Between the ages of twelve and fifteen, Martin Moran had a sexual relationship with an older man, a counselor hed met at a Catholic boys camp. Almost thirty years later, at the age of forty-two, he set out to find and face his abuser.
The Tricky Part tells the story of this relationship and its complex effect on the man Moran became. He grew up in an exemplary Irish Catholic family--his great aunt was a cloistered nun; his father, a newspaper reporter. They might have lived in the Denver neighborhood of Virginia Vale, but they belonged to Christ the King, the church and school up the hill. And the lessons Martin absorbed, as a good Catholic boy, were filled with the fraught mysteries of the spirit and the flesh.
Into that world came Bob--a Vietnam vet carving a ranch-camp out of the mountain wilderness, showing the boys under his care how to milk cows, mend barbed wire fence, and raft rivers. He drove a six-wheeled International Harvester truck; he could read the stars like a map. He also noticed a young boy who seemed a little unsure of himself, and he introduced that boy to the secret at the center of bodies.
Told with startling candor and disarming humor, The Tricky Part carries us to the heart of a paradox--that what we think of as damage may be the very thing that gives rise to transformation, even grace.
Martin Moran has written a story about difficult, painful and deeply personal events in his life with uncommon generosity and decency. The story is shocking, even brutal, but I felt cleansed at its end. He has found compassion where I would have thought there was none. When art does that, it enriches us, and his book is art.
--Terrence McNally, TonyAward-winning author of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune
A beautiful book. Martin Moran is a graceful, witty, perceptive writer, remarkably brave, free of self-pity--his spirit, manifest on every page, is discerning and generous to the point of radiance. Hes a scrupulous and precise rememberer and explorer, and because he refuses simplification for the sake of judgment and yet insists on the necessity of rendering judgment, The Tricky Part is fully human, unsettling and wise.
--Tony Kushner, author of Angels in America
Those of us--and we are legion--whose innocence has not been lost so much as taken, have a choice. We can remain children and insist on a black and white vision of perpetrators and victims, or, like Martin Moran, we can grow up. We can arrive at the understanding that love is only as pure, or as whole, or as beautiful, as the always imperfect beings who offer and demand it.
--Kathryn Harrison, author of The Kiss
Martin Moran not only writes unflinchingly about the sexual abuse of a child, he expands it into a meditation on suffering, despair, forgiveness, redemption, and the mysterious workings of grace. He elevates the confessional to the level of art.
--Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours
Martin Moran has written an account of a childhood at once conventional and nearly unfathomable. A deep, tempered spirit shines through every page, by turns understated and dazzling, wildly comic and gut wrenching.
--Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
A tender, searingly honest, and heartbreaking account of the legacy of sexual violation. Moran bravely unveils the tricky part: the paradoxical worlds of longingand shame, the erotic and the reviled, the profane and the sacred all living in one act, one man, one life. Gorgeously written, the book is a divine literary and spiritual exorcism.
--Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues
In an age where reality television exploits intimacy, and tell-all autobiographies have become endemic, Martin Morans book restores faith in the literary memoir. In documenting his troubling childhood relationship with a much older man, he eschews ready sensationalism and--instead--bravely articulates the complexities that color even the most taboo relationships. And he accomplishes it all with a prose style that is rich, immediate and constantly surprising. His is a book both haunting and profound.
--Doug Wright, author of Quills and winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for I Am My Own Wife
The Tricky Part is that rare, triumphant thing--a book so bravely remembered and so fully imagined as to be capable of rendering a life in all of its moral complexity.
--Richard McCann, author of Mother of Sorrows
Review:
"To everyone else in the Denver neighborhood where he grew up in the '70s, Moran was a studious Catholic boy. No one knew he carried a secret that would fester for 30 years and lead to extreme anxiety, sexual compulsion and suicide attempts. At age 12 he met Bob, a church camp counselor in his 30s who, for several years, took Moran hiking and camping, and had sex with him. Moran painfully recounts the inner workings of a lonely, insecure adolescent who, out of a desperate need for friendship and acceptance, continued a sexual relationship with a man 20 years his senior. Feeling guilty and shameful regarding the affair and his homosexuality, Moran lived a life in which the erotic and the illicit fused, and compulsive sex became a means of self-punishment. Over the years, Moran, now a writer and actor, managed to glean bits of guidance and self-acceptance from his aunt, a contemplative nun; a New Age music teacher; friends; and eventually, recovery groups and therapy. Moran's Catholic-American gothic differs from other abuse/recovery/coming-out memoirs in that it examines a uniquely gay mind/body split as it subtly reflects on a gay man's spiritual quest for self-determination and love. Agent, Malaga Baldi Literary. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Synopsis:
A tender, searingly honest, and heartbreaking account of the legacy of sexual violation, Moran bravely unveils the tricky part: The paradoxical worlds of longing and shame, the erotic and the reviled, the profane and the sacred all living in one act, one man, one life.
