The Politics of the Closet: Queer Identity and Silence in Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

This paper examines portrayal of queer desire, secrecy, love, and survival through the survival off the protagonist, Evelyn Hugo in Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (2017). Though, the novel highlights fame and scandal in Hollywood, at its core, it tells the queer love affair between Evelyn and Celia. It uses Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s theory from Epistemology of the Closet (1990) to understand how the "closet" shapes Evelyn’s life and her decisions. Her seven marriages are presented as acts to save her career and public image in front of the media, with her true love because of Hollywood environment. By linking the novel to the wider context of American queer literature, the paper claims that Reid’s work introduces queer existence into modern culture while still depicting the suffering of before queer lives. Ultimately, the novel tells the reader about the struggles faced by queers in American society especially in context of Hollywood industry.