I do get that Turing wasn’t reticent about his sexuality, but there’s a distinct flavour of “forlorn, unhappy, lonely Mr. Turing” to Leavitt’s inferences which, to me, doesn’t sit well with someone who is as comfortable as Turing seems to have been with his orientation. Indeed, Leavitt at one point has Turing drawing a comparison between himself and someone with a disability, which I found particularly irksome as it carries the suggestion that Turing felt somehow less on account of being gay.

But of course at this point I’m drawing inferences from inferences, and Von Neumann is looking over my shoulder and muttering something about infinite regressions…

Hodges writes quite a bit about Alan’s homosexuality as well. My impression is that Turing was never at all reticent about this topic, and that it really was an important part of his emotional makeup—something he liked to bring up or push forward.

You may or may not be aware that I myself just finished writing a novel about Turing, THE TURING CHRONICLES, and it features a love affair between Alan and the beat author William Burroughs! In writing my book, and getting inside Alan’s head, I myself got more and more comfortable with his homosexuality, and it came to seem quite natural to me.

I’m hoping the book can come out in 2012, the “Turing Centennial Year,” but it may take till 2013.

The core of Turing’s life is there, to be sure, but I’m inclined to find a better biography at this point to get the taste of Leavitt’s work out of my mouth.