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            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 maleMore

Born in India in 1947, Sir Salman Rushdie was educated at Cambridge University and came of age in England—indeed he is a knight of the realm—but has lived in New York City for much of his adult life. It was his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, that provoked a fatwa on his life, issued byMore

Thomas Mann had had homosexual affairs before marrying Katia Pringsheim, and afterwards still had powerful, though repressed, yearnings for young men. His subtle homosexual themes appeared in Tonio Kröger and Death in Venice. In Mario and the Magician, the conjuror Cipolla hypnotizes the handsome young Mario, who is humiliated and forced to kiss him inMore

Stephan Likosky shares his findings regarding this important episode in queer history as it is reflected on postcards, which were an early medium by which ordinary people could learn about current events and be exposed to new ideas. Indeed, the importance of postcards cannot be overstated.

Donald L. Boisvert had submitted a review that was quite critical of Martin’s book [Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity], while Brian Bromberger proposed a defense of it, having interviewed the author in early summer. So it seemed logical to share Boisvert’sMore

Like The Invention of Love, Housman’s Country is a love letter to a vanished time. What the poet cries out for in his final speech in Stoppard’s play is “Oxford in the Golden Age!”

I caught Grand’s act in Provincetown, a one-hour singing tour de force in which he alternates between piano and guitar. I interviewed him in person the next day. Find out more about Steve Grand on his website at www.SteveGrand.com.

Pennsylvania Station offers a powerful glimpse into gay life in America before Stonewall, and a look at the complicated relationship between two very different men.

Jeremy Mulderig claims in his introduction that The Lost Autobiography is one of the great queer diaries of the 20th century (one wonders how many of these there actually are; still, the claim does not seem wildly off base). Here is a witness to some of that century’s great personalities, living defiantly through the strictures imposed byMore

Once immersed as a soldier in the Weather Underground, whose leaders turned authoritarian and cruel, Lerner became fearful of his comrades. Decades later, he has written a memoir about this era titled Swords in the Hands of Children.

The response to Don Leon’s request for a new way of thinking about sexual variety was social shock. Early printings of this work were destroyed in one way or another, and the text became a rare and nearly mythical presence in gay history.

Amin Ghaziani’s Sex Cultures demonstrates how to bring LGBT Studies to a broad undergraduate audience.

CLOSET SONNETS is structured in one of those postmodern ways that remains intriguing. The text is supposedly the life work of G. S. Crown, a thoughtful if somewhat conventional scholar, professor, husband, and father.

Reviews of the following books: Our Time: San Francisco in the ‘70s; Pride and Joy: LGBTQ Artists, Icons and Everyday Heroes; How to Survive a Summer: A Novel; Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer; So Famous and So Gay: The Fabulous; and Kingdom Come: A Fantasia.

Forever Stardust is written from the perspective of an obvious fan who is never fawning or shallow.

What accounts for the range of differences in acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer persons throughout the world? … In Cross-National Public Opinion about Homosexuality, sociologist Amy Adamczyk has woven an impressive tapestry of nuanced answers to this urgent and complex question.

In Lou Harrison, Bill Alves and Brett Campbell have written an eminently scholarly, fair-minded, and exhaustive biography of a composer they claim enjoyed “one of the richest lives ever lived in American arts.”

In The Province Of The Gods is a finely honed philosophical and autobiographical reflection on transcendence and self-acceptance.

FANS of lesbian icon Jane Rule will celebrate the publication of her letters to a man whom she came to love. Less familiar to U.S. readers, Rick Bébout—editor of the Toronto gay paper The Body Politic and the book Flaunting It: A Decade of Gay Journalism from The Body Politic.

Despite the predictable but disturbing litany of abuse, Ma-Nee Chacaby emerges as a talented visual artist and a heroic survivor who eventually nurtures both children and adults in need.

Once immersed as a soldier in the Weather Underground, whose leaders turned authoritarian and cruel, Jonathan Lerner became fearful of his comrades. Decades later, he has written a memoir about this era titled Swords in the Hands of Children.

A SEMI-AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL meditation on death, Alistair McCartney’s The Disintegrations has the feeling of a conversation between new friends, exploring the idea of death through several stories.

THERE ARE many reasons to read Janet Mock’s earlier memoir, Redefining Realness (2014), not least of which is that it serves as a prelude, if not a prerequisite, to reading her new book, Surpassing Certainty.

Indecent is at once a compressed history of a daring Yiddish play, God of Vengeance, written by the Polish novelist Sholem Asch in 1907, and a celebration of the stagecraft that makes theater distinct from film.

JOY LADIN is the author of eight books of poetry, including her latest collection, Fireworks in the Graveyard (Headmistress Press, 2017). She is a chaired professor of English at Yeshiva University. ...

Still Together The Greeks never disappoint. The latest find is a 2,500-year-old bit of graffiti on the remote Aegean island of Astypalaia with an inscription carved in stone that reads “Nikasitimos was here mounting Timiona” (Νικασίτιμος οἶφε Τιμίονα). Plus, there’s a carving of two giant phalluses to commemorate the event—or ongoing relationship, as the useMore

  ‘Queen’ Piece Deemed Unworthy To the Editor: Hidden away in the July-August issue with beautiful commentary on remarkably accomplished people—Lincoln Kirstein, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Gore Vidal—is a silly, degrading, mean-spirited essay, “What Makes a Queen a Queen?” On the one hand, I am dismayed by how many kinds of queen the author knows—napMore

Though he liked to drink (too much, truth to tell), John [Ashberry] didn’t frequent gay bars. People came to him. In Paris he was partnered with the poet Pierre Martory for several years and later provided translations of a volume of his poems.

THE AUTHOR of four groundbreaking novels, Mark Merlis died at age 67 on August 15, 2017, in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Hospital. The cause of death was pneumonia, related to ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, which he had been diagnosed with just a year ago.