It Takes a Foursome 
Told from Patrick’s perspective, Paternity Test is rich with angst and eagerness, laced with past-inflicted pain but also sprinkled with hope.
MoreBrowsing: January-February 2013
January-February 2013
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It Takes a Foursome
Does Israel ‘Pinkwash’?
… Schulman spends the first half the book talking about her “solidarity visit”-by which she means solidarity with both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, especially GLBT people among both. … The book’s second part describes what happened when Schulman returned home, when she organized a speaking tour in the U.S. for three GLBT Palestinian-Israeli activists. …
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John Cheever’s Erotic Abyss
… Cheever’s journals reveal his fear of his own homosexuality, in particular his fear that he might betray-or that others might perceive-what he is desperate to keep hidden: that his wife follows his gaze as it lingers on other men, that he indulges in an assignation with another man in the anonymity of a private train compartment, or that his highly critical mother caustically insinuates that he’s “irregular” sexually. …
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Declaration Premature
VICTORY is a compendium of the events on the path to where we are today in the fight for full GLBT equality in the United States. Thus author Linda Hirshman has a lot of ground to cover, pausing on a few topics in depth, notably the AIDS epidemic, the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy governing military service, and marriage equality. …
MoreA Man in Full
CHARLES BEYE’S MEMOIR begins like a l9th-century novel: the narrator’s second wife, to whom he has not spoken in years, is dying, and his children are begging him to visit her. Not only does he refuse, but when she dies he suspects that she willed herself to expire just to avoid his visit. …
MoreA Writer of Opportunity
IF THE SURNAME Noguchi sounds familiar, it’s probably because of Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), the versatile and successful American artist who achieved worldwide fame not only as a sculptor, urban architect, set designer, and furniture designer, but also as a jet-setting playboy whose many romantic dalliances with movie stars, among others, often made headlines. But it is the artist’s father, Japanese-born writer Yone Noguchi (1875-1947), who is the subject of Amy Sueyoshi’s study in Queer Compulsions. …
MoreYou’ve Got to Hide It from the Kids
… Stories for Boys is ostensibly about Martin’s father, who in his early sixties attempts suicide. This comes as a surprise, since the father had always seemed the rock of the family while the mother, who suffers from bipolar disease, has occasionally been hospitalized. What triggers the father’s attempted suicide is his wife’s discovery of gay pornography on their computer. …
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The Remains of the Underground
CONSIDERING his impact upon American underground cinema, it is surprising that Andy Warhol is still known far more for his silk-screens than for his celluloid. As author and art history professor Douglas Crimp points out in his elegant and smart new book on some of Warhol’s key cinematic works, Warhol was hugely prolific, having made more than 100 films and almost 500 film portraits …
MoreDeep History of the AIDS Virus
THE FIRST GAY PERSON I ever met was also the first lover who died of AIDS. Tom was an ebullient bon vivant who loved to cook, built his own clavichord, and snuck me into the Episcopal church where he was the organist to play Bach works till dawn. Unbeknownst to us when we met in 1980 (my freshman year of college), HIV was silently insinuating itself into the bloodstream of men and women around the globe. It sprung into the public’s attention in 1981 after physicians published a report on an unusual outbreak of Pneumocystic pneumonia (PCP) affecting five previously healthy young gay men in Los Angeles with weakened immune systems. …
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On the Return of Virginia Woolf
… At 84, Albee is notoriously cagey during interviews, and enjoys a good game of cat-and-mouse, sometimes craftily switching roles with the interviewer. I spoke to the playwright shortly before the revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf on Broadway on October 13th-fifty years to the day of its première …
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