The Writing and Publishing of Australia’s First Gay Novel

Abstract

The Australian writer Gerald Marcus Glaskin was quite a handsome fellow, though his naval record—complexion sallow, hair black, eyes brown; height five feet ten inches; scar on his forehead—suggests otherwise (National Archives of Australia). His good looks were combined with a sharp mind and a quick wit, overall a combination that served him well for much of his life. While Glaskin's reputation as a writer has faded, his legacy should not be forgotten. His writing was powerful and found an appreciative audience in the 1950s and 1960s. One book in particular deserves revisiting and it holds an iconic place in Australia literature. No End to the Way, published by Barrie & Rockliff of London in 1965 under the pseudonym Neville Jackson, is the first overtly gay Australian novel (Hurley 190). The book had a powerful impact on a generation of young Australian men coming to terms with their homosexuality, as demonstrated by the audience responses to a version of this paper delivered to the Australian Homosexual Histories conference at the University of Melbourne in November 2013.