{"title": "The Charioteer", "key": "/works/OL3906331W", "authors": [{"author": {"key": "/authors/OL710654A"}, "type": {"key": "/type/author_role"}}], "type": {"key": "/type/work"}, "description": "After enduring an injury at Dunkirk during World War II, Laurie Odell is sent to a rural veterans' hospital in England to convalesce. There he befriends the young, bright Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly. As they find solace and companionship together in the idyllic surroundings of the hospital, their friendship blooms into a discreet, chaste romance. Then one day, Ralph Lanyon, a mentor from Laurie's schoolboy days, suddenly reappears in Laurie's life, and draws him into a tight-knit social circle of world-weary gay men. Laurie is forced to choose between the sweet ideals of innocence and the distinct pleasures of experience. \r\n\r\nOriginally published in the United States in 1959, **The Charioteer** is a bold, unapologetic portrayal of male homosexuality during World War II that stands with Gore Vidal's **The City and the Pillar** and Christopher Isherwood's **Berlin Stories** as a monumental work in gay literature.", "covers": [10042936, 229209, 116021, 12389260], "subject_places": ["England"], "subjects": ["Fiction", "World War, 1939-1945", "Gay men", "Veterans' hospitals", "Veterans", "Conscientious objectors", "Fiction, psychological", "Fiction, historical", "World war, 1939-1945, fiction", "Gay men, fiction", "England, fiction", "Fiction, gay", "Fiction, historical, general", "Fiction, romance, historical, general", "LGBTQ fiction before Stonewall", "World War (1939-1945) fast (OCoLC)fst01180924 (uri) http://id.worldcat.org/fast/fst01180924"], "subject_times": ["World War II"], "latest_revision": 8, "revision": 8, "created": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2009-12-10T04:50:11.788412"}, "last_modified": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2025-12-31T20:44:24.471900"}}