Synopsis:
Martin Morans family lived in a Denver neighborhood called Virginia Vale. But what seemed most central, most important, was that they belonged to Christ the King--the church and school up the hill. And what Martin learned, as a good Catholic boy, was that the Hereafter was what counted; the here--fickle and unreliable--was the problem.
Martins world changed abruptly when, at the age of twelve, a church-camp counselor seduced him. New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley--praising Morans one-act play, The Tricky Part, for the quiet victory of rendering chaos with this kind of clarity--called his telling of this event a crystalline accumulation of moments.
In his memoir Moran takes us deeper into the ongoing sexual relationship that followed the seduction, and for the first time he explores its effects upon his adult life. And finally--in a scene of stunning power and restraint--Moran confronts the perpetrator, now an old man in a veterans hospital.
In examining the paradoxes of human relationships, Moran manages to uncover divine grace in the most unlikely forms.
They say true freedom arrives when all the kids are gone and the dog dies. With
his family grown and his husband, Zack, having decided to become a middle-aged
cliche acute accent over e and marry his secretary, Chris Thayer is about to
discover that starting life over at 48 is just as complicated, frustrating, and
thrilling as the first time around. After relocating to the North Carolina beach
community of Emerald Isle, Chris becomes involved in the patchwork lives of his
neighbors, including the easygoing local doctor. When Zack's son, Schooner,
moves in with him, Chris learns the often difficult but endlessly rewarding
lessons of establishing a relationship with a 20-something. In the same quiet,
understated manner that he demonstrated in his critically acclaimed first novel,
Metes and Bounds, Jay Quinn gives the traditional Southern novel a decidedly
untraditional twist.
Synopsis:
In the same quiet, understated manner that he demonstrated in his critically
acclaimed first novel, "Metes and Bounds," Quinn gives the traditional Southern
novel a decidedly untraditional twist.
As challenges arise, Chris begins to see that his initial
crisis forced him to find an inner strength he didn’t know he had. Readers are
sure to identify with how he digs deep and discovers what it takes to move on —
even when change is the last thing he expects or wants. ... “Back Where He
Started” won’t go down as one of history’s great literary feats. The book is
more like a feel-good movie that keeps you company on a do-nothing afternoon. At
times, Chris’ luck comes a little too easily, and plot developments can feel a
bit contrived. But the story is warm, inviting and thoroughly satisfying as
light fare. Quinn’s laid-back writing style makes it fun to see what happens. So
open the windows, grab a blanket and curl up with this touching story about how
life goes on.
In the early 1970s, when be was still an aspiring unpublished
writer, Felice Picano began a remarkable relationship with an extraordinary
animal: a days-old kitten slated for euthanasia who refused to perish. Rescued,
named, and trained. Fred became an extraordinarily intelligent companion, ally,
reacher, and constant wonder to the authors as he began his ascent through the
Bohenuan circles of Greenwich Village, among musicians, actors, curious
characters, and even the famous British across in hiding right next door. But
when an acquaintance brought his female eat to be serviced by Fred, an entire
new set of experiences opened up for the eat--and for Picano, who'd never had
the nerve to befriend her owner, his ideal man. The course of love seldom runs
straight for cats or for men, and this tune would (hilariously) prove no
different. This is another of Piano's distinguished portraits of a vanished era.
when a new gay domain was solidifying only a few years after the Stonewall
Riots, and the still nascent gay hierarchy world that Picano would help invent
was just a conception.
