Richard Amory

{{Short description|American novelist}}

Richard Amory (October 18, 1927 – August 1, 1981), born Richard Wallace Love, was an American writer from Halfway, Oregon. He obtained a bachelor's degree in sociology from Ohio State University, a M.A. in Spanish from San Francisco State University, and began an uncompleted Ph.D. in Spanish at University of California, Berkeley.Cesar Love, "Biography of Richard Love," Song of the Loon (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2005), 215-17. A high school teacher by profession, he achieved success as a novelist in the late 1960s while still a graduate student and before coming out.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VTtqkj0pP10C&q=richard+amory+gay+writer&pg=PA109|title=Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk about Homosexuality|last=Jordan|first=Mark|date=2011|publisher=University of Chicago Press|page=109|isbn=9780226410449|accessdate=2014-10-01}}

Amory is best known for his 1966 novel Song of the Loon: A Gay Pastoral in Five Books and an Interlude and its sequels, including Song of Aaron and Listen, the Loon Sings.See Drewey Wayne Gunn, Gay American Novels, 1870-1970: A Reader's Guide (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016), 152-54. Variously described as "a gay American version of famous sixteenth-century Spanish pastoral novels"Beth M. Bouloukos, "Shepherds Redressed: Richard Amory's Song of the Loon and the Reinvigoration of the Spanish Pastoral Novel," 1960s Gay Pulp Fiction: The Misplaced Heritage, ed. Drewey Wayne Gunn and Jaime Harker (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013), 212-28. and "a gay version of The Last of the Mohicans,"Angelo d'Arcangelo, The Homosexual Handbook, 2nd ed. (Ophelia Press, 1969), 235. See also Susan Stryker, Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001), 117; Neil DeWitte, "The Gay Western: Trailblazing Heroes Stake Their Claim," The Golden Age of Gay Fiction, ed. Drewey Wayne Gunn (Albion, NY: MLR Press, 2009), 224-27. Song of the Loon has been called "one of the most important gay books of the 20th century."{{cite web|url=http://www.bilerico.com/2010/01/jesses_journal_gay_pulp_fiction.php|title=Jesse's Journal: Gay Pulp Fiction|last=Monteagudo|first=Jesse|date=January 24, 2010|publisher=The Bilerico Project|accessdate=2014-10-01}} In 1994 one bibliographer estimated that one third of American gay men had read the novel.Tom Norman, American Gay Erotic Paperbacks: A Bibliography (Burbank, CA, 1994), 3.

Song of the Loon was adapted as an erotic film in 1970 without Amory's involvement and much to his disgust.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hoea5QuyTf8C&q=dirk+vanden+gay&pg=PA156|title=It Was Too Soon Before…: The Unlikely Life, Untimely Death, and Unexpected Rebirth of Gay Pioneer, Dirk Vanden|last=Vanden|first=Dirk|date=2012|publisher=Lethe Press|page=154|isbn=9781590213544|accessdate=2014-09-24}} It also inspired a spoof, Fruit of the Loon by "Richard Armory" (in reality veteran porn writer George Davies who wrote under pen names including Clay Caldwell or Lance Lester).{{cite web|url = https://efanzines.com/EK/eI08/index.htm| title = 2002 FAAn Awards| author = Kemp, Earl| website = efanzines.com| date = June 2003}}

Amory briefly partnered with fellow authors Dirk Vanden, Phil Andros, Peter Tuesday Hughes, Larry Townsend, and Douglas Dean in an attempt to found the first all-gay publishing company, which was to be called The Renaissance Group. The group was unable to secure funding for the attempt and several of its members ceased publishing shortly thereafter.{{cite web|url=http://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/08/10/dirk-vanden-pioneer-of-gay-literature/|title=Dirk Vanden: Pioneer Of Gay Literature|last=Gunn|first=Drewey Wayne|date=August 10, 2011|publisher=Lambda Literary Review|accessdate=2014-09-24}}

He died in San Jose, California.