Mazo 2, or, you say she did WHAT?

If ya haven't read Mazo 1 yet, click here.


What makes a dead someone officially homosexual?

Hank Hyena (I kid you not) wrote in Salon magazine some five years ago about what he called "the hunt for gay role models [that has] outed numerous historical figures and fictional characters from Honest Abe to Tinky Winky.... But will the relentless search for homosexual love-nests lead to elevating a homophobe to the purple pantheon?

"J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI chief, and his longtime companion, Clyde Tolson, were an ambiguously gay crime-fighting duo. Inseparable for 44 years, 1928-1972, the two top G-men vacationed together, often dressed similarly and continue their cohabitation even after death. They're buried alongside one another.

"Such facts have garnered Hoover and his handsome right-hand henchman praise as homosexual role models from the Web site Partners' list of 'Famous Lesbian and Gay Couples.' Along with an impressive lineup of long-term lovers, the crime-fighting couple are touted as the 11th-longest romance on a list headed by Canadian authoress Mazo de la Roche and Carol Clement's 75-year love affair.

"Other famous persevering pairs include Greek historical novelist Mary Renault and Julie Mullard (50 years), cubist writer Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas (39 years), poet W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman (34 years), Renaissance wonder Leonardo da Vinci and his apprentice Giacomo Caprotti (30 years) and conqueror Alexander the Great and his cavalry commander Hephaistion (19 years).

"Do Hoover and Tolson really belong on this list? No one has unearthed documentation that the two men had blazing hot sex together. Couldn't they have just been platonic pals? Evidence of physical intimacy is merely circumstantial, although suspicions about J. Edgar and Clyde ran rampant through Washington political circles. Richard Nixon's obscene comment upon hearing of Hoover's death ('Jesus Christ, that old cocksucker!') perhaps describes the opinion of inside observers, but no letters, photos, diaries or reliable witnesses can carnally tie the two men together. The best 'proof' comes from the wife of Hoover's psychiatrist; she claims that Hoover admitted his homosexuality to her husband during a confidential session."

But Hyena's main point isn't so much whether Hoover was homo, but whether a man who spent his life destroying gay people is worthy of admiration by the spiritual successors of his victims. "Even if Hoover and Tolson did engage in a lifelong love affair, does that really make them worthy of admiration? After all, he spread destructive, unsubstantiated rumors that Adlai Stevenson was gay to damage the liberal Illinois governor's 1952 bid for the presidency. He hunted down and threatened anyone who dared to utter an innuendo about his sexual preference. And his extensive secret files contained surveillance material on Eleanor Roosevelt's alleged lesbian lovers, probably gathered for the purpose of blackmail."

Unlike Hoover, Mazo de la Roche deserves no such qualms. She seems to have never denounced lesbians. But as Globe and Mail dude James Adams wrote last weekend, there is apparently a question as to whether de la Roche was truly a dyke.

What is true is that Mazo de la Roche shows up all over the queer Internet. As Hyena noted, she does indeed figure prominently on the Partners Task Force for Gay & Lesbian Couples list of "Famous Lesbian and Gay Couples," which notes that "it is a popular myth that same-sex relationships don't last.... [This list] suggests the reality of committed couples." De la Roche and Clement were together for 75 years, apparently. And the pair also appear on what is a massive online labour of love.

De la Roche is nowhere to be found, however, on the scholarly GLBT Encyclopedia site, which features an extensive list of queer authors.

Yet Daniel Bratton's 1996 ECW Press tome, "Thirty-Two Short Views of Mazo de la Roche," has been acquired by the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives.

And, conveniently, the latest issue online (spring 2005) of the University of British Columbia-based journal Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review, features an essay on de la Roche. Here's the abstract for "Caroline Clement: The Hidden Life of Mazo de la Roche's Collaborator," in which writer and part-time college instructor Heather Kirk "refutes the claim of Joan Givner's 'Mazo de la Roche: The Hidden Life,' that de la Roche was a lesbian child molester who victimized her younger cousin and life-long companion, Caroline Clement.

"The paper outlines the life of Clement. It shows that Clement was older than de la Roche, that she was not an orphan, that she was raised with de la Roche as a sister, that she was the leader of the pair, and that she was a partner in the creation of the Jalna series."

What the... de la Roche has been accused of being a lesbian child molester? Jeee-zuz.


Go to Mazo 3.