"Twenty stories by up-and-coming gay male writers offer
vibrant takes on themes ranging from coming out to unrequited obsession. The
anthology opens with Vestal McIntyre's 'ONJ.com,' which follows a mean-spirited
freelancer's manipulative relationship with a female boss. Philip Huang
contributes a lyrical, poignant portrait of a young woman's sad life ('American
Widow'), while Patrick Ryan's 'Ground Control' is a brilliant coming-of-age yarn
about the bittersweet yearnings of a boy and his older classmate in the 1980s.
The best discoveries include Scott Pomfret's 'Chicken,' a moving portrait of the
tense intimacy between an aging gay man and a teenage hitchhiker with 'runaway
eyes'; Jorge Ignacio Cortinas's engaging, atmospheric 'His Five-Year Sentence,'
about a young Latino shoplifter's life in northern California; and Kevin
Reardon's delicately droll office opera 'Teamwork.' Hearts both young and old
soar with ecstasy and are consumed with longing in these irresistible tales. In
the book's foreword, White notes that many feel gay fiction has 'run its
course.' This excellent collection offers proof positive to the contrary. "
Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Another review:
Reclaiming Gay Fiction: A new
anthology confirms gay life’s dark side, especially for the young in the Gay City News by SETH J. BOOKEY
"Neurotic siblings and embarrassing parents are familiar (even
required) elements of the literature of suburban nostalgia and malaise. Wolitzer
(Surrender, Dorothy; The Wife) doesn't tamper with these
basic ingredients in her latest novel, but she gives them a titillating twist.
Paul and Roz Mellow are enthusiastically in love — so much so that in 1975 they
write a how-to sex book, Pleasuring, that features illustrations of them
in every imaginable position. The book becomes a runaway bestseller. When the
children find the book and read it together, they're forever traumatized, in
ways both serious and comedic. Flash forward 30 years: Paul and Roz are long
divorced and remarried, and Paul, in particular, remains bitter; the grown
children fumble through their lives on the eve of the publisher's reissue of the
sex classic. The oldest, Holly, has settled into late motherhood after a
lifetime of nomadic drug-taking; uptight Michael suffers from chronic
depression; Dashiell, a gay Log Cabin Republican speechwriter, is diagnosed with
Hodgkin's disease; and insecure late-bloomer Claudia returns to her Long Island
hometown to finally figure out how to be a fully functioning adult. If the
characters are rather stock, and the musings on love, sex and family familiar,
Wolitzer nevertheless bestows her trademark warmth and light touch on this tale
of social and domestic change. Agent, Peter Matson at Sterling Lord
Literistic.6-city author tour. (Mar. 8)" Publishers Weekly
(Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.).
A literary cult hero, James Purdy's exquisitely surreal fiction has been populated for more than 40 years by social outcasts living in crisis and longing for love. His acclaimed first novel Malcolm (1959) won praise from writers as diverse as Dame Edith Sitwell, Dorothy Parker, Marianne Moore, and Gore Vidal, while his later books, from the award-winning Eustace Chisholm and the Works (1967) to In a Shallow Grave (1976), and Gertrude of Stony Island Avenue (1998) influenced new generations of authors from Dennis Cooper to Paul Russell. Moe's Villa and Other Stories, Purdy's first short-story collection in over a decade, showcases twelve new stories; from fairy tales about an opera diva whose mega-stardom is managed shrewdly by her talking cat to the little girl who runs off with a fire-breathing dragon to eat turtle soup; from a bizarre account of a desperate husband whose obsession over his wayward ex-wife leads to his fixation on a rare white dove to a visit to Moe's Villa, a private mansion doubling as a gambling casino where lonely boys are taught the art of poker by the Native American proprietor, Purdy takes his well-deserved place in the tradition of the finest American storytellers.
Review:
"Jewels, songs, grandmothers, wills and Ouija boards — the stuff of an old
storyteller's magic — keep popping up in these 12 unusual, often fantastical
stories by the prolific and under-recognized Purdy (Malcolm; In a
Shallow Grave; etc.). 'Kitty Blue,' in which a beloved talking feline is
catnapped by the nefarious proprietor of a burlesque hall, and 'A Little
Variety, Please,' in which a dragon rescues a young girl from her nasty adoptive
parents, feel like fairy tales, but look at 'happily ever after' from oblique
angles. Indeed, the most compelling of the stories approximate folktales,
refulgent with old-fashioned vernacular speech and character names. In 'Easy
Street,' Mother Green and Viola Daniels, a pair of elderly 'ladies in
retirement,' unexpectedly inherit a fortune from a mysterious but kindly movie
star. 'Reaching for Rose' describes the tragic, bizarre end of a lonesome, aging
man who talks to himself every night in a barroom phone booth. And in the title
novella, which involves a Russian gem expert and a case of mummified candy,
Vesta Hawley desperately tries to reconnect with her teenage son, Rory, who has
left home to live at Moe's Villa, a restaurant and gambling den in the rural
village of Gilboa. Purdy's smooth, naturalistic prose explores themes of love,
loneliness and loss in the context of the surreal — a gratifying mix indeed.
