Un matrimonio bajo cero

Published in 1889, A Marriage Below Zero is the first novel in English to explicitly explore the subject of male homosexuality. Narrated from the point of view of a very young and inexperienced woman, it is the tragicomic tale of her ill-advised marriage to a very attractive man who, as a single man, never appeared in public without being accompanied by his close friend -something older than him-, and of whose sexuality everyone suspected and murmured, except his unconscious and future wife. The recklessness of the protagonist and the desire of the male couple to cover their relationship with the layer of social respectability that the marriage of one of them would provide, lead her to marry the handsome young man. But soon, alarmed by the lack of interest that her husband shows towards her and by her daily nights out, she will try to discover, by all her means, the reasons that lead her adored husband to act as such a way. Strangely entertaining and even funny, albeit tragic in ending, the novel remained forgotten for many years and when it was rediscovered in the middle of the last century, some readers called it homophobic. Today it has begun to be read in a different light: what this pioneering novel actually tells is the story of passionate and lasting love between two men who do not respond to homophobic stereotypes that persisted for many decades, stereotypes that have even reached our minds. days.