I wrote to them, and told them about The Blue Lawn. They asked to read it. They liked it very much and published it. While certainly not selling in enormous numbers, it earned significant critical acclaim. It was honoured by the New York Public Library, was a finalist for the Michael L Printz medal—the prime US award for young adult fiction—and was also a finalist in the Lambda book awards for gay writing. It travelled on to the United Kingdom where it was also well-received.

Alyson did a great job of packaging the book. The jacket shows a misted sort of blue lawn of grape hyacinth and depicts the jeaned legs and sneakered feet of the two characters, David and Theo, against a blue background, and quotes the New Zealand Listener review: ‘A powerful, sensitive work of fiction that pushes the boundaries’. Several years later I stayed with Alyson’s senior editor in Los Angeles—the firm had moved from Boston—and told him I thought the cover was terrific and asked who the legs belonged to. ‘Just a couple of people from the office,’ he said, and smiled. ‘We couldn’t find two guys whose legs matched very well. One of them is a woman.’ Fair enough, too!

Alyson Books co-published Jerome with Longacre Press of Dunedin. The jacket is also stunningly good, depicting a soulful-looking young man. Definitely male, this one—a photo of a young Czech porn star who happened to be visiting the Alyson offices to be interviewed for one of their magazines. I did a third novel for Alyson: Pebble in a Pool. I chose not to have this work published in New Zealand.

I have a feeling that there is a price to pay if you choose to run counter to the general flow. In some quarters of the children’s literature establishment, I am considered not too kosher. There is something ‘not nice’ about my work. Naturally, this would be vehemently denied! After all, literary folk, even in the arena of books for the young, generally like to see themselves as open-minded and liberal of thought. Fellow writers, as the producers of the product, have always fully supported and encouraged me. With one exception, I recall: ‘Should never have been written, much less published,’ said one of my fellow writers, male, when asked to comment on the success of The Blue Lawn.

The ‘establishment’ I am thinking of is most certainly not the writers. More, it is the clutch of ‘guardians’ and ‘gatekeepers’. These are folk who consider they know what is right and proper. They most certainly believe they know what is right for the young of our nation. They are generally, but not exclusively, women. They work with books in libraries and schools, they may be teachers. They often seem to be very nice people. I spoke to a conference of school librarians a few years back, and my speech did include quite a bit about what are considered to be my more contentious novels. ‘I do have a copy of your book Jerome in my school library,’ a very nice librarian said to me afterwards, ‘but I keep it locked away in a cupboard in my office.’ I can’t waste too much time being paranoid.

Jerome, the central and dead character in the book of the same name, has committed suicide, unable to face his feelings for his very macho best mate, Marco. Marco is devastated at the loss. He comes to terms with what may be his own feelings towards Jerome, helped towards self-realization by the third character in the novel, Katie.