El corazón en el exilio

Published in 1953, this novel recounts the progress of the narrator, a psychiatrist named Tony Page, as he investigates the mysterious suicide of another man, Julian Lecrec, who years before had been his lover. But this simple plot, which loosely follows the principles of the detective story and keeps the suspense at an acceptable level throughout its pages, is, in reality, a pretext to present us with a fascinating description of the post-war London gay underworld. The protagonist, in search of the reasons that could lead his former lover to suicide, dedicates himself to touring the meeting places of homosexuals of the time, from the pubs of working-class neighborhoods, to the sophisticated nightclubs where only members had access. of the favored classes, without forgetting the cruising spaces that dotted the geography of the city. Thanks to the meticulous descriptions of the places -and their characters- through which the protagonist leads his search, the author traces the cartography of the homosexual underworld that the city sheltered, hidden from the eyes of the majority. It was long regarded as the most outspoken and forceful novel on a homosexual theme published in English, which made it a great bestseller (at a time when the police cracked down harshly on homosexuals), since in six months it sold out. four editions.