A Single Man: A Novel

The novel opens with George introducing himself and describing his morning routine in vivid detail. George writes about himself in the third person, referring to himself as “it” before realizing he is an individual, then a person, then a “he,” and then “George.” It is a daily process of self-realization. He looks at himself in the mirror and laments his age: 58. He makes himself up in an acceptable manner. After this, he refers to himself as “he” and notes that he “has become already more or less George—though still not the whole George they demand and are prepared to recognize” (3).

George makes a clear distinction between himself and the “it” that wakes in the morning. He first mentions Charlotte here, his friend whom he visits later in the day. He is suddenly taken aback by the memory of his lover, that “Jim is dead” (4). George compares the memory to a bad cramp that passes. He has complex thoughts about simple things, such as pondering the purpose of life and his place in the universe while killing ants in his kitchen. George reflects on how he used to be able to talk to Jim about anything—but now, his memories and opinions of Jim are fading. He wonders if Jim can visit him from the afterlife.

George reveals that he lives in Los Angeles on treeless Camphor Street. He explains that after World War II, the veterans who returned home to Los Angeles abandoned the Bohemian lifestyle that existed prior to the war in favor of raising families and having steady incomes. A great many children were born, the area became crowded and polluted and, according to George, lost its heart. George and Jim picked out their house because it was perfectly secluded, “shaggy with ivy and dark and secret-looking” (10); they could envision themselves living in it together. Since Jim’s death, George is resentful towards the neighborhood children and takes to yelling at them from his window when they cross into his property; he notes that Jim was always friendly towards them. George is ashamed of his behavior and describes himself as a storybook monster.

George analyzes and memorizes the neighborhood and its daily patterns from his window. Children and mothers rule the morning, teenagers the afternoon, and men night as “it is their hour” (14). George believes that men, despite their status in life, fear one thing: him. He reveals that this is because he is gay and therefore, the neighborhood men want nothing to do with him. The year is 1962, and the most tolerant of George’s neighbors, Mrs. Strunk, is patronizing at best and insulting and oversimplifying at worst. George imagines what she says about him: “Here we have a misfit, debarred forever from the best things in life, to be pitied, not blamed” (16). George is misunderstood by everyone except Jim, who was killed in a car accident on his way to see his parents.

Throughout his descriptions of the day’s events, George includes brief breaks of humor to ease the intensity of his thoughts, such as comparing himself to a “man in a sack-race” (17) when he goes to answer the phone mid-toilet. His friend Charlotte is on the other line, but he declines her invitation to be social. George gets in his car and commutes to work as an English professor at the San Tomas State College. He poetically and thoroughly describes the flow of traffic along the freeway and his ease traversing it. George’s mind “become[s] a separate entity” (22) from his body as his muscle memory takes the wheel.

George thinks about biases and laws against being gay as he read an article that claimed that current punishments were not harsh enough. He imagines kidnapping the article’s author, the head of police, and some ministers to force them to engage in filmed sex acts. He takes it further and imagines organizing a team of trained killers to eliminate them all, that this act would put enough fear into the population that they would realize “Uncle George’s will must be obeyed instantly and without question” (26). George notes that when his mind goes into this enraged state, Jim becomes nothing more than “an excuse for hating three quarters of the population of America” (26). He describes the grinding of his teeth and the grimness of his lip as he has these thoughts—worrying that this alternate self, which he calls “the chauffeur” (32), is taking over more and more of his mind. As he approaches the college, he “puts on the psychological makeup for this role he must play” (27).