Maybe it’s because he made a life as a writer in a southern town for the past 50 years. Could be he is simply a private person who wanted to spend his artistic life on other topics. Whatever the reasons, I hope I wasn’t the only one who was surprised to find out that writer Reynolds Price is gay. Or queer to use the term he prefers.

The North Carolina native has a new memoir—his third. Called “Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back,” the book chronicles his life in the 1950’s when he was starting out as a writer and getting some booty at Oxford University. What male sex he did get (to hear Price tell the story he got more than his fair share), it wasn’t from his fellow Oxford students.

“I literally knew no other student who claimed to be queer (or appeared to be — it was some time before queer confessions became as common as weak jokes),” Reynolds writes. “And I couldn’t have told you, till late in my third year, whether or not there was a queer pub or other gathering place in the city.”

Some will be unhappy that a writer of Price’s stature kept his powder dry on gay issues and politics. I understand that impulse but if the struggle is  about individual rights, it’s hard to get funky about someone who lived a life based on his individual status. Also Price has earned my devotion after writing a line a friend told him about the word gay.

“Please don’t call me gay. If you need an adjective, call me morose.”

Somebody put that on t-shirt!