Talk Like a Man
Allah Made Us: Sexual Outlaws in an Islamic African City by Rudolf Pell Gaudio Wiley-Blackwell. 256 pages, $29.95 IN 2002, a film company based in the northern Nigerian…More
Browsing: November-December 2009
November-December 2009
Blog Posts
The Naughtiest Victorians
THIS INSIGHTFUL BOOK is an illuminating study of London in the early to mid-19th century. Charles Upchurch, assistant professor of history at Florida State University, examines the court documents and newspaper accounts of criminal cases of men accused of homosexual acts.
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“I Slid Back into the Sixties”
THE MOST DEVOTED FANS of a given city are perhaps the people who’ve come to it from the farthest away. Hailing from the Leave-It-to-Beaver suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio, Edmund White arrived in New York in the 1960’s and reveled in the intellectual ozone and garrulous open-mindedness of its denizens. Meanwhile, his newly unleashed libido made a beeline for the activities practiced on the near-deserted piers and in parked trucks of Sodom on the Hudson.
MoreA Mother’s Loss
JUDY SHEPARD was used to middle-of-the-night calls because her son Matt either couldn’t figure out the time zone difference or didn’t care. He lived in Wyoming, she lived in Saudi Arabia, and his early evening was her 2 AM. In the new book The Meaning of Matthew, she tells of the one call she’ll never forget.
MoreMaurice and Gay Liberation
The theme of Maurice can be described as essentially the search for a compatible social construct by which the protagonist can understand himself and go on to self-actualization.
MoreYiddish Subtexts
In The Passing Game: Queering Jewish American Culture, Warren Hoffman explores the idea of queer Jewish identity as expressed in drama, literature, and film. Hoffman interrogates and deconstructs many well-known Jewish cultural works, including Sholem Asch’s controversial play 1907 God of Vengeance, the 1936 film Yidl Mitn Fidl, which starred a cross-dressing Molly Picon, and the literary works of Abraham Cahan, among many others.
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Narrative Strains
NOT UNLIKE his other novels, William Mann’s latest centers on gay midlife. The protagonist, Danny Fortunato, grapples with the usual concerns of the male midlife crisis with the requisite questioning of life, love, and work. However, in Object of Desire, Mann mirrors this conflict with a haunting concern from the protagonist’s past, and the result is a mystery that leaves Fortunato seeking the answers to three questions: how did I get here, how do I move on, and what happened to my sister?
MoreStephen Sprouse’s Time to Design
HAUTE COUTURE took a distinct “downtown” turn in the 1980’s with
the emergence of Stephen Sprouse, who set the fashion world on fire as
the first designer to successfully merge street culture, punk, and high
fashion in edgy clothing designs incorporating graffiti, vibrant and at
times even garish colors, plus a fine arts sensibility.
MoreThe Young and the Bi
IN SEVERAL DECADES of books published with bisexual themes, there has only been one to my knowledge for and about teenagers or young adults. This year, there were three in the first six months alone. All three present bisexuality in a positive light, even though it may cause confusion for the protagonist until she gets a handle on it. In all three books the protagonist is a girl, two of whom have transgender issues. All three books are written in the first person, a voice designed to draw the reader into the story in a personal way.
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