Andrew Holleran’s Ode to Autumn

AUTUMN IN L.I. | BB Nichols’s recent essay about welcoming in autumn got me thinking about a short story I love by Andrew Holleran. It’s no secret that Holleran is one of my favorite authors — since I wrote about him here, and here, and here. This particular story is relevant now, because it chronicles the days after Labor Day on Fire Island.

Both the story and the collection are titled, “In September, the Light Changes” which was first published by Plume in 2000. Here, the nameless narrator (many of Holleran’s narrators are nameless) has chosen to stay behind in the Fire Island beach house where he and his friends have spent the summer. Holleran’s descriptions of the beaches, the water, the stillness of the island — I can only imagine, having never been there — are poetry.

Sometimes he uses alliterations when describing something– “a shell in whose hallows the wind whistled, when….”

Other times, the describes things in groups of threes — “the sky was …low, lurid, surreal” and “he waited, secretly, patiently, devotedly.”

Usually, he describes a feeling or mood by simply cataloging the objects around him — no metaphors, no similes — just a stark, but acute observation — like when he describes the narrator’s visit to a nearby couple’s home:

“There was in the house, too, the same almost unbearable domestic charm: the kerosene lanterns, the pot on the stove, the faded jeans and old sweaters, one dull red, the other dull green.”

Still, beyond his ability to paint a portrait — to really draw you into the work — Holleran is obsessed with gay relationships. This is, perhaps, the reason why I read Holleran most: his observations about how men engage with each other, especially regarding intimate situations. Here’s an example:

He had a friend who went home with lovers the way a bee attaches itself to a flower; it was the love between them his friend fed on, and wanted, it was their intimacy he wanted to witness, when, after feeding on the stranger, they inevitably turned to each other, and, their fantasies spent, they renewed their commitment in view of this third party.

And that’s when you realize that Holleran doesn’t need to describe anything with a metaphor, because the whole story is a sort of metaphor. If the narrator is one of two lovers, then the post-Labor-Day, Fire Island silence is the third party, and having “fed” on that silence, the lover is ready to join his other half: the city, the people, the crowds.

“That’s why lovers go home with third parties,” he said. “To make them remember they want each other more than anyone else.”

“In September, the Light Changes” is a love poem to the end of summer and a reluctant ode to autumn and the decline it foreshadows.

 Related posts:

1. Andrew Holleran’s ‘Dancer from the Dance’ O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How...
2. Andrew Holleran’s nameless alter-ego can’t move past his own Grief “Old age is no place for sissies.” —Bettie Davis Over the course of a few weeks the homo-neurotics traded emails about Andrew Holleran’s latest...
3. Farewell Summer, Hello Autumn EVERYBODY DOES IT // Like waking from a dream, the transition from summer to fall always unsettles me. Though I may be jumping the gun, fall...
4. Aoibheann Sweeney’s novel is a little bit gay Among Other Things I’ve Taken Up Smoking delivers us a poignant new voice in Aoibheann Sweeney. She deftly maneuvers family relationships and adolescent sexuality through...
5. Is Fire Island Burning Out? SHADY PINES // Fire Island is a mind f*ck. What do I mean by this? Well, we’re meant believe that this gay getaway helped give...