Taking the title of the collection from one of the stories included in the volume, Zuckerman notes that Guibert’s stories aim at suggesting experiences that, like powerful memories, continue to resonate with a person even as they fade into insubstantiality, “like a treasure lost in the depths.” However, as Zuckerman reminds the reader, the French phrase for the “invisible ink” in which one of Guibert’s narrators says that his story has been written is “encre sympathique.”

            Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Steuben joined the Prussian army when he was seventeen, eventually becoming an aide-de-camp to Frederick the Great, who was also rumored to have had homosexual leanings. (The conversation of Frederick’s inner court circle was peppered with homoerotic banter, and his residence included a Friendship Temple celebrating the homoerotic attachments of Greek antiquity).

Ultimately, of course, of greatest interest to millions of readers is the unique nature of Tolkien’s genius, and it is here that Smith has made his most enduring impact. His ardent faith in Tolkien’s destiny proved justified, beginning in 1937 with the publication of The Hobbit; and Smith’s spirit lives on in the three books of The Lord of the Rings through the passionate love that grows between Frodo and Sam. Smith deserves to come out from the shadows cast by longstanding homophobia in literary studies and to be given his rightful place in English literature as Tolkien’s most influential muse.

WIDELY REGARDED as the greatest living composer in the American musical theater, Stephen Sondheim has in recent years become very open about being a gay man. While coming to…More

THE MUSIC AND LIFE of Leonard Bernstein are being celebrated around the world this year as we observe the centennial of his birth on August 25, 1918. Music lovers are being treated to thousands of classical concerts, talks about his career, screenings of the film West Side Story, and stage revivals of his Broadway musicals, such as On the Town and Candide. The scope of the celebration is due to Bernstein’s unique role in American music as a composer who spanned the worlds of Broadway and classical music, infusing symphonic richness into musicals and a modern sensibility into the concert hall, and leaving a lasting legacy in both art forms.

            Infused throughout West Side Story is a gay sensibility that’s expressed subtextually in the relationship between the hero Tony and Riff, the leader of the Jets, and choreographically through the homoeroticism of the all-male dance sequences. Equally bold is the inclusion of the character named Anybodys, a teenage girl who identifies as a male and longs to be accepted as a full member of the Jets. Anybodys is Broadway’s first transgender youth.