I would say that Holleran's work is proof positive that Roth is right. There isn't a lot of good much less great fiction about disease out there right now, which is why "Grief" stands out.

Holleran is one of the few writers, gay or straight, whose books I want to re-read to experience the world he creates. When people at readings or in interviews ask which post-WW II authors I admire most, who's inspired me as a novelist, I rank Holleran with Roth and Brookner and Baldwin. I couldn't put Grief down it was so compelling. It has amazing depth, richness, and resonance given how short it is. It's filled with one quotable line after another and it offers a brand new view of Washington, DC. If you've recently read Team of Rivals, as I have, it will mean even more. I'm so glad to see salon give Holleran his due, especially since Dancer inspired some very strange commentary in the 90s, so much so that I had to write an essay called "Why are They Bashing Dancer from the Dance?" which appeared in Lambda Book Report and my book Journeys & Arrivals.

I'm really sorry to have to say this. Holleran is an admirable craftsman, and a very, very good writer. But he is no where near Nabokov. Nabokov wove some of the most complex, beautiful and disturbing and universal works in English ever written. (Lolita, Pale Fire). They are up there with Hamlet, with Portrait of a Lady. But, despite being one of the greatest writers in English, English was not Nabokov's native tongue. That, if nothing else, places him in a league of his own. Holleran cannot touch him -- and probably would himself say that he could not try.

I feel I missed out. That was a huge understatement.

I came out in 1981 London after years of trepidation whilst growing up in a strict boarding school in the UK.

When I finally got to drama school in London it was exciting because I was accepted as gay and wsn't burnt at the stake as a heretic.

Then AIDS came along and fear began all over again. I only had one year's respite from my own fears and the overt aggression from bigots.

Aside from the fear engendered by the disease and subsequent backlash from society, AIDS ripped through London robbing us of our friends and stealing their lives.

To me, a missed generation means the horror of young people losing their lives coupled with those of us who lived with multiple bereavements - a psychologist once said it was like the bereavements suffered during wartime. Added to this, uncaring governments, scathing media and abandonment meant you had to find some kind of inner strength to survive.

The nice thing is gay people never forgot how to dance the night away.

“Every generation produces its version of queens.” Wow. What a narrow world-view, even from a gay man whose life experience supposedly makes him more “enlightened”.

Maybe that 22 year-old gay man “who is going through a deep depression over admitting he’s gay” is depressed because when he looks to society for gay role models, all that’s presented to him are mincing queens, tweaked-out circuit boys, or very scary, angry “activist types” who insist that their way is the “one and only true way” to be Gay.

Maybe that 22 year-old gay man is looking around at options that he really doesn’t relate to, and is wondering in one way or another, “Why does my sexual orientation have to be my identity?”

I think the “gay generation gap” both Andrew Holleran and the writer of the article are referring to is a generation of gay men and lesbian women for whom the expression of their sexuality – whatever that may be – is not their sole identity, not the only viewpoint from which they see the world, and not the only criteria they use in evaluating the presence and value of people in their lives.

Yes, they are fully “out and proud”, but it’s just not a big deal to them, they don’t understand society’s current distraction with wondering “who’s gay and who’s not”, and they definitely don’t relate to the stereotypes presented to them by both the media and the gay and lesbian community itself.

A wise man once told me, “Everyone needs to figure out who they are, then go be that on purpose.” For many in the up-and-coming generations of the GLBT community, living “on purpose” does not mean, in any way, filtering one’s entire life experience solely through the lens of “being gay”.

Since the day a dear friend, now long-dead of AIDS, handed me his copy of "Dancer From the Dance," I have been an ardent fan of Andrew Holleran. I have reread the book many times, and also his subsequent books -- all of them -- delighting in his details, his dialogue, and his ability to weave white-hot eroticism through his pages without explicit action (not that there's anything wrong with that...). Only Nabokov achieves that feat as well as Mr. Holleran (in Ada and Lolita, especially). The tragicomic Sutherland and Mr. Friel are among my favorite characters from my long and happy reading life. Ground Zero and The Beauty of Men broke my heart.

As a straight woman, I suppose I am in the minority of my demographic group in my love for the work of this man. Such a pity, since his characters and his passion speak to the pain and longing of all humans.

I didn't even wait to finish reading the article before clicking over to Amazon and buying "Grief." Were I to meet him, I would not be able to speak; I would simply kiss his hand.