Old gay men stories

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One day just at... I’m a third-generation San Diegan and I now serve as the mayor of my hometown.

Even danced in gay bars under threat of raids.

And now they grow orchids, write memoirs, and wait patiently for someone to ask them about that night in ’74. And it was a communit... Way too loud.

Gay Man Reconnects with Family After Overcoming Shame and Learning to Live Authentically

Hey, I’m Chauncey Dandridge. He’s a skilled storyteller, holding back enough to keep his reader continually engaged, but character is his thing: the people and narrators who populate Zigzag’s 16 stories are complex, relatable, and very much themselves, whether they’re humorous, irritating, or lovable, or a combination of the three.

For example, there’s Mason Chastain in “The Hazardous Life,” a high-school French teacher nearing retirement who embarks on teaching a senior-level French literature course and falls for one of his most promising male students.

But to the gay men in Gambone’s stories, the path to self-knowledge and emotional fulfillment is filled with thorny obstacles and, in some cases, dead ends.

Older Gays Matter

A blog for writers, readers, and anyone who forgot there was a world before TikTok—and stories before swipe-ups.
By Gunther Allen

🌀 “You’ll Be One Someday”

Let’s start here—because it’s true—Older Gays Matter.

Let them surprise you. I’m from the Bronx, New York. It reinforces Gambone’s themes and the sense of community among disparate characters, but it also underlines his ambivalence about the right and wrong choices in life. I’m from Pearland, Texas. They remember when “coming out” was an act of courage, not content.

Want emotional stakes in your writing?

Now retired, he spent his life teaching high-school English and college-level writing in the Boston area. I noticed it was... Borrow the rhythm of someone else’s lived-in joy and pain. But flip that lens and you’ll find something richer. Literally.

🕶️ “Don’t Ghost the Gay Elders”

Too often, older gay men become invisible—especially in media, in bars, and yes, even in fiction.

He Went to a Rally… and Met His Future Husband

My name is Larry Picard. Allow them to start a new chapter—because they do, all the time.

In life? Though it was usually for grandmothers, it could be used for grandfathers. Ask them.

📚 “Before Grindr: Meet the Men Who Paved the Way”

There was a time when cruising involved bookstores, not swipe rights.

Though much of gay life after Stonewall is defined by sexual liberation, Gambone is looking for a broader kind of fulfillment.

Indeed, the stories in this collection are tied together by more than just age, orientation, and proximity to the South End. Religion often comes into play, as does social striving and the effects of gentrification.

Their regrets, yearnings, fears, and satisfactions are unique, because each person’s experience growing up with the shame of being queer and, as an adult, navigating the pitfalls of sexuality and romance, shapes the individual’s worldview in old age.

Which brings me to Zigzag, Philip Gambone’s marvelous new short story collection about aging gay men in the Boston area, particularly white men who spent their formative years in the South End.

The book makes it clear that personal liberation is a lifelong and universal pursuit.

Such wisdom might seem obvious, and it may elicit an unsympathetic “tut-tut” by those fed up with white male privilege.