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| Advance Reader Copy of Douglas Stuart, John of John photo: Larry Wolf (2026) |
"There had been a time in their late twenties when it seemed John could no longer pretend. He would come to Innes, his eyes rubbed pink with guilt and exhaustion. ... In those days, John snuck away more frequently and it was a feast for Innes. They led the dogs on long unnecessary meanders, until they found a hollow in the hillside somewhere dry, somewhere away from the eyes of their neighbours. The land was so bare it was a hard thing to find, but over the years they had come to map all the places they could be together and they came to know them by the flowers that grew nearby, or by the shape of the rocks that hung overhead.
...
"He would ... ask John to spend a sunny afternoon curled up with him, the curtains drawn tight against the world... He had magazines about the gay community and he would read articles about the need to abolish Section 28, about the director who tended a garden next to a nuclear reactor. He would declare that what they were was 'gay'. And John would bear it silently. And he would hate it."
[Douglas Stuart, John of John, pages 169 & 222]
the director who tended a garden next to a nuclear reactor / Derek Jarman
