IN 1949, alerted by his friend William Burroughs that his name had appeared in compromising letters seized by police in a drug raid, a 21-year-old Allen Ginsberg worried where to secure his journals and manuscripts of poems lest authorities suddenly descend upon his own apartment and confiscate these records of his drug experimentation and of his inner conflicts over his homosexuality.
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As it happens, the unexpected discovery of Katharine Hepburn’s true birth date forms an integral part of the story of William Mann’s first significant exposure to the subject of his lengthy biography, Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn.
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Hidden from history until the early 1990’s, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore resist easy categorization. This book, which is part biography and part art history, is the first book in English to explore the range of their creative and political lives.
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THIS IS an eclectic anthology of engaging essays and memoirs whose message is that the desire to be someone other than who we are is an integral and universal aspect of coming of age.
MoreGay Life and Culture: A World History Edited by Robert Aldrich Universe, 384 pages, $49.95 THIRTY, even twenty, years ago, a book titled Gay Life and Culture: A…More
Short reviews of Queer Youth in the Province of the “Severely Normal”, Talking to the Moon, and Mr. Ding’s Chicken Feet.
MoreTurn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco by Peter Shapiro Faber and Faber. 369 pages, $17. AN AUTHOR who promises the “secret” history of anything sets…More
Erzulie’s Skirt by Ana-Maurine Lara RedBone Press. 242 pages, $15. SET IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, beginning some time after the dictator Trujillo came to power in1930, this book…More
In his latest book, Michael Lucey, who has already written about same-sex issues in Balzac and Gide, examines very carefully how three French citizens involved with same-sex desire-Colette, Gide, and Proust-took advantage of the newness and fluidity of the concept of homosexuality to advance his or her own unique viewpoint over competing ones.
More35 Cents by Matty Lee Suspect Thoughts Press. 205 pages, $16.95 IN THE WAKE of the recent scandal surrounding the popular yet fraudulent gay author JT LeRoy—not to…More
