Herstories Three
In All We Know: Three Lives, Lisa Cohen rescues from history’s dustbin the lives of three extraordinary, glamorous, brilliant, independent lesbians. Cohen’s project is a welcome addition to the Herstory Project.
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Graphic Language
A new graphic memoir, Calling Dr. Laura, by Nicole Georges, is an example of this genre. A Portland-based lesbian cartoonist and zinester, Georges has crafted an autobiography on secrets kept from her family, her lovers, and herself. With a sweet indie graphics sensibility and a light narrative tone, this is a tender look at family strife and at the alternate families that we create.
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Poets of the Interior
These anthologies (When We Become Weavers: Queer Female Poets on the Midwestern Experience and Among the Leaves: Queer Male Poets on the Midwestern Experience) feel groundbreaking, because they provide a loving Midwestern home for queer people. Some of the poets write with nostalgia about the rural homes they left for the city. …
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Tennessee Williams’ BFF
Some of the most valuable chapters in My Friend Tom are the ones devoted to close readings of both Williams’ poetry and the poets who influenced him.
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The Remains of the Underground
CONSIDERING his impact upon American underground cinema, it is surprising that Andy Warhol is still known far more for his silk-screens than for his celluloid. As author and art history professor Douglas Crimp points out in his elegant and smart new book on some of Warhol’s key cinematic works, Warhol was hugely prolific, having made more than 100 films and almost 500 film portraits …
MoreYou’ve Got to Hide It from the Kids
… Stories for Boys is ostensibly about Martin’s father, who in his early sixties attempts suicide. This comes as a surprise, since the father had always seemed the rock of the family while the mother, who suffers from bipolar disease, has occasionally been hospitalized. What triggers the father’s attempted suicide is his wife’s discovery of gay pornography on their computer. …
MoreA Writer of Opportunity
IF THE SURNAME Noguchi sounds familiar, it’s probably because of Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), the versatile and successful American artist who achieved worldwide fame not only as a sculptor, urban architect, set designer, and furniture designer, but also as a jet-setting playboy whose many romantic dalliances with movie stars, among others, often made headlines. But it is the artist’s father, Japanese-born writer Yone Noguchi (1875-1947), who is the subject of Amy Sueyoshi’s study in Queer Compulsions. …
MoreA Man in Full
CHARLES BEYE’S MEMOIR begins like a l9th-century novel: the narrator’s second wife, to whom he has not spoken in years, is dying, and his children are begging him to visit her. Not only does he refuse, but when she dies he suspects that she willed herself to expire just to avoid his visit. …
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Declaration Premature
VICTORY is a compendium of the events on the path to where we are today in the fight for full GLBT equality in the United States. Thus author Linda Hirshman has a lot of ground to cover, pausing on a few topics in depth, notably the AIDS epidemic, the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy governing military service, and marriage equality. …
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Queering Melancholia
Depression: A Public Feeling by Ann Cvetkovich Duke University Press. 296 pages, $23.95 IN Depression: A Public Feeling, Ann Cvetkovich attempts to find different ways of writing and…More