The Well-Tempered Life Story
In part, it is the life of a gay celebrity. Rorem came of age in the years after World War II. He was a gifted composer, … [and]
Now we have his Selected Letters. …
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The Crimson Crucible
FEW PEOPLE alive today would be able to conceive of an American university purging its student ranks of “undesirables” along the lines of Stalin’s purges or Joe McCarthy’s witch hunts of the 1950’s. Students on most college campuses today … have the freedom to live their lives in relative safety without interference from Big Brother. Thus one would be surprised to learn what happened at America’s premier Ivy League institution, Harvard University, in 1920.
MoreVoices of Transformation
… Perhaps the best way to approach an understanding of transsexualism is to encounter the personal stories of those who have lived it. This is the impetus for Sexual Metamorphosis, edited by Jonathan Ames, a popular writer and performing storyteller. …
MoreDandy Situations
WITH HIS DEBUT NOVEL, Wesley Stace (known to music lovers as John Wesley Harding) creates a world of repressed sexuality, confused identity, and deception lurking behind every corner. …
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Short Reviews
Short reviews of Casa Susanna and Kings in Their Castles.
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Mixing It Up
THE BIBLE for writing quality fiction advances the following three commandments: avoid clichés, develop a distinctive voice, and show rather than tell. Occasionally, there comes a novel that stands in direct opposition to these commandments and still manages to render a decent narrative. Frederick Smith’s debut title, Down for Whatever, is not such a novel.
MoreWhen Vidal Spoke, People Taped
… Many times throughout these interviews Vidal claims that the novel is dead and then goes on to blame college English courses for killing literature for the reading public. …
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Of Filth and Fame
JOHN WATERS describes Shock Value as “just about my final position paper on the shock/underground period of my career.” Nevertheless, he says, reporters continue to quote from this book when they interview him …
MoreThe Christ of the Early Christians
… THE RELIGIOUS-SOUNDING title of gay liberation scholar Will Roscoe’s important new book, Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love, might give anyone who has cast off Judeo-Christian monotheism the willies. But readers starved for better fare in gay discourse … will find in Roscoe’s scholarly yet accessible book …
MoreThe Tiger Within
Two books on Tennessee Williams
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