A Singular Man 
Isherwood’s early life resembles a Masterpiece Theatre period drama.
MoreBrowsing: November-December 2024
November-December 2024
Blog Posts
A Singular Man
Fruit of the Syrian Diaspora
THREE NEW BOOKS, two novels and a memoir, help reveal the struggles and victories of LGBT Syrians. For all the beauty of the country, Syria is a land of horrific oppression, where gay men in particular, fearing exposure from the police and informers, must find secret places for sexual encounters or social interaction. They remind us of the promise of the Arab Spring and the crackdown and refugee crisis that followed, which affected so many people’s lives.
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Poems of Age and Loss
PERHAPS there is no one as romantic, or as wistful, as a poet in old age. Likewise there is nothing that spurs a poet’s ruminations so profoundly as loss. Three new collections explore old age and loss in various ways (one in an almost uncategorizable way), each with varying degrees of effectiveness.
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Putting Broadway on the Silver Screen
Maya Cantu’s meticulously researched biography, Greasepaint Puritan: Boston to 42nd Street in the Queer Backstage Novels of Bradford Ropes, reveals the extent to which Ropes based his backstage novels on his own Broadway experiences.
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A Film of Its Time, or Way Ahead of It
Winter Kept Us Warm is long overdue for a reassessment. As Canadian film historian, critic, and gay rights activist Thomas Waugh told Dupuis: “It’s so important for a film like this to be preserved, because it really speaks to what it was like to be gay in this time and place. It’s a way to pass on to future generations who have no other way to access it.” Happily, you can judge for yourself: the film is available for viewing on YouTube and on Internet Archive.
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Who’s Left on the Right?
Coming Out Republican ends with a brief vignette about Donald Trump’s lack of more than a pro forma interest in the anti-gay agenda. There is little conservative about Mr. Trump, whose blaring, elephantine ruckus conserves nothing and damages institutions as old as the nation. We are left wondering whether most of today’s Republicans are in fact conservative.
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The Fall of the House of Wilde
The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts, focuses on Oscar Wilde’s long-suffering wife Constance and their two young boys, Cyril and Vyvyan, as they cope with Oscar’s philandering and the aftermath of his trials and exile.
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Muses of the Boudoir
Esther Pressoir is both an engrossing biography, with its roots in serious research, and a beautifully illustrated art book. It showcases the many modes in which Pressoir worked: lithography, etchings, linocuts, scratchboard, watercolors, oils, and more.
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The Presence of the Past
Because My Body Is Paper contains undated work, it’s less about [Gil Cuadros’] evolution as a writer than about our experience of his deeply felt concerns: the pleasures and horrors of the body, the link between spirit and nature, the sense of meaning we can derive from carefully tended relationships.
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Never Made Sense of It
AS A POET AGES, he’s often faced with several choices. He can keep doing what he has always done, or he can, by seriously confronting himself, seek another voice. Jason Schneiderman has done the latter brilliantly in his new book, Self Portrait of Icarus as a Country on Fire. He reflects humorously on his life as a poet, often poking fun at himself and his poses. He wrestles with his Jewish heritage by taking on Stalin and the Holocaust, and then delves into the angst of gay divorce.
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