he's come his own a bit and finds he loves Cormack as well.

[00:21:52.940] - Chels

Yeah, Donough remarks at one point that he is haunted by Cormack, and it's almost like his life has been put on pause since his brother and father's death. So Robbie saying, "I saw everyone's capacity to inflict pain and expected every intimacy to bring disaster" is very much Donough's childhood experience. His relationship with his brother who defended him but also tormented him and others around him, and then also his relationship with people who are supposed to be paternal figures like Denver's. There's this idea that you're existing in a space, a space that's supposed to protect you with people that are supposed to protect you, but you still have to retreat further into yourself because those people aren't trustworthy. I wonder.

[00:22:26.370] - Emma

If this is a moment where Robbie, like future Robbie is having some distance and when he says these things. It's almost like a collapse between him and Donough, where he's taking on this other person's perspective. Because Robbie's original backstory is not particularly abusive. It's uncomfortable for him. He doesn't really get along with his father. His mother is ill, and so he's not fitting into his household. He definitely needs to escape his household. But it doesn't meet the level of Gaywyck. So in this way that he's talking about the capacity for evil and people that he sees. I wonder if some of that is his reflection on like, I'm now ascribing that quality to me when actually I saw it in this other person.

[00:22:57.390] - Chels

So one of the ways that Robbie and Donough connect with each other a little bit more early on in the book is actually their mothers, the trauma of seeing their mothers waste away. I think Donough reveals that that happened to his mother instead of her dying peacefully. I don't think he admits to Robbie that she's still alive at that point. There was an intense connection both between Mary Rose and her twins. She didn't want to leave them at all. She didn't want to leave them in any room alone. She was very, very connected with them. And then Robbie also had that same intense relationship with his mother, where she fostered his reading. And his response to her catatonic state was just to retreat into himself and to go into another room and read. And he was so ashamed of himself for that. I think that's maybe another way that they see recognized as kinship. They both had the relationship is not really worked out the way that they had hoped, and they don't really know how to react to the outside world anymore. I was.

[00:23:46.010] - Emma

Thinking about Mary. We talked about how the gay husband is the woman in the attic in Gaywyck, but also there is literally a woman in the attic, too.

[00:23:52.070] - Chels

She's in the spare room of the library.

[00:23:54.350] - Beth

Technically.

[00:23:55.860] - Emma

But it's like Mary Rose, when you first hear her intense mothering of the two boys, I thought of her as a Norma Bates. I was like, Oh, she's the abuser. She's the one who's controlling them and is so doting on them to the point where that's the relationship that I was suspect of. But I guess once you know Cormack, the first abuse of his son, you're like, Okay, maybe some of the controlling, doting was actually this method of protection for the boys, where she didn't want to let them out of her sight, didn't want to ever be away from them. Maybe that's the angle. I don't think Virga makes that explicit that what Mary Rose knew or what her intentions were with that level of connection that she had with the boys. But it is a subversion of that arc where you think the overbearing mother is going to be the one who is sending, especially thinking about Norman Bates, who's definitely queer-coded. That's a very common arc of overbearing mother, potentially sexual abuse between mother and son, and then a queer-coded child who also does abuse. But this is different than that. The story of Mary Rose becomes flipped on its head based on who's telling it.

[00:24:47.400] - Chels

And she also, Mary Rose might not have been abusive, but she also is the first one to ostracize Cormack. When Cormack and Donough are children, she accuses Cormack of hoarding.

[00:25:00.880] - Emma

He's like, He was eating more in the womb.

[00:25:03.830] - Chels

Yeah, Cormack is a bigger child. And then Mary Rose puts all of her protectiveness towards Donough. I think it doesn't say that it went that way for long, but that really stuck out to me as being so bizarre and such an extreme reaction. I think that's something that continues on through Cormack's childhood, too, is he's always set apart from Donough. So even though Cormack is responsible for his actions, I think he was primed to be the aggressor.

[00:25:28.610] - Beth

Yeah, I agree with that. I feel like it's like a thing where it's like everyone has a role in the family and they kept blaming Cormack for things or saying he is a particular way and then he became that.

[00:25:37.480] - Chels

Yeah, and that actually even gets into the next point, I believe. So midway through the book, Donough describes Cormack like this. He was cursed with a violent temper, which he never controlled. That's not fair. I shouldn't say that. He tried. He just didn't succeed very often. Everyone has suffered because of it. He was in a horrible boating accident with Brian. That boy hasn't spoken a clear word since. Denver is as cruelly maimed. Keyes is a broken man. Cormack left us empty creatures. It's as if we, too, are made of Walnut. So how do you feel about that? Knowing that both Cormack was abused by both his father and his first nanny, and then also primed to be othered a bit by his mother?

[00:26:11.410] - Beth

I have been thinking a lot about backstory, actually, and how necessary it is. But I think for a story like Gaywyck and the style that it's in, it tells us not only about Cormack's character, but the dynamic between Cormack and Donough. We learn about the abuse of nanny. Cormack tells Donough he's stronger than him, so he'll take the brunt of the abuse. Then later on, like Chels said, Cormack conflicts violence on others. I don't think you have to anchor all sources of violence to a character's backstory. Think the joker, where the character is better to have him come from nowhere. But in a story about the cyclical nature of abuse, I think you need some anchoring point. So when.

