'I want a mortgage and comfort': Consumption, Totality, and Identity in Australian Gay Fiction

The Marriage Law Postal Survey marked an historic moment for the LGBT+ community in Australia, as it resulted in same-sex unions being recognised under law. For novelists, this historic change served as the impetus to re-evaluate the position of gay men as queer subjectivity becomes more and more articulable through the market and is no longer excluded from the social mainstream, or in Marxist terminology, totality. This presents a challenge: how do writers dispense with outdated taxonomies of oppression, while still identifying the unique ways in which those who exist along axes of sexual difference continue to be exploited and oppressed? This article examines The Pillars (2019) by Peter Polites and The Adversary (2020) by Ronnie Scott to identify ways in which this nascent dimension to queer life is being depicted in fiction, arguing that gay fiction in Australia can meaningfully represent, and critique, its relation to capitalism.