The Killer with Something Extra
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Murder Most Queer: The Homicidal
Homosexual in the American Theater
by Jordan Schildcrout
University of Michigan Press
268 pages, $34.50

VIOLENT GAY CHARACTERS have a long tradition in American theater. Their presence reflects both the homophobia of the era in which they flourished and the growing awareness of gay people as a social reality. It’s easy to dismiss these figures today as horrible relics of an earlier time. But there might be more going on in these characters and the plots they inhabit than we assume, for both the playwrights who created them and the audiences who came to watch.

Such is the premise of Jordan Schildcrout’s original, well-researched, and immensely readable book.