Traditional vs. Modern
This traditional vs. modern novel looks at the culture war between traditional values, found in places like Lubbock, Texas and modern, secular values found in places like Paris, France. At the heart of this traditional vs. modern novel is the need to find one’s identity by choosing the pieces from both the traditional and the modern, and to make sense of oneself and of others.
Traditional vs. modern is a theme in the novel Kabuki in a G-String. Chad Newsome, a man who left West Texas in his youth, must decide whether to stay in Paris with his French Moroccan partner or return to West Texas. In Paris he can easily and openly be gay and live in a modern loving partnership with a man of differing background and religion. In Lubbock, such a lifestyle would be difficult. The modern and open life of gay couples in Paris is not the same as the lives gay couples live in more traditional vs. modern environments. As Chad’s cousin Roberta Martin discovers in her quest to bring her cousin home, much of what she has been taught about right and wrong dissolves amid the traditional vs. modern sophistication of Paris. The traditional vs. modern fight will endure, and few things may change perceptions. However, a novel like Simpson’s promotes understanding of how the two can be compatible and how a conservative, traditional person can see love between same sex couples as ordinary.
Like traditional vs. modern literature before it, this novel places its characters in the middle of America’s ongoing culture wars as well as in a big, cosmopolitan city.
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