John Stewart Wynne aka John Wynne

John Stewart Wynne (aka John Wynne) is an American author of novels, short stories and poetry, as well as a Grammy-nominated producer of spoken word recordings.

His writing often depicts characters in extremis, outsiders adrift in a conformist landscape, in plots that juxtapose the surreal and naturalistic. He has been hailed as the heir apparent to the tradition of “outsider art” exemplified by Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers and Truman Capote.[1] Wynne’s writing has been praised for its audacious originality, its beautiful imagery, the astute asides and wry observations of his characters, and his highly charged but often darkly comic mise-en-scènes.

Wynne’s first published fiction was the 1978 short story The Sighting, where flying saucers and Bela Lugosi rub up against an archetypal 1950s drive-in while counterpointing the blossoming relationship of two teen-age boys. Gordon Montador in The Body Politic enthused: "There is nothing else quite like it, for no other writer has experimented with gay experience in the context of our adolescence in straight America in such a direct, sensual and imaginative manner."[2] The Sighting was further praised by Hubert Selby Jr. 1980 Prix Goncourt winner Yves Navarre, Rita Mae Brown, James Purdy and Charles Palliser.[3] The story was selected by Ian Young as one of the seminal works of gay literature in his The Male Homosexual in Literature: A Bibliography.[4]

Wynne’s first novel Crime Wave details the unexpected love affair between a photojournalist (Jake Adams) and a woman (Renee Cloverman) living in a Manhattan brothel. Jake attempts to make Renee respectable by moving her into the country with his aunt’s family where her presence turns out to be a risk not only for her but for them as well. It was praised by author Barbara Trapido in The Spectator as a “disturbing, well-written and impressive work whose genre is Manhattan lumpen Gothic...the book has a terrible and compelling beauty.”[5] Author Jenny Uglow in The Times Literary Supplement wrote “Crime Wave is about personal and social sado-masochism. The author’s challenging aim is to show there is no such thing as ‘mindless violence’, whether directed towards the self or towards others. Each aggressive act is the result of a long cycle of action and reaction, continued through generations. Crime Wave is an ambitious first novel.”[6]

Wynne’s short story collection The Other World was hailed as “one of the best books of the decade” by The James White Review.[7] Peopled with circus performers, sociopaths, cross dressing teenagers and God-fearing families, these stories have a hallucinatory edge that makes the everyday seem like another world. Details wrote, “Wynne’s prose is chiseled and precise. And in pages that tremble with beauty, Wynne gracefully reveals the darker side of human possibilities.”.[8] Booklist called it “startling, outrageous, frightening and sometimes even funny."[9] National Book Award-winner Paul Monette wrote, “With so much tepid and sentimental fiction coming out, Wynne’s stories are like a plunge in cold water with a near-Brechtian intensity of focus and an infallible ear for dialogue, Wynne casts a laser eye on the things we say, so different from what we mean. A book to handle with asbestos gloves, but well worth the walk through fire.”[10] Lambda Award-winner Rebecca Brown called it “an incredibly powerful book.”[11]

Wynne’s other writing has appeared in The Paris Review, The American Poetry Review, Christopher Street and High Risk 2, among other publications.

Wynne has also produced and directed over one hundred audio books, including The Phantom of the Opera performed by F. Murray Abraham, William Styron reading his Darkness Visible (memoir), Christopher Reeve performing F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and John F. Kennedy, Jr. reading his father’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Profiles in Courage. The latter was nominated for the 1991 Grammy Award as Best Spoken Word Album. Wynne himself was nominated for the Grammy Award in 1995 as producer of Best Spoken Word Album for Children for The Magic School Bus: Fun with Sound, featuring Lily Tomlin.

In 1995 Wynne authored the first popular guide to spoken word recordings, The Listener's Guide to Audio Books.

Magnus Books published The Red Shoes, a new novel by John Stewart Wynne, in July 2013. In 2014 The Red Shoes was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in the Best Gay General Fiction category.[12]

Bibliography

Audiography

Produced and directed over 100 audio books including:

Leroux, Gaston. The Phantom of the Opera, Caedmon, 1988. Performed by F. Murray Abraham.

Kennedy, John F. Profiles in Courage, Caedmon, 1990. Read by John F. Kennedy, Jr.

Styron, William. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, Random House Audio, 1990. Read by William Styron.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby, Durkin Hayes, 1992. Performed by Christopher Reeve.

References

  1. ↑ The James White Review, Volume 13, Number 1, Winter 1996
  2. ↑ The Body Politic, December 1979/January 1980
  3. ↑ Literary Review, May 1980
  4. ↑ Young, Ian. The Male Homosexual in Literature: A Bibliography, #4246, Scarecrow Press, 1982
  5. ↑ The Spectator, 12 June 1982
  6. ↑ The Times Literary Supplement, 4 June 1982
  7. ↑ The James White Review, Volume 13, Number 1, Winter 1996
  8. ↑ Details, September 1994
  9. ↑ Booklist, June 1, 1994
  10. ↑ Wynne, John. The Other World, City Lights, 1994
  11. ↑ Wynne, John. The Other World, City Lights, 1994
  12. ↑ 26th Lambda Literary Awards
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