Proud Pink Sky: escape to an alternate universe, gloriously gay, Berlin

03 Mar 2023.

by Drew Rowsome - photos courtesy of Redfern Jon Barrett

Proud Pink Sky is set in an alternate parallel version of Earth, which places it firmly in the science fiction category. It is also as astute and frightening as Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, yet reads with the pace and energy of a modern action thriller. Stylistically Proud Pink Sky borrows from the epic historical pulp fictions of James Michener and Ken Follet, where the intimate stories of average people are used to explore historical events of momentous proportions. It is also a horror novel, where a closed society is found to have something evil and sinister at its core. Proud Pink Sky is also gloriously queer, packed with references to classic LGBTQ narratives and literature that are then subverted and twisted. Proud Pink Sky doesn't want to be slotted into a category, but then neither does author Redfern Jon Barrett (The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights). Which, as Proud Pink Sky seduces and lures one further and further in, proves to be its main point beyond an involving reading experience.

In a meticulously magical feat of world building, Barrett creates a world, in 1999 specifically, where LGBTQs are still despised by the population at large. However heroic gays and lesbians have, after their crucial Stonewall-esque triumphs during World War II, been granted the city of Berlin as a gay city state or republic. This Berlin has established embassy colonies around the world, facilitating the escape of gays and lesbians to a utopia where gay is good and straight is a distant second rate. This Berlin is an architectural wet dream with 24 million people living amidst soaring skyscrapers and ultr-efficient urban planning. It is also carefully divided into convenient zones, there is a neighbourhood for twinks, one for bears, one for lipstick lesbians, another for diesel dykes, etc. Each sounds fabulous. We are given snippets of information through excerpts from The Honest Guide to Berlin (seemingly aimed at curious het tourists who, after all, do love to gawk at Pride parades), historical documents, and news items. There is an appendix, "Timeline of the Gay Republic," but leave it to peruse after finishing the novel: all the crucial information is interwoven into the text and there is an emotional catharsis that the appendix provides that goes far beyond being a clever upended revision of history.

We are shown the wonders of this Berlin through the eyes of two sets of strangers in a stranger land. William and Gareth are two teenagers whose unlikely love is discovered forcing them to escape to Berlin. These passages have the romantic sweep and grit of classic gay literature with an emphasis on the British schoolboys in heat variety. The reader is teased into expectations that are brutally, fabulously, shattered once the couple reach Berlin, a destination as fabled, and as fantastically mythical, as Oz. This Berlin, with all its wonders and glorious gayness, was created specifically for these kinds of exiled migrants. Is necessary for their survival. On the opposite side of the spectrum, is the saga of Cissie, a naive young woman who lives with her beloved husband Howard and their two sons in Hetcarsey, a section of town reserved for the heterosexual labourers who work building and maintaining the city. Cissie has an upstairs neighbour, Ms Fortier, who is probably the most intriguing character (which is saying something in a novel packed with queers) and deserves a novel of her own. The two plotlines run in parallel lines and it is not a spoiler to reveal that there will be an almost collision. To reveal the mechanics and just how emotionally fraught, exhiliarating and devastating to read, Proud Pink Sky becomes, would be.

The official language of this Berlin is Polari and as Barrett draws us deeper and deeper into this Berlin and its marvels and ultimately secrets, the language becomes more prominent in the text. There is another appendix with a glossary "From the Official Dictionary of the Polari Grand Carsey," but it is surprising how little use I made of it. On some deep instinctually learned level, we all speak Polari, the language of those who refuse to be oppressed but must be secretive, fluently. Strangers in a strangely familiar land. There is another zone in this Berlin, a ghetto called Remould. In a metaphorical but never stated nod to the Berlin Wall, Remould is separated from the city itself by a brick edifice. Within those walls is a shadowy slum where those who don't fit into the various categories, or who straddle categories, live. Everyone who isn't an 'L,' a 'G,' a 'B' (though they are accepted reluctantly) or a working het, finds themselves seeking refuge in Remould. Proud Pink Sky's master plan reveals itself and Barrett vivisects the way that gay culture mimics the mistakes of the dominant culture. It is a harsh mirror and one that can't be looked away from.

It's important to note that far from being a political thesis, Proud Pink Sky is first and foremost a novel teeming with characters with souls and a riveting plot. Even two major villains are given solid reasons for their treachery. The discovery by the main characters of the myriad possibilities of life, is told in small moments—a pink lipstick, a hardhat, a sling—that resonate. A momentous event creates a powerful punch, emotionally shattering, to the point where I had to put the book down and compose myself. The escape to Oz or New York or San Francisco or Berlin myth is so embedded in gay culture, history and literature, that Barrett's questioning of its foundation is unsettling and disturbing. And fundamentally necessary. Always pay attention to behind the curtain. Especially in these days of attacks on drag queens and trans escalating into a culture war against all the letters of the LGBTQ spectrum. Barrett doesn't want us to fall into the same trap. As I wrote about The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of the Straights, Proud Pink Sky "is a piece of propaganda for a deviant lifestyle. No wonder I enjoyed it so much."