He adored exotic garb and became fascinated with women, their wardrobes, ways, and wiles. He read voraciously, swooning over pictures of half-naked men in faraway places like Angkor Wat. grew up in hotel lobbies, watching the comings and goings of beautiful women and handsome men. was a dutiful father until he vanished for unknown reasons, abandoning his family along with the Hervey Hotel Company, which had properties in Florida, Alabama, and Texas. was born in Beaumont, Texas, on November 5,1900, to Harry Clay Hervey Sr. Reading his works, three of which are now back in print (with a biography looming), you'll find a discernible gay fingerprint on almost everything he touched. One out fellow now almost totally forgotten was a man whose life spanned the first half of the 20th century: Harry Hervey (19001951), author of The Gay Sarong, was not just a bestselling novelist, but a screenwriter, playwright, and adventurer.

That used to be the standard reaction but more and more we're coming to realize that many colorful gay men and women were on the scene long before Stonewall, influencing popular culture, even producing works with same-sex situations. Who was this American author named Harry Hervey? And could this astonishingly frank book about an obviously gay man really have been published in the 1920s? Pretorius thought, and wrote, about this chance encounter as if he had found a message in a bottle, having unrolled a cri de coeur from the past. Intrigued, he started reading the story of a man who gives up his wife-and women-for a handsome younger man. IN THE 1990s, in a used bookstore in South Africa, journalist William Pretorius stumbled upon a battered copy of a novel titled The Gay Sarong published in 1925.

The Damned Don't Cry by Harry Hervey