[00:26:41.010] - Emma

Chels read that quote out, I was thinking about the Walnut Boat imagery. So to explain, they talk about... Donough says, As if we two were made of Walnut, and they're talking about these Walnut Boats that the boys have. And it's really striking in the book, it was one of the things that I pulled out. It plays with the concept of scale that I think comes up in the book a lot, where little things seem big and big things seem small. And I think that connects to the cycle of abuse. So Donough references, As if we were to make a wallet. He's referencing two little boats that the twins had literally made out of Walnut wood, but made to look like Walnut shells, like a child would use for a toy. So these are boats that people can sit in, but they look like a small thing that would hold a thimble. There's this uncanniness to it because a Walnut boat was usually the size of a Walnut. But the metaphor gets extended to be about the hollowness that comes from the cycles of abuse. I think this uncanniness comes throughout the book. Robbie being hyper vigilant about some of Donough's behaviors, being blithely not scared about how people are clearly coming into his room at night or when he's not there and rearranging or bringing gifts.

[00:27:29.880] - Beth

I also looked up if Walnut is actually used to build boats because I thought it was an odd wood to be using boats. And it's not used to build boats because it's considered bad luck because of its use in building coffins. So I thought it was another example of Virga having this very rich metaphor imagery that's obviously well researched that when you see a Walnut boat that's actually able to hold humans in it, it's a sign of bad luck and death.

[00:27:46.800] - Beth

Like the size of a coffin.

[00:27:48.350] - Emma

Right. It's like a little boy.

[00:27:50.170] - Beth

Oh, my gosh.

[00:27:51.690] - Emma

Yeah. So I was like "I don't think boats are made of walnut." Actually, it's an incredibly good wood to build boats with, but it's very, it's superstitious. It's a very nautical superstition.

[00:27:58.700] - Chels

We spent so much of the book ingesting the horrors Cormack has inflicted piecemeal that it wasn't necessarily a surprise to see all this backstory, but it did throw me for a loop how stunningly cruel it was. Part of the nanny's punishment of them was just like, I don't know even how to describe it. It was like psychological torture, like sexual torture as well, like sexualizing children and making them ashamed of their thoughts.

[00:28:19.620] - Beth

Yeah, she made them wear chastity belts or something like that.

[00:28:22.740] - Chels

It was insane, and they were younger than four years old at the time. Yes. So that to me seems like an age where you wouldn't necessarily remember what happened to you, but it would profoundly affect you, too.

[00:28:33.650] - Beth

Yeah, for sure.

[00:28:34.430] - Emma

Yeah, the two levels, the fact that the Virga gives us two sources of abuse for Cormack, that are very clear, and they're also other ones, the nanny and his father, it's laying it on thick. But also it makes sense for Cormack's characterization, that there would be this abuse that he shares with Donough with the nanny, and then also this abuse that separates them. And that creates resentment between the two brothers. And so even in their abuse, they have this separation that causes conflict between the two of them.

[00:28:59.380] - Chels

Yeah. And then the reason... Because Donough was also jealous of Cormack that he's getting this attention from his father. And the reasoning why Cormack is being isolated and sought out like this is because they're trying to keep him in line, his father and his father's lovers think that this is the easiest way to placate him, which is wild. Yeah. I don't know. I think I like what you said so much earlier, Beth, about when backstory matters, because I totally agree with you that I think that you don't need to have some tragedy to explain away why a character is being awful. Sometimes people are just awful, and sometimes that's more interesting. But of course, when you're a big, spooky house, intergenerational trauma, I think that being able to look at Cormack is a really complex character makes it a better story.

[00:29:43.340] - Beth

And the whole point of these Gothic-type stories is there's secrets and you're trying to uncover the secrets. This abuse is part of that revealing and uncovering of the past. Absolutely.

[00:29:55.330] - Emma

I have some thoughts about the way that characterization and occupation worked in Gaywyck. I think I took note of this, mainly because Robbie, his father wants him to go to law school and Robbie's like, I don't want to go to law school. Then he gets this opportunity to be a librarian, which is not dissimilar to my career path becoming a law librarian who does not practice law. I was like, Oh, this is the closest I've ever had to being a law librarian in a romance novel. I noted that early. I was tracking occupation throughout the book. But the way that people are attached to their jobs in the book really struck me as a main point of characterization. I think there's so many parallels between characters like Keyes and Denver's. The main distinguishing thing for me between the two of them was one of them is the tutor, one of them is the piano teacher. Often they're doing very similar things, even though they think of themselves as very distinct from each other, but they're engaged with similar hosting of Robbie, and they'll be kind to Robbie and then cruel to Robbie. And then when Jones comes on the scene, they have, again, similar relationships with him.

[00:30:39.450] - Emma

And then also, Donough's friends who are from New York, one of them is a lawyer, and they say he's the best litigator in the city, and the level of advocacy seems to be one of the reasons that Robbie wants to trust these new friends. So I'm just wondering if either of you have any thoughts about the way that occupation works? I think it may have to do some with the generational wealth that's coming in that occupation is a virtue, and people's virtues are defined by their labor and industry. And I think also sometimes their sins are defined by this as well. I'm thinking about the Jones's father who dies in the Union Busting Act. It's very connected to labor. And again, even though Donough disavows the act, it's still connected to the way that he makes money. What boss is actually advocating for unions? He's not so going so far as to support the union either. He's like, I just wish this guy hadn't died. It seems like it just comes up a lot and maybe just more than other romance novels because we have so many characters who are men, so many characters who are working class, so we know their jobs. We don't really have an aristocrat because it's in America, so even the wealthy people have connections to industry.

