Maggie: Okay, I’ve already strayed from my original plan of reviewing Victor’s writing in semi-alphabetical order. After discussing with several people, it has been decided that to best understand Victor as a writer and person, it is best to explore the subject in a more or less chronological order.
Now that you have met Ori, we thought it would be fun to both give our review of some of Victor’s writing. We are coming at this subject from different places, different generations, and different thoughts/opinions.
With that being said, let’s talk about “Broken Record.” It was the first story of Victor’s to be published. He responded to an English language short story competition for Der Kreis (The Circle) Magazine. He did not win, but it was still published in 1963, vol. 31, iss. 11.
Der Kreis was a Swiss gay magazine. Founded as the lesbian magazine Freundschaftsbanner in 1932, it turned into a male-only magazine in 1942 under the name Der Kreis. It was trilingual and distributed internationally, and it gained significant influence in the homosexual movement at the time until it ceased publication in 1967. Broken Record was later reprinted in Immortals and Other Tales, 2017.
It is interesting to look back on this early story. Victor was around 26 years old at the time. It’s a gentle story that brings the reader into the mind of a madman, a homosexual madman. A simple story that shows Victor’s “greenness” as a writer. His inexperience with the trade? His lack of confidence? Having the story published had to have been a huge ego boost! A poor queer kid from Preble County?!? This was the confidence boost he needed to go forward and write with more character development and detail we see in everything else. Was this the floodgate that needed to be released?
The thing I love about this story, as with many of his stories, is you don’t know where it’s going until the end. Also, seeing how Victor evolved as a writer, the career it launched and friendships that were formed. Gay men were not deviants, hiding in dark alleys, struggling with their sexual identities. They were a community of human beings, friends, and lovers.
You can read the whole story here thanks to the Der Kreis archives @ the ETH Zurich university library. Or you can order The Immortals & Other Tales here.
Ori: Hi! I don’t have too much to add here besides contributing to the “Broken Record” love. It’s creepy, it’s weird, it’s well paced, it’s fun—go read it! The 2010s version contains slight edits to wording or typographical errors, but they’re mostly the same. Incredibly grateful to ETH Zurich for making it possible to view it the way his first readers would have.
My personal favorite thing about “Broken Record” is the way his love of horror comes through so clearly here despite it receding somewhat in his early ultra-formulaic pulps. Don’t get me wrong—discomfort abounds in his early novels. Lots of men losing their minds. A murder here and there. But the only gay pulp of his I’ve read so far that I would indisputably categorize as horror would be The Flaming Suckers, and that didn’t come out until 1969! In other words, there are themes present in “Broken Record” that didn’t quite resurface until sleaze paperback publishing demands clearly began to sour for him in the late 60s.
Victor’s autobiographical writing very rarely complains about creative constraints in sleaze publishing. He tends to opt instead for strictly characterizing his pulps as a set of business transactions, but “Broken Record” is still a fun little glimpse at what Victor’s early writing interests were like outside relationships with major sleaze publishing companies.
Ultimately, it is a gay serial killer story. Historically the kind of thing we would likely deem bad PR. But rather than treating depravity as the Natural Domain of the Homosexual, it reads to me more as a genuine effort in suspense/horror writing… as written by a gay person, for an intended gay audience. If you enjoy this, I also recommend checking out his 2006 short story “In Passing” as a much later take on a similar—but slightly more supernatural—theme!
Maggie: I’m not sure if he wrote this as a piece for an “internet museum” about Der Kreis or if it is an early draft from his autobiography, Spine Intact, Some Creases. Therefore, I cannot provide a citation. This is what Victor had to say about it…
Notes from Victor J. Banis (March 2000):
In 1963, I submitted a short story to an English language story contest in Der Kreis. My story, Broken Record, appeared in the November 1963 issue of Der Kreis, and was my first published fiction.
As a result of this publication, I began a correspondence with Rudy Burkhardt (Jung) which continued for several years.
In 1964/1965, I was indicted on obscenity charges and went through a lengthy trial over a novel that I had written, The Affairs of Gloria, which included some lesbian scenes, but no words stronger than one “damn” and a “to hell with it.”
My acquittal was a close thing, a matter of a technicality, really. Afterward, I was harassed regularly by the Federal authorities, particularly the U. S. Postal Service, who regularly (and illegally) opened and read my mail. Fearful of another trial, and that I might not be so lucky a second time, I traveled with my then lover to Europe in 1966.
We met with Rudy Burkhardt, of course. He was a gracious host, inviting us to his rooms for wine, and taking us on a walking tour of the old city of Zurich, which included a one-time Goethe residence that did not appear in the guide books.
We visited the club, naturally, where I met Rolf, and others whose names I no longer remember; and we danced. This was still a bit of a novelty for us Americans; male to male dancing was then taboo in the States, although it was done in some private clubs (always subject to raids and arrest by the police!)
I spoke frankly with Rudy about my fears of another arrest and trial. He was sympathetic, having himself had some censorship problems with the U.S. authorities over his story, All This and Heaven Too. Somewhat to my surprise, Rudy offered me sanctuary in Switzerland. Should I be indicted again, and if I could manage to reach Zurich, he would see me safely underground. It was a generous offer, and one which I kept in mind over the next several years back in the States, where I remained a focus of attention for the authorities, the more so as I became increasingly prominent in gay writing and publishing.
Incidentally, Rudy had something of a crush on the silent screen actor, Richard Arlen, and I was happily able to put him in touch with his idol. I am not sure if they ever met, but I do know they corresponded at length, and Arlen sent Rudy an autographed picture, which caused no small degree of happiness on the part of Herr Burkhardt.
I shall always remember Der Kreis fondly, and especially Rudy for his kindness and his generous offer of help.
