James Fugate

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James Fugaté (pseudonym James Barr ; born February 13, 1922 in the United States of America , † March 28, 1995 in Claremore , Oklahoma ) was an American writer who published a number of works with homosexual subjects.

life and work

Shortly after his birth in Texas or Oklahoma , James Fugaté's mother died. Since his father was unknown, he was raised by adoptive parents who gave him a good education. In 1942 he entered the United States Navy and underwent officer training in Chicago after an expedition to Guadalcanal .

After the Second World War , Fugaté began studying professional writing in 1946. After three semesters, however, he dropped out of his studies and went to New York to earn a living drafting advertising texts for television commercials. During this time he also worked on his first novel, Quatrefoil , which was published in 1950 by the small Greenberg publishing house aimed at gay readers under the pseudonym James Barr . The book was positively received by homosexuals, as was its Oklahoma short story collection , which appeared a year later.

In 1951 Fugaté moved to Los Angeles to work as a screenwriter, but in 1952 volunteered as a reserve officer in the Navy and was sent to Alaska . When, in the course of his security clearance, the Office of Naval Intelligence found out that he was the author of Quatrefoil , he was fired from service. After his release, he no longer saw his homosexuality as a personal problem to be addressed and felt “compelled to defend the rights and beliefs of a group of hundreds of thousands”.

In the same year Barr wrote the short story Death in a Royal Family for One Magazine , founded in 1953 , which was staged as a play in 1956 by the editors of the Swiss magazine Der Kreis in Zurich. In the winter of 1953/54 Fugaté returned to his family, which had meanwhile moved to Kansas . There he took up work as a laborer on an oil field, but continued to devote himself to his writing. Other publications for One Magazine and the Circle followed, and an article in the first edition of the Mattachine Review in 1955 describing his experiences as an openly homosexual in a small Kansas town. Also in 1995 he got a column in One Magazine in which he gave his opinion on writers. However, this column was discontinued after three issues.

In an article in the Mattachine Review , in which he reported under the name James (Barr) Fugaté about his discharge from the Navy, he announced his real name for the first time in May 1955. A month later he published a play with Game of Fools , this time under his name James Fugaté. In April 1956, in the Mattachine Review , he described his view, not uncommon for the 1950s, about homosexuality: homosexuality is not a desirable state; many homosexuals could and should become heterosexual and with the right to psychiatric treatment "thousands of homosexuals could hope to lead the lives of normal people".

In the mid-1960s - Fugaté was again in New York and had found an agent - a new edition of Quatrefoil (1965) was published by the publisher Paperback Library and a year later his second novel, The Occassional Man, was published . He decided to move back to Kansas to live with his frail stepmother, where he worked as a reporter and photographer for a newspaper. After the death of his stepmother, he moved again to New York and later to Oklahoma, where he worked in a hospital.

Fugaté died on March 28, 1995 in Claremore, Oklahoma.

Works (selection)

Novels

  • Quatrefoil (Toronto, 1950; New York reissue, 1965)
  • The Occasional Man (New York, 1966)

Short stories and articles

  • Derricks (short story collection; Toronto, 1951)
  • Death in a Royal Family ( One Magazine , 1953; German translation by Rudolf Jung : Death in a royal family from in Der Kreis , 1956)
  • Dear Lady ( The Circle , 1954)
  • Facing Friends in a Small Town ( Mattachine Review , 1955)
  • First reactions to Game of Fools - "But don't quote me!" ( One Magazine , 1955)
  • Homosexuality and the Liberal Mind ( Mattachine Review , 1955)
  • Release from the Navy under Honorable Conditions , ( Mattachine Review , 1955)

theatre

  • Game of Fools ( One Incorporated , 1955)

Poetry

  • Facades ( The Circle , 1956)
  • New Heros ( Der Kreis , 1957; German translation by Ernst Ohlmann (d. I .: Rudolf Jung ): Moderne Helden , Der Kreis , 1957)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Fugate, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Barr, James (pen name); Fugaté, James Barr (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH United States of America
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 1995
Place of death Claremore , Oklahoma