Firelands Is a Fine Example of Queer Alternative Literature

By June Pulliam

03/22/2005

Jensen, Michael. Firelands. Los Angeles, CA: Alyson Publications, 2004. 299 p.

A particular subgenre of queer fiction is related to alternative literature in that it takes an old story, usually a classic, and rewrites it, sometimes filling in the blanks in the original work, sometimes retelling the story from the perspective of another character. Examples of alternative literature of this sort can be seen in various issues of this this zine (check out the reviews of The Book of Renfield and The Journal of Professor Abraham Van Helsing, both based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula). But queer alternative literature does something more when rewriting old stories, something akin to the Ted Turner colorized movies from In Living Color, where old black and white classics were not only tinted, but revised to include black characters. Queer alternative literature is a sort of literary archeology, one that uncovers an obscured reality—that one in ten people are gay.

Classic texts, or whole historical periods in some cases, are rewritten to include gay, lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgendered characters.[1] Firelands is Michael Jensen’s recreation of both the early American gothic novel and James Fennimore Cooper’s leatherstocking tales.

Set in 1799 colonial America, the story begins with Cole Seavey hunting alone in the wilderness, seeing the sky obscured by a storm cloud of the soon to be extinct passenger pigeon. The pigeons are a sort of psychopomp, prefiguring Cole’s upcoming supernatural experience. The screeching birds chase Cole off the hillside to the edge of the woods, where he finds a dying woman, seemingly mutilated by a panther. Cole tries to take the injured woman to safety, but the creature (which is not a large panther, but something sinister and unidentifiable) approaches, calling his name.

The creature in not the only thing that isn’t what it seems. Cole too fits this description, since until recently, he has feigned being the dutiful son and devoted fiancée. But Cole, who has tried to remain separate from others for so long, will soon find this stance is no longer possible or desirable. He must save his remaining family in the village from the strange creature, who disembowels humans and livestock with terrible ferocity.

Cole’s mission to save the villagers from the monster leads him down paths he never imagined, including one where he discovers his own sexuality. Early on Cole stumbles upon Pakim, a Delaware Indian, in a comic moment. The two literally bump into one another in the woods. At the time, this encounter is as unsettling for Cole as was his earlier encounter with the panther like creature. Convinced that Pakim means to scalp him, Cole hopes that it won’t hurt too much, since he is at present defenseless as he is currently lost and without his weapons.  But very quickly Cole learns that Indians aren’t all “angry and resentful towards settlers and [desirous of] the chance to avenge themselves on a solitary, unarmed white man.” Pakim nurses an injured Cole back to health and returns him to his village. Later, when the two meet again, Pakim shows Cole other things, such as why he has never really been attracted to women all of his life.

As Cole and Pakim work together to save both the village and the Delaware from the ravenous beast, they also queer the text. As their relationship intensifies and Cole learns about various forms of sexuality, he also comes to discover that there are white men near his village who are like him, and that the Delaware too include tribe members who prefer the company of their own sex. Furthermore, as Cole begins to understand his own sexuality, the text becomes queered as other characters are less tolerant of his and Pakim’s relationship. Firelands is a sort of self-conscious piece of alternative literature not only in its incorporation of gay characters, but in how these characters cause some of the heterosexual characters to react. It’s not so much that these people have always existed in their world and were tolerated or not, but rather, it is as if they traveled through time to queer a historical period that hitherto didn’t really recognize homosexuality or heterosexuality as an identity, and so the gay characters are doubly out of place.[2]

This multilayered queering is perhaps Firelands’s biggest strength as a novel, but it could likewise be its failing to anyone who wants to read it as a horror novel. Similar to most early American gothic novels (or to any 18^th century gothic novels really), the monster almost gets lost in the rest of the story, and by the time its identity is definitively established, we don’t care much since we are a good deal more caught up in the lives of the characters, who are infinitely more interesting than that which they fight.

Thus, if you’re coming to this novel expecting a gory story of a monster with some gay characters thrown in, go find another book, since you’re bound to be disappointed. But if you are looking for something gothic with a writing style that can only be described as an updated fusion of Cooper and Charles Brockden Brown, then you will find Firelands enjoyable.