[00:31:33.370] - Chels

Yeah. So something that I was thinking about while you were talking is a few characters that have a similarity, not necessarily career path, but failed career path. And that's Keyes, Denver's, and Robbie. So all three of them have this extreme potential and for different reasons didn't end up pursuing it. So Keyes, I think he was an extremely talented musician and teaching wasn't necessarily his thing. And even after he's... We didn't really talk about this too much, but he was not known to be sane. He referred to himself as Beethoven at some point and he became Beethoven and he was Beethoven in the house. And then there's Denvers too. I can't quite remember what Denver was doing before.

[00:32:14.790] - Emma

Was he the one who was going to be a priest?

[00:32:16.420] - Chels

Yes yeah. Oh, yes, he was going to be a priest.

[00:32:17.560] - Emma

And they kicked him out for maybe sexuality. I think that's the implication.

[00:32:20.000] - Chels

Yeah. And so he had that relationship with Mary Rose, where it seemed like their friendship was solidifying him onto the estate. Then, of course, as you mentioned, then the third is Robbie, who was going to be a lawyer, but he decided not to. It almost felt partially maybe because it wasn't something that he was incredibly interested in, and then partially just as a way to communicate his pleasure with his father right after his mother was sent away to the asylum. I think when you have three incredibly, incredibly intelligent people isolated on a household, and some of them might not be the most sane, it does make for a very Gothic tale.

[00:32:56.660] - Beth

Yeah. I feel like the people who... It's like getting access to this, like cursed wealth. That's what it feels like. You have these people who are maybe a little bit more industrious before. And I don't want to downplay what a music tutor is going to be doing on the daily, but I don't know, it's a cushy job to me. Same, with Robbie-.

[00:33:11.690] - Chels

Robbie's job is so cushy. I don't think Robbie was ever doing anything except drinking tea.

[00:33:15.320] - Emma

He described his librarian life as luxurious. And I was like, I know this cursed house on Long Island. There's a point where he finds five copies of a Winter's Tale. And everyone's like, Oh, my God, Robbie. You're such a good librarian. I was like, He found five books, the same book. That's the same copy. Of course, they're together and they're doting on him. Oh, you're so talented at this job. I was like, Okay, this is a very cushy librarian job.

[00:33:35.770] - Beth

Yeah. And how many books he had to catalog? I might have just made this number up, but I could have sworn it was 75,000 books. And I'm just like, I just don't know. I'm like, That seems like a lot of books to me. And he seems to never be working. So. I mean.

[00:33:46.120] - Emma

75,000 books is a lot to catalog, but also they're very explicit. When he starts the job, they're like, don't move the books. You don't have to organize them. We just want you to make a list of where everything is. So he's really just cataloging. He doesn't have to implement a system. It's very like observational style of librarianship.

[00:34:01.370] - Chels

But even him, being a librarian, they're like, okay, this is the tea time. These are all the clothes that you're going to get. Here's a wandering path for you.

[00:34:07.310] - Beth

Go take a nap, Robbie.

[00:34:09.480] - Chels

I'm like, Of course, he's in love with Donough. I would be in love with Donough.

[00:34:13.710] - Emma

He puts up the most passive resistance. It's like, Oh, this is too much. He'll say that the one time every time he's about to receive a gift, and then the gifts just keep on coming.

[00:34:21.580] - Chels

They're like, Oh, Robbie. With that face, you deserve it. Robbie's very pretty. I don't know if we've seen this, but Robbie's very pretty.

[00:34:27.470] - Beth

Yeah, they remark on it. And then it's hinted at like, Oh, you look like Donough. They say that if you try to set the book to prime you for when you find out their cousins.

[00:34:34.900] - Chels

I think also too, like future Robbie talks about it. He was like, Oh, I didn't know if just everybody thought they were pretty, but it was nice to hear from other people that I thought I was pretty. I didn't know that it was common knowledge.

[00:34:46.850] - Beth

There was the episode of 30 Rock when I can't think of the actor's name right now. He plays Mad Men.

[00:34:51.780] - Beth

Oh, Jon Hamm, yeah, he's in the bubble.

[00:34:53.630] - Beth

He's so handsome and he lives in the bubble. That's what it feels like with Robbie. He's just like, Is it everyone handsome? Is it everyone so nice to you?

[00:34:59.610] - Emma

You have a doctor who can't do the heimlich and the librarian who can't organize anything. Okay, we can move on to something very heavy.

[00:35:07.400] - Emma

Okay, so Jon Hamm to

[00:35:08.750] - Chels

Let me see if there is. Okay, yeah. Moving on to a little bit later into the book, into a reveal. So even though he beats Robbie and at one point tries to kill him, Cormack professes himself in love with Robbie, having become infatuated during his nocturnal visits. Robbie thought that Jones had been leaving orchids in his room, but it turns out that it was Cormack. In the end, Robbie professes to love both Donough and Cormack. What do you think this says about how both Robbie and Cormack define love.