Agent, Emma Purdy. (Nov.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed
Business Information, Inc.)
Trash
by Dorothy Allison
Order this Book
Trash, Allison's landmark collection, laid the groundwork for her critically
acclaimed Bastard Out of Carolina, the National Book Award finalist that
was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "simply stunning...a
wonderful work of fiction by a major talent." In addition to Allison's classic
stories, this new edition of Trash features "Stubborn Girls and Mean
Stories," an introduction in which Allison discusses the writing of Trash
and "Compassion," a never-before-published short story. First published in 1988,
the award-winning Trash showcases Allison at her most fearlessly honest
and startlingly vivid. The limitless scope of human emotion and experience are
depicted in stories that give aching and eloquent voice to the terrible wounds
we inflict on those closest to us. These are tales of loss and redemption; of
shame and forgiveness; of love and abuse and the healing power of storytelling.
A book that resonates with uncompromising candor and incandescence, Trash
is sure to captivate Allison's legion of readers and win her a devoted new
following.
Foreword by Michael Bronski
A bold, unapologetic celebration of gay male sexual culture in the 1970s
The radical sexuality of gay American men in the 1970s is often seen as a
shameful period of excess that led to the AIDS crisis. Beyond Shame claims that
when the gay community divorced itself from this allegedly tainted legacy, the
tragic result was an intergenerational disconnect because the original
participants were unable to pass on a sense of pride and identity to younger
generations. Indeed, one reason for the current rise in HIV, Moore argues, is
precisely due to this destructive occurrence, which increased the willingness of
younger gay men to engage in unsafe sex.
Lifting the "veil of AIDS," Moore recasts the gay male sexual culture of the
1970s as both groundbreaking and creative--provocatively comparing extreme sex
to art. He presents a powerful yet nuanced snapshot of a maligned, forgotten
era. Moore rescues gay America"s past, present, and future from a disturbing
spiral of destruction and AIDS-related shame, illustrating why it"s critical for
the gay community to reclaim the decade.
As founding director of the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, Patrick Moore
pioneered the concept of preserving artworks as historical artifacts of the AIDS
crisis. He has worked extensively in gay/lesbian civil rights and AIDS activism
and is the author of two novels, This Every Night and Iowa. Moore lives in Los
Angeles.
"As a detailed examination of the ways in which rage gives depth to art, Moore"s
book has no peer in recent memory."
--Publishers Weekly
"Moore"s point of departure is as refreshing as it is daring . . . calling gay
men to return to the sexualvanguard."
--Out
"Essential reading for anyone seeking an imaginative interpretation of recent
gay history."
--Library Journal
"A provocative, wistful book . . . Moore"s yearning is touching and his politics
refreshingly incautious--a romantic affection for the entirely unromantic." --The
Advocate
Running with
Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne
Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist who bore a
striking resemblance to Santa Claus. So at the age of twelve, Burroughs found
himself amidst Victorian squalor living with the doctor's bizarre family, and
befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed. The story of an outlaw
childhood where rules were unheard of, and the Christmas tree stayed up all year
round, where Valium was consumed like candy, and if things got dull an
electroshock- therapy machine could provide entertainment. The funny, harrowing
and bestselling account of an ordinary boy's survival under the most
extraordinary circumstances.
"I was born
twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January
1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey,
Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope
Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver's license records my first name simply
as Cal." So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three
generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny
village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit,
witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before
they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To
understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty
family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal,
one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction.
Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American
epic.
A literary cult hero of major proportions, James Purdy’s exquisitely surreal
fiction—Tennessee Williams meets William S. Burroughs—has been populated for
more than forty years by social outcasts living in crisis and longing for love.
