Cruising, Travelling, Marching toward the Center: The Spatial Parameters of Male Homosexuality in Felix Rexhausen’s Novels of the 1960s

Abstract

Starting from discussions about the role of space in the history of male homosexuality and in LGBT identity formation, this article investigates patterns of space and movement in three gay-themed novels that Felix Rexhausen, a pioneer of gay literature and journalism in West Germany, wrote and/or published in the 1960s. The readings of the novels show that the centripetal movement from the province to the metropolis that might appear fundamental to what Jack Halberstam has labeled “metronormativity” is neither dominant nor normative in these narratives. Rather, Rexhausen’s novels intertwine different models of spatiality in a complex and artful manner that can be fully grasped only by analyzing the relationship of narrative space and the spatial extension of the text. (BW)