[00:35:31.640] - Beth

Right. So before Cormack reveals himself, Robbie quotes Twelth Night, the part when they arrive at Illyria, and Cormack quotes back to him. Robbie speaks with Nanny Wells, and then he comes across a real Donough who says Cormack will never hurt him again. And then Robbie then thinks to himself, this is another quote, "One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons, a natural perspective. That is and is not." So another quote from Twelth Night, which is a story about a fraternal male, female twins. Viola has dressed as a man for most of her time with Duke Orsino, who's the one who says the quote I just referenced. And he says that when he sees the twins standing together for the first time. I think twins and literature sometimes embody this Dr. Jekyl, Mr. Hyde dynamic. Donough is introverted and sensitive like Robbie, while Cormyx described as violent and strong. He leads and Donough follows. I feel like Robbie's love for both of them is because they're presented as almost two-halves that complete a whole. While Cormack loves Romeo and Juliet, and he looks on his father and Stephen who died by cyanide as romantic, like he thinks they died by suicide.

[00:36:25.360] - Beth

But there's a lot of Shakespearean references and love going around. And even at the end of the book, where Robbie and Donough paraphrased on it 116 to each other.

[00:36:32.820] - Chels

Yeah. So early on in this book, Robbie notes, I read books on the subject of twins. I was possessed by Cormack and Donough Gaylord on my tracks up the beach. I imagined perfection as they merged into one flesh. Where my Donough feared to tread, Cormack would rashly charge and carry me away. So he recognizes that Donough has a paralyzing fear that could stop them from becoming lovers. And the only way he can really visualize a union is to combine Donough with the qualities that he's attributed to Cormack. He doesn't know Cormack. Honestly, what he's heard at this point is not flattering. So it's a little bit amazing that he came to this. When Robbie realizes that a lot of his intimacy with Donough was actually with Cormack, this works to affirm that belief that the three of them are the most unified version of love he can imagine, with Donough and Cormack making up for each other's deficiencies. But this is also Robbie being extremely fanciful as Cormack has a black and white thinking about love. It's either the way I want it to be or it's violence. Remember him attacking Brian in the cave after Brian rejected his advances.

[00:37:23.380] - Chels

This is essentially how Cormack tries to resolve Robbie's unwillingness to run away with him. If we can't be together in life, we'll be together in death. Earlier in the book, Robbie quotes Wuthering Heights while thinking of Donough. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. And this happens before he begins his regular trips with Cormack, who he thinks is Donough at the time. So it's a little bit of foreshadowing for how Cormack and Robbie's relationship will end, which is tragically. And I guess just to tie it to another book. This has been rolling around in my brain, and I can compare Cormack to Sean from Stormfire, particularly in the way that they approach the possibility of love as if it's impossible for them. And they can't really divorce it from violence. It's this thing that Sean says, I gape at love and rent it with clumsy fingers, yet still hold its tatters close in idiot hope it may live again. I think.

[00:38:03.660] - Emma

The point about Robbie being fanciful is important because he has a shifting understanding of the formula of love, which makes sense because he's 17 during the main events of the book. He lines himself up as a parallel to Donough. Though they have really different backstories and motivations for their introversion. But simultaneously, both Robbie and Donough feel this acute absence of Cormack's dynamism and action, even at its most violent. That shifting and processing of what love looks like when violence is baked into the world that you're existing in, especially when it comes to aligning yourself with the object of your affection, reminded me of The Talented Mr. Ripley, both the 1998 film and the Patricia Highsmith method. And that is what all of Robbie's insistence that he and Donough are the same made me think of, and that both the movie and novel, The Watcher and observer and Adopter of Another's Life is cast as sinister/as sympathetic. One of the parts that makes Ripley sympathetic is the tragedy of losing himself in his cons and his marks. It's really sad to watch. Robbie, as a first person, narrator doesn't characterize the subsumption of himself into Donough Gaylord as negative.

[00:38:48.050] - Emma

It's what makes this a happy ever after. But it's just different than that foil of the romanticization he thinks about in terms of Cormack.

[00:38:54.230] - Beth

Do you have anything else? Yeah, we can do anything. That was really great. I do.

[00:38:58.040] - Emma

Like the concept of reading books about twins. What is he reading? Is it a scientific book? What is he picking up that he's like, This will make me understand Cormack and Donough?

[00:39:07.390] - Chels

Yeah, I was thinking too. It was so funny. I was thinking about twins and historical romance because I have a handful that I always think of. And I'm like, none as sinister is a Gothic, though. I think that this is a very specific. Oh, Crimson Peak? Aren't they twins in that? Yes. Okay, yeah, it's Crimson Peakk. Yeah, that's a good twins and incest again. So Jones is a hugely important character to the story. He's almost like a foil for Robbie. Robbie is gentle, not super inquisitive, extremely well educated and beautiful. Robbie hates Jones who he describes as ugly, uncouth, mean-spirited and nosy. He's also put off by Jones's ambition, the Blackmail attempt and his relationship with both Keyes and Denver's. It's not until Jones dies that Robbie sees him as a victim. What do you make of Jones character arc?

[00:39:46.740] - Emma

I think having another outsider come into the house did a lot of work of making the book more readable once Jones showed up. Maybe it was a little bit of a meta theater, but I was feeling really untethered about what exactly was going on at Gaywyck with Donough and servants. When Jones comes in and is announcing, Things are a bit weird, but I'm going to use that to get mine. It's so different than Robbie's approach of waiting and seeing what's going to happen with all these weird things that are going on at the house. It made, at least for me as a reader, be able to follow what was going on more because Jones starts asking questions about the men in the house. Gothic main characters are so often these observers. I really thought of The Second Mrs. de Winter is a huge one who just watches things going on in the house and doesn't ask questions. But something has to happen to move the plot forward and shake the watcher out of the corner that they're standing in. I think Jones's death serves that function for Robbie.

