> You know, I might be a total imbecile, but I *completely* missed the > fact that Franklin's friend (I don't have the book with me at the > moment) is gay, the first couple of times I read it. Hey, no shame there! For me it was also one of those fifth-read/Cliff notes footnote type details too (I didn't even get the gay subtext in `A Streetcar Named Desire' - then again in the 50's you had to be pretty coy about it). I sometimes wonder - e.g. in the case of Franny's alleged pregnancy - whether JDS intends to put these intimations in or not, but in this case I do think it was on purpose. > Maybe Franklin is gay > himself. Whatever. Well ... of course, that's the implication. That Franklin and Eric are lovers. I guess that maybe (in the unenlightened postwar times) that maybe it was just another sign of postwar disjunction; things not functioning quite properly, Easter chicks dying rather than living to a grand old age .. only to be turned into chicken sandwiches. How very depressing ... Camille verona_beach@geocities.com @ THE ARTS HOLE www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442 @ THE INVERTED FOREST www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest