How queer is Christianity? In Dayspring, with the help of historical sources and personal recollections, Anthony Oliveira puzzles out the failings of Christianity, and more specifically Roman Catholicism, with regard to queer sexuality. Can queer people recover any spiritual heritage from Catholicism, which has rejected them over centuries with homophobic righteousness?
Dayspring is not a simple work of fiction so much as an anthology, a memoir, an interpretation of the Gospels, and a handbook to queer, or at least post-Christian, spiritual life. It combines Biblical stories with reflections on love, cormorants, kitsch, martyrs, and other topics. Episodes range freely over time to create a fusion of then and now. A first-person male narrator, identified only by the lowercase pronoun “i,” retells the chief events in Christ’s life, from nativity to crucifixion, though not necessarily in chronological sequence. In fact, “i” has a rambunctious, sexual...
Allan Hepburn is the James McGill Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature at McGill University.
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