[00:40:26.000] - Chels

Jones is one of the standout characters of the book for me. He's one of the most unsettling presences, and he also has that horrifying death. He's seen by Robbie as a usurper disrupting his piece of Gaywyck. But Jones was maybe a bit more of a canary in the coal mine as something was very, very wrong beforehand. But Robbie was just willing to ignore it. Jones gets a over the top Gothic death that's reserved for schemers where his corpse is described in a horrifying way that will stick with your memory. I read Victoria Holt, The India Fan, as a child, and I don't remember much of that book, but I do remember the death of Lavinia, who was a beautiful and treacherous woman whose ambition got killed. Her body is discovered by the heroine mutilated and spread eagle on a bed, and it just sticks out as that one moment above all others that you'll probably remember because it seems so much more intense than the rest that came before it. Robbie spends so much time thinking about Jones as an adult man. But for the reader, it's so clear that his behavior is out of a child that's not only been neglected, but abused by the adults that he's in the care of. His death is the first time that Robbie sees how vulnerable Jones was in that household.

[00:41:20.130] - Beth

Yeah, I really liked what both of you said, and Jones is voicing what isn't being said, almost like the voice of the reader where he's like, That's weird, Robbie. And there are so many pairs in this book. So I think Robbie and Jones relationship mimics Donough and Cormack in a way, at least in their character traits where Jones is outspoken and won't let things lie is like Cormack. And I found this quote that I feel puts Jones and Cormack in the same box in a way. So Jones says, after he tells Robbie what Cormack did to Brian, Cormack was a fucker. And you think I'm a bad lot, observed Jones winking and leaving me to my agitated self. In my bed that night, I found 13 headless bees, which again is like a reference to something that Cormack did, where he cut off 13 heads of bees. That's weird.

[00:42:01.700] - Chels

And Cormack was also 13 when he did that, which is the same age that Jones is.

[00:42:05.660] - Emma

And it's one of those things where the first bees were weird. And Robbie was like, Cormack was such a- Such a goofy kid. -goofy kid. That's so strange to find this. And it's like, no, this is signaling violence to come, Robbie. And then when Jones puts it in the bed, it's like, oh, you cannot ignore that this is a sign of violence. This is a clue of violence that's going on in this household. And I feel.

[00:42:22.840] - Beth

It's just... Robbie has this optimistic, pure vision of Gaywyck. He's having a great time, as we were joking about before. But it's like, Jones who is experiencing the trauma and the dystopian view of Gaywyck.

[00:42:35.700] - Chels

Yeah. And Jones, I think the uncharitable ways that Robbie described him made it that much more clear to me how vulnerable Jones was. Like, yes, he's extremely clever. He's smarter than Robbie, frankly, in a lot of ways. He's extremely clever, but he also is not anywhere near as educated. He's not handsome or attractive. He cannot pass for being wealthy. Robbie is able to enter a lot of spaces. I don't think there's any version of the world where Jones would have an ambition for Harvard or that would be something that people would foster within him. And because of that vulnerability and because of the fact that he had to constantly be advocating for himself, he like... Robbie sees him as someone who is more than capable and also is frankly evil, but it makes it easier for the adults in his life to take advantage of him because they're also painting him as an adult as well.

[00:43:25.750] - Emma

I think too, Jones's intelligence, in contrast to Robbie's, I think it could cast Robbie. I think Robbie is definitely in the Gothic mode of a too stupid to live heroine. He's right there of just lack of observance. But Jones's presence doesn't make Robbie seem dumber or more too stupid to live. It's more like, Oh, you just have access to different realities of Gaywyck. It almost makes Robbie's not asking questions make more sense because it's like, why would you mess up? You got the good part of Gaywyck. Why would you mess that up? Now there's someone else here who's sowing discord and Robbie's like, Stop doing that. I don't want things to change. But also while that's happening, Jones has entered into these abusive relationships when with Denvers and Keyes, who are both sleeping with Robbie and have told themselves that they fall in love with Robbie. Not Robbie, with Jones. And so they're abusing the younger boy. And so while Robbie gets to fall in love with the man who's a little bit older than him and gets to have this happy ever after, Jones is relegated to pretty clearly abuse. He's much younger than Robbie. He's 13 and much younger than the men who are abusing him.

[00:44:18.470] - Beth

And it explains why Robbie doesn't ask questions, but also it gets to the point where Robbie has to start wondering what's going on at Gaywyck.

[00:44:25.070] - Beth

Yeah, it's funny because in our little group chat, Emma and I had not read this book, and we were like, Oh, this is like a little utopia. And Chels was like, Obviously, you're not very far into the book yet. But I think we're both right at the part before Jones had entered the picture. So it was like a utopia where we were like, Oh, they're just fun. And they're going to New York and spending time with Donough's friends and having this great time. And so yeah, everything you said is perfect, Emma. He doesn't want to shake his vision of Donough. He's having a great time, so it does at least clarify why we have such an uninquisitive hero.

[00:44:49.460] - Emma

And I knew that the other shoe would drop because it's a Gothic. I was like, Oh, Cormack is going to come back. I think I told my sister, I was like, Oh, they're doing a Prestige. That was my thing. That was my thing.

