John Basile

Lotus on a Dung Heap: Memoirs of a Gay Artist John Basile

He is a gay artist in WW2. He learns that any man will have sex under the right conditions. His duties as a Navy Corpsman attached to a rangy Marine unit on a Pacific island lead to some hilarious adventures. After the war he is an art student in San Francisco and discovers a world where being queer is normal. He goes to Italy and meets a lawyer. They rent a house next door to the girl he¡¯ll marry only months later. The story describes the dilemma a homosexual goes through when he begins loving a woman...while still carrying on with his male lover. He brings his wife to America and gets a job with a film company that sends them to Mexico. His wife fucks a man in Acapulco. This leads to a break up. Three weeks later he meets a Mexican doctor and moves in...for five years. When the affair ends he returns to California to a liberated sex scene...just before the outbreak of AIDS. This part deals with explicit sexual scenes. He is in San Francisco when AIDS surfaces... and volunteers at the AIDS Center. He describes a day on the hot lines. In the last section the AIDS crisis is in full stride. He is now working as an AIDS buddy with terminally ill men. There are case histories...and a summing up.