The Out Spotlight II

This week we shine on Mary Renault, because so many folks here have mentioned her and I had never heard of her. I thought I should remedy that. Renault was an English writer who is best known for her historical novels of Greece. She included homosexual themes in her works and wrote a contemporary novel, The Charioteer, about a young gay man during WWII that is considered a classic of gay literature. Renault also trained as a nurse and during her training met Julie Mullard, a fellow nurse with whom she had a life-long relationship. The two women moved to South Africa and lived in openly in a gay community there.

Here is an excerpt from the beginning of The Charioteer-

It was the first time he had ever heard the clock strike ten at night. If he had been asleep and waked to hear the strokes, it would have been different, a small manageable fragment broken off the unknown hugeness of night, from somewhere in the middle. He would have been a little uneasy, perhaps, in his waking solitude, and, if he heard anyone stirring, would have found something legitimate to call out for, such as a drink of water. Only babies called out about nothing. The ten months which had passed of his fifth year felt like at least half his remembered life, and he was used to his responsibilities.