A Way of Love

James Courage was an accomplished writer and a diffident one. He suffered from self-doubt and bouts of depression for much of his adult life, but his literary treatment of homosexual life was pioneering. His personal diaries see-sawed between self-acceptance and self-deprecation.

‘One should be able to write of one’s sexual predilections as naturally as one’s taste in food,’ he asserted, before concluding: ‘I am a good novelist, I might say, because I am an invert, a neurotic and an incomplete human being. But never would I have chosen such a fate.’

Above: Effie, the main female character in Desire Without Content (1950), was based on a man Courage knew, and the author later alluded to a queer subtext. In Fires in the Distance (1952), a gay youth named Leo (based on Courage's friend Ronnie Peter) moved from the Canterbury High Country to Christchurch in search of love and friendship.

A Way of Love, published in England in 1959, is the first gay novel by a New Zealander. Courage’s earlier book Fires in the Distance had queer characters, and Desire Without Content was profoundly coded, but A Way of Love was the real deal: it tells of a domestic relationship between Bruce, a middle-aged architect, and a younger man named Philip. The book also explored the social world of queer London during the 1950s. Courage came to realise that ‘only when I’m writing of homosexual love am I truly at home’. New Zealand officials banned A Way of Love in 1962, but by then it had found fans both here and in the UK. One man phoned Courage to say ‘how identical his life and circumstances were to the lad named Philip’. Another wrote him a ‘glowing’ letter, and declared A Way of Love to be ‘the best homosexual novel of our epoch’.

Above: covers for the English and US editions of A Way of Love.

Courage’s diaries chart the book’s path from awkward inception to fan favourite. Readers’ responses cheered Courage no end, although he noted the ‘slightly schizoid sensation when seeing my name in print: some other me has been at work’.

Here are some diary excerpts in which Courage tells of the book's progress:

‘Finished typing and revising the book (I supposed I must call it a novel) to which I’ve now given the [preliminary] title of "In Private". No other book I’ve written has given me such trouble, such doubts, and such hard labour (blood and tears, my God) as this one, no doubt because the persona of the book’s supposed first-person narrator is not precisely my persona and I’ve had to alter my style accordingly. But – apart from this – the subject-matter of the book was extremely hard to deal with, or at any rate to deal with with artistic integrity and detachment. Outside prejudices and assumed disapproval kept getting in the way – not to mention the defences and infantile repressions of my own mind. Homosexuality, in fact, is both a valid human theme and a clinical phenomenon: and the line between the two is very difficult to preserve in balance, so to speak. I doubt very much if I have succeeded – or succeeded in this, my first attempt, to tackle the subject head-on: I may need a second try, later. Still, I have finished this present book. It took me about nineteen months, with a long gap of about four months somewhere in the middle. Now I must get an outside opinion of it – dreaded process – first from my agent and then, presumably from a publisher or publishers.’
 
‘Publication day of A Way of Love. This book had given me immense trouble to write (or induced in me immense guilt, which may amount to the same thing) and I had got to the point, last week, of wishing I could withdraw it before publication (it was accepted by Cape almost exactly a year ago). Even now, and after a good review in yesterday's  Observer ("Mr Courage is an artist who has made a modest contribution to literature …”), I feel as though I had thrown myself, as a homosexual, on the hostile mercy of the world: committed myself irretrievably to perdition, as it were; an anal outcast. So be it.’

‘Homosexuality, for all its flippant and amusing sides, is a tragedy for the individual (who cannot change his true inclination, try how he may). It cuts him off from the vivid involuntary force and drive of life – he has no part in its continuation – his love (his physical, sexual love) is sterile – his happiness precarious. Have I said all this in A Way of Love? Much of it, yes, by implication at least. Much else I have hidden or glossed over. Yet I suppose I had to write the book, had to publish it, had to feel as I do. It was in me and had to come out.’

‘I went out to a small party given by B. and R., a "queer" gathering of seven or eight. I lost some of my depression simply by talking, and was helped by an attitude of respect on the part of the younger guests towards me as a writer. One young man (Nicholas by name) praised two of my books, particularly the last (A Way of Love), which he had recommended to his friends with gratifying results (“they were impressed”).’

‘A fan-letter for me this morning. Two foolscap pages in large rather characterless hand from a man, age unknown, who describes himself as a display artist. He has read all my books but writes about the queer one: “It’s difficult to express appreciation of such a fine work, indeed almost impossible … I like everything about this book … I like the brevity of your descriptions, terse and vivid, conveying exactly what is required … and the admirable treatment, sensitively handled with tender intimacy. It’s so human. You have given life and compassion to a story which could have become a bawdy sensational theme … Each time of reading only convinces me more of your talents as a most skilled and accomplished writer …” And so on. I feel I must acknowledge such a welcome blast of praise.’

Another fan letter praising A Way of Love.

This blog post first appeared in the New Zealand Society of Authors newsletter, November 2023, to mark Courage Day. A Way of Love is unfortunately out of print, but some libraries have copies.

Source:

Brickell, C. (ed), James Courage Diaries (Otago University Press, 2021).