[00:44:56.920] - Chels

I did too. Where's the other bird?

[00:44:58.780] - Emma

I was thinking like, The Cormack is not dead. I knew that immediately. They're twins and one of them is dead, one of them is not dead. I expected Cormack to come back, but I thought all of the sinister nature of Gaywyck would come from Cormack coming back, and he would start... When things are going missing or he would start abusing Robbie or tricking Robbie, but it was actually that the rot was so much more extended to these characters. I was like, Oh, this is so great. These weird gay men have been employed at Gaywyck and there's this little utopia, and they're training Robbie to be a librarian. This seems so nice. But actually, it's so much wider than that of abuse and that rot by this family and house.

[00:45:31.860] - Beth

I do like it wasn't all like, we had a solitary bad guy. I think it makes it seem like the intergenerational trauma is divvied out to everyone. I feel like it's just like it's a little bit harder when it's multiple people involved.

[00:45:44.710] - Chels

Yeah, because you could potentially point to Cormack and Donough's father as the instigator. I think that's in some ways, it doesn't really, but they're like, Oh, he flew too close to the sun and he dangled Denver's from a string, not realizing that would eventually be what gets him killed. But it's like all of these characters on their own are bad actors and who knows what would have happened. If Jones never arrived in the story at all, the only thing that would really change is that Jones wouldn't have died. I guess some of the reveals that Jones had from blackmailing wouldn't have happened. But, Keyes and Denver were both still attacking Robbie. Robbie just didn't know it.

[00:46:22.930] - Beth

Yeah.

[00:46:23.950] - Chels

Virga wrote in the author's note that after Stonewall, he noticed that, quote, The mad wife and attic secret of Jane Eyre had been overtaken by the husband having a male lover in Gothic romance, and that the beast of a husband dies ignomiously and the now wealthy orphan faces the future with the real man who has been lurking the plot as a dress extra. So what's interesting to me is that, Gaywyck is not a book that's afraid of nastiness. Almost all the characters are gay men, and with the exception of Robbie and maybe Brian have behaved in pretty horrifying ways. In 2023, we're obsessed with the idea of good representation when it comes to queer media, but that would exclude more complicated and groundbreaking works like, Gaywyck. What do you think has changed since Virga published the story?

[00:46:58.020] - Emma

When it comes to queer representation and discourse I see about this mostly on TikTok, there seems to be this angle is like, What if straight people read this and then think less of gay people? Which is just so clearly not what Virga is concerned with. His audience seems to be gay men. He has all these references to this canon of 20th century films that I really strongly associate with gay men, the references to Bette Davis films, the reference to Audrey Hepburn films that I can imagine as in-jokes with an in the know community of gay men. It seems so unfair to demand that Virga anticipate an audience that he might not think would read his book anyway, or that he doesn't really seem to care if they read it. Plus, Gaywyck exists with this extreme conflict. Sometimes the sweetness in queer romance means that the subgenre makes for one type of story over and over where we have low conflict queer romances, which I think people sometimes write or read in response to this question of representation. And I think there's definitely a place for those. But I don't think queer people should only get low conflict romances. We should be able to read queer stories that are extremely high conflict like Gaywyck.

[00:47:44.510] - Beth

Yeah, I hope people don't exclude it when they want to talk about queer media and it's meant to push boundaries and challenge you. We've been talking about the first half of the book and world presents as this utopia. Then you learn about all the generational trauma that in this world, and we get some real tragic underpinnings.

[00:47:59.640] - Chels

This is something that I've been obsessed with since reading Gaywyck because I feel like there's now this impossible standard for queer media where it needs to be good representation. But good representation often doesn't mean interesting or useful queer characters. It means queer characters who behave morally and set a good example. I think part of the reasons that this is taken off is that people think that if queer media is unobjectionable, then it can't contribute to further marginalization. But that's also not our responsibility. What makes Gaywyck particularly fascinating is that I can very easily see someone reading it and thinking, This book paints gay people as inherently sexually, deviant, or incestuous, which is a way that people do perceive gay people. But Virga, as Emma mentioned, isn't writing a book for people who hate gay people. So why should you have to worry about their perceptions enough to mitigate some of the nastiness and cruelty from the world that he's created?

[00:48:39.030] - Emma

No one's concerned about the representation of straight white men in Romance novels. There's so many of them, and some of them suck. And it's like, That's not coloring anyone. It doesn't make any sense for this to be like, Let's focus on representation for anyone. I think you could even extend it to heroines if you need to do something more broadly. Is the woman doing something feminist? Is the woman not doing something feminist? I think any population that experiences subjugation, that's an unfair standard to set upon them. Is this behavior serving their community? Like, when they're a fictional character within a little universe?

[00:49:07.700] - Chels

Yeah, and that feminist thing that you mentioned too, I think that is particularly even heavier in romance because I think people often tend to treat romance as it has a moral responsibility. I think the reason that we get this idea that romance is a moral genre is, I think, partially because of maybe early backlash to romance as a genre where people who are fans of romance wanted to be like, No, it has value. Romance can teach you about consent. It's not all rapey. Or, Romance can teach you about these types of things. But I think we're really doing ourselves a huge disservice by focusing on learning morals from romance, learning good things from romance when that isolating romance as an instructional genre. Gothic romance doesn't need that. Gothic romance has never needed that. But as someone who unfortunately is on TikTok talking about Gothic romance all the time, I can tell you a lot of people's reactions to Gothic romance, especially Gothic romance, bodice ripper. And I think, I don't even know if I would call it... Maybe. But it has a lot in common with bodice rippers. I think comparing Gaywyck and this other Eden, there's so much similarities that's Gothic and the Bodice Ripper.

