Gay Love Ages Gracefully in Seclusion

(Matthew Griffin)

Hide is not your typical gay love story. For starters, partners Frank Clifton and Wendell Wilson are old. They live not in a city but on a secluded patch of land in a North Carolina mill town. And forget the scrapbook—after more than 50 years together, not a single picture of the couple exists.

Matthew Griffin’s debut novel, out February 16, is a searing portrait of love and alienation in old age. Frank, a tattoo-covered war veteran, and Wendell, a taxidermist, meet in 1946 and, in constant fear of being exposed, cut off all ties to the outside world. Fast-forward half a century when 83-year-old Frank suffers a stroke. With comedic tragedy, Wendell must reconcile what it means to love someone who’s slipping away.

While Griffin, 31, grew up in a much different era than his protagonists, he acknowledges that lingering anxieties still exist in the south. “There are a lot of places down here I wouldn’t walk around holding my husband’s hand or anything, out of a sense of my own safety,” says the author, who teaches at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “A lot of progress has been made and a lot of progress still needs to be made.”

There have been instances when his community has surprised him. When gay marriage became legal, Griffin and his then-boyfriend found a nearby judge who asked an elderly farm owner if she could marry the couple on his property, cautiously informing him that they were both men. “Good for them,” he said. “Bring it on.”

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