Current Issue

What follows is the first English translation (by Mark Oshima) of a piece by the great Japanese novelist, poet, and playwright Yukio Mishima (1925–1970), which appeared in the September 1966 issue of Higeki Kigeki(“Tragedy and Comedy”).

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS and Yukio Mishima talked about their work and work routines in 1959. The conversation was lightly moderated by Williams’ life partner Frank Merlo, whom Mishima refers to as Williams’ “secretary.” Also present was Williams’ friend Donald Richie, who chimes in near the end.

For Gorey aficionados, this oddly titled doorstopper, Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey, by Mark Dery, which includes a bibliography, endnotes, and an index, will be welcome. The title is odd if the author means to imply that Gorey was only known posthumously, which is anything but theMore

Currently, what passes for camp in popular culture is sadly lacking in this innovative critique. In brief, camp has gone mainstream, and there’s no better example than the current mega-exhibition titled Camp: Notes on Fashion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, mounted by its Costume Institute, which attempts to piggy- back on camp’s gay legacyMore

Rise Up is timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, but one thing you take away from it is that New York was hardly the origin of the gay rights movement. It really began in Los Angeles and then spread to Washington, D.C.

What remains is the problem of reconciling Rand’s professed disgust for homosexuality with her apparent fascination with it in The Fountainhead. Let’s start with the premise that Rand herself was powerfully attracted to men. When entering into the minds of some of her male characters, she may have unconsciously written her own attraction to men intoMore

Most people know Andrea Dworkin as the radical feminist who launched a campaign against pornography in the 1980s and ’90s, but this is only one slice of a fascinating life of activism. I’ve recently completed a full-scale biography of Andrea Dworkin that will be published by the New Press in 2020. It’s based on herMore

Berkson … went on to have a distinguished career as a poet, art critic, and teacher. He and O’Hara remained friends, colleagues, and sometime collaborators. For years, he kept a scrapbook about Frank O’Hara, archiving memories, quotations, reproductions of visual art, and other material related to his mentor.

These poems often connect one gay poet to another in a lovely and poignant way. The late Reginald Shepherd is memorialized by Timothy Liu and Roberto Santiago. The latter re-uses the title “You, Therefore” from one of the best poems in Shepherd’s 2007 collection Fata Morgana for a new poem that is wonderfully reminiscent ofMore

Lovejoy has done extensive historical research and deploys it well, recreating London in the 18th century down to graphic details, such as the smell of trash and human waste in the streets.

Flannelwood is a novel about love, loss, searching, and self-discovery. Much of the interaction between Bill and James is sensual and erotic. The narration is realistic but rich, at times bordering on poetic.

You Will Be Safe Here is smart and well-written, … a remarkably effective novel about the historic tensions that have informed South Africa since its birth. The fact that one of the main characters is gay is just one among a number of tensions.

[In Stella Maris and Other Key West Stories, Michael Carroll] takes the conventions of the summer novel and twists them inside out, revealing a world of privilege and exclusion while also satirizing a certain strain of gay life that after the 2016 election feels comically out of touch in a world of uncertainty and turmoil.

“DO I NEED to set down the circumstances?” The narrator, Alec Pryor, confronts the reader with this question on the first page of Murmur: A Novel. Alec Pryor is a thinly disguised version of Alan Turing, the English mathematician who broke the Nazis’ Enigma code in World War II …

In his “American Novels” series, Norman Lock has previously published novels about Dickinson, Thoreau, Poe, Whitman, and Twain. Feast Day of the Cannibals is the first of his novels to explore the lives of 19th-century men who felt a sexual attraction to each other.

Reading Mr. Know-It-All feels like catching up with a cherished friend after several years apart, someone whose enthusiasm for all the things he loves—cinema, kink, trash—is entirely contagious. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Upon arriving in Italy from their enchanted island, Prospero forcibly separates Miranda from Ferdinand and takes her to their family palace in gloomy Milan. Miranda is locked in her chambers like a prisoner with few visitors except for a grim governess and Dorothea. Luckily, …

A CANADIAN TRANSPLANT to Brooklyn, Richard Turner, the protagonist of James Gregor’s comedic and captivating debut novel Going Dutch, is broke, self-absorbed, somewhat befuddled, and highly appealing.

Given the times, readers will not be surprised to learn that lots of drugs and easy promiscuity figure prominently in [Rainbow Warrior]; it was the ’70s. The memoir continues into the plague years, and Baker watches his friends as they waste away and perish. But Baker survived, moving to New York City in 1994 andMore

Part [of We Are Everywhere]opens with the memorial held in Los Angeles in 1994 to honor Dorr Legg, cofounder of the interracial homophile social club Knights of the Clock and co-publisher of ONE, Inc., the first homophile magazine in the U.S. Attendees included pioneer gay rights activists Jim Kepner and Morris Kight as well asMore

All in the Family came at a time when the LGBT community was just starting to find its public voice. As a vehicle for introducing America to this community essentially for the first time, the show traveled quite a distance during its thirteen-year run.

McKuen’s turning point coincided with 1967’s Summer of Love, when hippies and other nonconformists took their rebellion against conventional norms into the streets. His stance as a melancholy nonbinary romantic placed him on the more conservative end of the counterculture. It was his ability to connect with the heartaches and longings of countless “ordinary” peopleMore

This interview was conducted by phone this past June. I had a chance to chat with Ryan about his goals in writing When Brooklyn Was Queer, the conversations he hopes to instigate, and his thoughts on the trajectory of lgbtq politics today.

Short reviews of State of Pride, Vita and Virginia, Making Montgomery Clift, Adam, An Almost Ordinary Summer, and End of the Century.

Takes on news of the day.

Opinions from our readers.

Intro to issue.

Like Sir Elton, the Material Girl is a showgirl at heart, and no less familiar with rapid outfit changes. Her latest look involves an eye patch, a black veil, and a Sergeant Pepper jacket. On Madame X, she declares “I will be gay” if gay people are “burned” before identifying with other victims of discrimination:More

DONALD BOISVERT (1951–2019) was a queer academic, scholar, theologian, theorist, Anglican priest, activist and revolutionary, but I will remember him best as the sublime friend that he was.