[00:50:02.320] - Chels

I think the way that people react to that is like, This is immoral. This shouldn't exist. This is romanticizing. And so I think that we're doing everyone a disservice by framing this is a way of thinking about the characters, about the people, about the ideas. We can't have themes, we can't explore things. We can't just be uncomfortable and sit in that for a little bit. And Gaywyck is, I think, maybe where I'm going to put all my hopes that people will understand because this is a very big book. It's very important and groundbreaking in a lot of ways. I think that because of that, we can look at it and say, Oh, it doesn't need to be moral. It's a Gothic romance, and it gets its value from other places.

[00:50:42.640] - Emma

How useful is representation? If the representation is serving people who are not being represented. If you're writing queer representation, but your main audience is hateful straight people, that's not useful to anyone. Even if that's what you're aiming at. It just doesn't make any sense to demand Virga to think like, Oh, what if people read this in bad faith? That's not fun. The book would be less fun to read as a Gothic if the characters were moral.

[00:51:03.880] - Chels

And something I think about, too, about the way that I think this could potentially happen, it would be putting Gaywyck on par with the books that Virgo was critiquing when he wrote Gaywyck, because the gay villain is actually a huge thing in older historical romances in the '70s, particularly the idea the violence is stemming from gayness. And it becomes even more uncomfortable when you realize that that is typically the height of the AIDS epidemic when these stories were coming out, when it would hurt the most. So I think that's making him analyzing his work from that exact same perspective of morality and should the characters and what is this trying to say. When Virga has all of his characters are gay. There is no gay villain. There are many gay villains. Every character is gay. It's just a very different thing. I guess I'm thinking of the Fortune's Lady by Patricia Gaffney. That is actually a very good book with a very horrifying ending. And it has that same thing where it's like the villain of the story. He's a masochist, I think. And part of his violence comes from the fact that he's not attracted to women.

[00:51:58.680] - Chels

And so he hurts them instead. That's a way that people used to talk about gay people. I think I can understand the defensiveness of not wanting to see this type of character. But I think that when you talk about gay criminals, I think you need to zoom out a little bit on what is actually being said, what is being told. Then also maybe think about themes, maybe not necessarily about literal characters representing literal things. I don't know, there's a lot of different ways to think about it, but it just makes my skin itch to think about people saying that A week has bad representation the way that Fortune's Lady would be a better representation.

[00:52:30.980] - Beth

I just feel like it's a shallow analysis, and I think people want to get ahead of criticisms that they feel like might be coming by just labeling like, Okay, we've got some queer criminals here that seems like this other thing, so I'm just going to label this bad. As opposed to being really looking at what Virga is doing differently as opposed to this standard queer villain that we get at times and not seeing how he has subverted it.

[00:52:51.310] - Chels

I've seen this book described as not having a happily ever after, but I actually think it has an HEA. That is very similar in tone to a lot of Bodice Rippers. It's bittersweet and leaves you feeling a bit winded, but it's most definitely the couple ending up together. Do you agree with this assessment or do you also see other similarities to Bodice Rippers? I think.

[00:53:08.210] - Beth

It's similar in tone because a lot of Bodice Rippers are spiritually closer to Gothic romances. And he published this in 1980, so the genre convention of a very tidy, happily ever after hadn't quite become the standard yet. But it is still like, this is a happily ever after. I think it's just because you go through so much, the same with the bodice ripper, like Stormfire. We read that and we're like, Yeah, they're together, but who knows? Yeah. Last chapter is ended. I guess you couldn't quite say that with Gaywyck because we do get a little snippet into the future and that they live a happy life. A long, happy life. Yeah, a nice long life together. But they have gone through so much together. It feels very similar to a Bodice Ripper.

[00:53:42.650] - Emma

Yeah, I was thinking about it in a happily ever after in terms of there being a house problem that the house problem has to be solved, because I think that's another connection between this book and Rebecca and Jane Eyre, where the house has to be dealt with. Gaywyck the house is the source of all this rot. And Virga takes it even a step further and maybe more literally. So in both Rebecca and Jane Eyre, the house is burn down at the end of the book, and that's what allows there to be a cleansing of the couple and let's look to get their happy ever after. But in this book, Gaywyck has already been burned. That's when the father and his lover died and supposedly Cormack died, was there was a fire at the house, and it's been since rebuilt. So now with Donough taking over, the post-burning would be the fresh start of the house. But because of Cormack's continued presence and then also Keyes and Denvers own participation in the rot of abusive, coercive relationships, that keeps the newness from happening. And so what they have to do to get to their happy ever after outside of Gaywyck is that they steal away to the Gramercy Park Hotel, or the Gramcery Park House.

[00:54:28.800] - Emma

And that's where they stay and that's where they set up their central hub for themselves as a couple. Just that's interesting that the normal way for a Gothic romance that's centered on a house to deal with the house is to burn it down. And the first time it burns, the way it burns, it doesn't work, and they have to do something completely different.

