Writer of Gay Classic Evokes Mrs. Lincoln

Mary Todd Lincoln seems an unlikely muse for a writer whose first book, "Dancer From the Dance," published in 1978, remains one of the most famous novels in modern gay literature. But the widowed Mrs. Lincoln is the presiding spirit in Andrew Holleran's novel "Grief."

Mrs. Lincoln's husband, of course, is a perennial subject for historians, novelists and biographers. "We are so drawn to Lincoln, justifiably so," Mr. Holleran said, "but Mary Todd Lincoln is strangely neglected. I say it in the book and I do believe it: I don't know why no one has written an opera about this woman."

Andrew Holleran is "a cult hero for gay people," said Edmund White, the writer and a friend of Mr. Holleran's since the 1970's. "Dancer From the Dance," Mr. White said, is the "ultimate picture of gay life in New York — the book F. Scott Fitzgerald would have written if he had written about gay life." But, he added, "if you miss 10 years between books, a whole generation doesn't know you."