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Whyte’s first novel, Euphemia MacFarrigle and the Laughing Virgin (London, Gollancz 1995), is an uproarious satire on sectarian discrimination, anti-gay prejudice, gay self-repression and the religious establishment, set in Glasgow. A group of pious Catholic women stockpile condoms and the Catholic archbishop is afflicted by a farting virus while, in a suburban convent, everything is done to hush up the mystery of no fewer than three virgin births. Fay Weldon, in the Mail on Sunday, found the book ‘Endearing and very funny... I take Christopher Whyte to be a serious writer, seriously funny’, while in the Scotsman, Gavin Wallace claimed ‘Whyte can write like an angel, but with a pen dipped liberally in the devil’s ink’. He followed this with ‘something completely different’, the life story of a 17th century Scottish warlock – a male witch – recounted by himself in an absolutely matter of fact style. His tale is framed by an introduction from an endearing pedantic place-names specialist and an epilogue by this man’s gay nephew. The warlock, whose name we never learn, can change himself into different animals, and even changes sex when his love for a rival witch named Lisbeth makes this essential. The Warlock of Strathearn (London, Gollancz 1997) is the only Scottish novel in which his congregation hangs the minister on the instructions of a heretic, rather than the other way round. |
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Whyte’s third novel is called The Gay Decameron. Ten gay men assemble for a dinner party in a flat in Edinburgh’s New Town. Gradually, we come to know each of their stories and the intricate web of love and desires that links them. One of the party becomes engrossed in reading an Oriental tale which is interspersed with the contemporary narratives. Dealing with these men’s joys and hopes, their victories and tragedies, with the AIDS epidemic in Scotland and interactions with families and on the workplace, Whyte offers the most detailed, intimate and generous panorama of gay lives so far attempted in any European language. His fourth novel heralded a further complete change. The Cloud Machinery (London, Gollanz 2000) is set in early 18th century Venice. After more than a decade of disuse, the theatre at Sant’Igino once more hosts a programme of operas and comedies. The men and women responsible for mounting the season, however, have to contend with the memories and consequences of what happened on the night the theatre closed down. As in his second novel, Whyte interweaves magical happenings with the narrative, but this time the tone is infinitely lighter. When the villain Goffredo Schwarz unleashes his magic on the lagoon city, his plans are foiled, not without the help of the retired castrato Angelo Colombani, who has been hiding away for years in the attic of the theatre, obsessed with the tiny set designs that he constructs. This novel was translated into Italian as La macchina delle nuvole (Milan, Corbaccio 2002) and into German as Die stümme Sängerin (Berlin, kindler 2002, paperback Fischer 2005). |
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