[00:54:44.650] - Chels

Yeah. And the authors note, Virga, described the ending of Gaywyck by saying, Gaywyck ends with a happy union, conjoined lives full of intimacy and happiness. They're not with the loss of individuality. If, quote, unquote, gay culture evolves in part from a closeted, lonely, promiscuous existence, then I'm obviously in favor of its demise. However, I never conceived a life for my characters like the 1950s sitcom version of Marriage. So it does meet the HEA. Requirement in that Robbie and Donough spend the rest of their lives together, although the end of the happiness is more abrupt, similar as you were saying, Beth, about how we experienced the ending of Stormfire. I think this is maybe where Virga's comments about the 1950s version of marriage comes into play and the idea that happily ever after for a gay couple has to look different than it does for straight people. So yeah, I guess does anybody have any final thoughts?

[00:55:25.570] - Emma

I just love how much Virga loves Audrey Hepburn. I found different references to Audrey Heppard movies. I was like, I want to talk to him about Audrey Heppard. I also want to talk to him about Gene Tierney because I wonder if he's seen Dragonwyck. That's what the title maybe think of, is Dragonwyck, which was the Gothic novel.

[00:55:36.830] - Chels

He has seen Dragonwyck. He references it in the author's note.

[00:55:38.660] - Emma

Okay, I don't think my edition had an author's note in it, but I was like, This reminded me of Dragonwick, which is a great movie with Vincent Price. So again, a very queer-coded husband with Gene Tierney who comes to the house and has to uncover. That's also a very good labor movie because it has to do with labor riots. But yeah, I love the references to old Hollywood movies, which is something that I would never have thought to say. I read that he does that. I was like, This is going to be so contrived. How is he going to reference old Hollywood movies in this book that's set in 1899? But he pulls it off with aplomb. He's very skilled at integrating quotes, and it seems like very organic dialog when he does it.

[00:56:08.220] - Beth

If you join our Patreon, you can get more old Hollywood movie recommendations from Emma.

[00:56:13.310] - Chels

We put Emma on hook for that then. I assume.

[00:56:16.500] - Beth

There'll be more in the future. There's a lot of them on there, so you can just scroll down.

[00:56:19.890] - Chels

Yeah, and I'll put a meme.

[00:56:22.690] - Beth

You'll get shit posting from Chels.

[00:56:24.960] - Chels

That's my area of expertise. Yeah, no, I did really like Gaywyck. I think I'm going to be spending the next few weeks processing it, thinking about it again because there's so much in here. I love it when people write a book that's not an easy read. It's something that I can pull more out of from conversation. I've had thoughts during our conversation that I've never had before the few times that I've read it, and I think that's just so fun. Gothic romance is superior, I think. I just love Gothic romance. I'm a spooky dude. I want.

[00:56:55.270] - Emma

To read more of it now. I've been reading about Victoria Holt, but I haven't read any Victoria Holt yet.

[00:56:58.430] - Chels

Oh, really?

[00:56:59.000] - Emma

So I had in connection with this, but also because I was thinking about heroes who want to kill their wives. I just was like, Oh, like this. I was just reading a lot about different plot summaries from Victoria Holt. I was like, I need to do the pick one and read it. Because I'm into spooky things. I was also thinking I like that Virga. I think Virga is the only person who could have written this book. I keep trying to start Regency Romances, and I'm just getting tired of plug and chug, mad lib, romances, which I think there's a place for and I often sometimes find comfort in, but it's just not the season of my life right now. I don't want to read anything about a ballroom. There's something else has to happen.

[00:57:26.890] - Beth

We're entering our Gothic season, reformed rakes altogether. I have The Silver Devil sitting on my Kindle. But every time I'm about to open it, I'm like, We're probably going to do an episode on this one.

[00:57:36.110] - Chels

We are absolutely going to do an episode.

[00:57:37.700] - Beth

They called Just Save It for them. But yeah, it was really good. I like what you said that it's a book I've been thinking about. I don't know. I think we're a good book. I want to be like, This is the best book I've ever read, but it's very compelling. We have to say there's lots in there.

[00:57:52.390] - Emma

They were definitely parts where I was like, Oh, I don't think this is written as well. Or at least Beth and I struggled to follow some of the dialog tags, which I think it's maybe a convention that I'm just used to reading newer books that have more handholding for the reader in romance of following a plot. And also there is so much plot, and that's so different than a lot of modern historical romance that focuses so much just on the romance arc. But it's still with... I kept me reading. Even when I was like, I have no idea what's going on. I was like, I think I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. I'm compelled to continue going. And some of the descriptions of the house and characters by Robbie, especially when he's thinking to himself or writing in his journal, was incredible writing. He is very evocative.

[00:58:27.450] - Beth

And the family history tellings. Perfect. The family history.

[00:58:29.630] - Chels

So good. Yeah, that was perfect. Yeah, my whole thing is if I'm reading a Gothic and I don't know what's happening, I'm like, I am the heroine. I don't know what's happening. Yes, you just keep going. It would be revealed to me in time. That's crazy.

[00:58:40.380] - Beth

Exactly. Some villain will arrive and tell you what his plot is. But all the other villain were up to as well.

[00:58:46.540] - Chels

Thank you so much for listening to Reformed Raikes. If you enjoy the podcast, you can find monthly bonus episodes on our patron at patron. Com/reformedrakes. You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram for show updates. The username for both is @reformedrakes. Thank you again and we'll see you next time.