Communists and Perverts under the Palms: The Johns Committee in Florida, 1956-1965 by Stacy Braukman University Press of Florida. 250 pages, $69.95 IN 1956, the Florida legislature established…More

… Making the case for the deep intresections of mysticism and eros-and drawing heavily on Georges Bataille- [Brintnall] argues that the paradoxical symbol of the compromised male body as a symbol of redemption embodies the “self-shattering and fragmentation” that is erotic and mystical transcendence. Nimbly dancing between the Bible, Robert Mapplethorpe, the artist Francis Bacon, and Hollywood action films, Brintnall concludes that representations of suffering male bodies offer “a chance at glimpsing oneself in the other across the wound’s abyss, a headlong fall of dizzying ecstasy.” …

… In Outlaw Marriages, Streitmatter … asks us to enter the world of fifteen prominent Americans through the portal of their long-term same-sex relationships. …

RESEMBLING a memoir in its early pages, Hidden turns out to be about nothing less than a man’s search for God. As such, it belongs to a literary tradition that encompasses St. Augustine, Dante, and Thomas Merton. …

Fascinating though it is, this is not a book for the beach but is instead a scholarly tract that often reads like a dissertation.

… This memoir is as lovely and confounding as what we’ve come to expect from a fearless and complex author of novels and memoirs. …

CLAUDE CAHUN, noted lesbian photographer of the 1920’s and 30’s, contended that lesbianism “occurs with special frequency in women of high intelligence.” In The Last Nude, novelist Ellis Avery gives Cahun’s notion of an “aristocracy of taste” quite a workout through Avery’s fictionalization of an erotic painting titled Beautiful Rafaela

DEREK JARMAN (1942-1994) is one of those artists whose interests were expansive and who had the creative powers not only to indulge them but to do so with distinction across a broad range of categories. …

AS a longtime devotee of the films of Luchino Visconti (1906-1976), I’m thrilled to report that this new critical study on the work of Visconti is an admirable addition to any film aficionado’s library. …