His acclaimed first novel, Malcolm (1959), won praise from writers as diverse as
Dame Edith Sitwell, Dorothy Parker, and Gore Vidal, while his later works, from
the award-winning In a Shallow Grave (1976) to Gertrude of Stony Island Avenue
(1998), influenced new generations of authors. Eustace Chisholm and the Works, a
1967 novel that became a gay classic, is an especially outspoken book among the
author’s controversial body of work. Purdy recalls that Eustace Chisholm and the
Works—named one of the Publishing Triangle’s 100 Best Lesbian and Gay Novels of
the 20th Century—outraged the New York literary establishment. More than
breaking out of the pre-Stonewall closet, however, the book liberated its author
and readers can be grateful for that.
On a spring day in 1968, eight-year-old Isabel Gold prepares tea for her mother,
certain she will drink it and recover from her mysterious sadness. But the tea
remains untouched. Not long after, her mother takes her own life.
Struggling to understand the ghost her mother left behind, Isabel grows up
trying on new identities. Her yearning for an emotional connection finds her
falling in and out of love with various women, but it is not until Isabel learns
how to reach deep within herself that she begins to listen to the truths of her
own heart.
Review:
"Hers is an intimate story, suffused with irony, humor and a close, sensuous
attention to physical detail. Isabel's world opens up generously, providing the
reader with the intimate truths and emotional complexity that make this
impressive debut unforgettable." Publishers Weekly
Review:
"An unpretentious, muddle-free first novel." New York Times Book Review
Review:
"[a] memorable debut novel...barbed with bitter humor." The New Yorker
Was Honest Abe Queer? This is the book that has neo-cons frothing at the mouth.
Here are some of the reviews about this controversial new work:
From The New York Times; Finding Homosexual
Threads in Lincoln's Legend. "In "The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln," to
be published next month by Free Press, Mr. Tripp, a psychologist, influential
gay writer and former sex researcher for Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey, tries to resolve
the issue of Lincoln's sexuality once and for all. The author, who died in 2003,
two weeks after finishing the book, subjected almost every word ever written by
and about Lincoln to minute analysis. His conclusion is that America's greatest
president, the beacon of the Republican Party, was a gay man."
From the Washington Blade Online :
New book to claim Abe Lincoln was gay " Using Kinsey’s famous scale that ranks the
homosexual component of an individual from 0 to 6, Tripp wrote that, “By this
measure Lincoln qualifies as a classical 5 — predominately homosexual, but
incidentally heterosexual.”"
The "global queering" of America has been gradually shaping the way straight
people talk, think, dress, and eat. Over the past fifty years, the line between
what is "straight" and what is "gay" has blurred to the point that most
heterosexuals are unaware of the vast contributions gay men have made to
American culture. How the Homosexuals Saved Civilization presents a broad yet
incisive look at how an unusual "immigrant" group, homosexual men, have become
so influential on mainstream American culture. The general public's tastes and
consumer choices in food, fashion, humor, literature, and body image are
becoming decidedly more gay. And America has shown a real interest in TV shows
with gay content and themes, such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy; Will &
Grace; and Six Feet Under. Overall, it's hip to be gay, even if you're straight.
How the Homosexuals Saved Civilization tells us something about ourselves as a
society. It celebrates the unique perspective of gay men and explains how
essential their vitality has been to our civilization. Index.
Everyone's
favorite accidental gay sleuths--Michael, Robert, and their lesbian sidekick,
Monette--are back in another wickedly entertaining ride. In "Biceps of Death,
the dynamic trio is out to find out who murdered a personal trainer/hustler by
pushing him off the balcony of his NYC apartment.
Peter Paddington is thirteen, overweight, the subject of his classmates'
ridicule, and the victim of too many bad movie-of-the-week storylines. When
Peter's nipples begin speaking to him one day and inform him of their diabolical
plan to expose his secret desires, Peter finds himself cornered in a world that
seems to have no tolerance for difference. Peter's only solace is "The Bedtime
Movies" -- perfect world fantasies that lull him to sleep every night. But when
the lines between Peter's fantasy world and his reality begin to blur, no one is
safe from his imagination's machinations -- especially Peter himself.
Julia Glass's
finely observed first novel traces the lives of a Scottish family across three
summers, as they experience the joys and frustrations, sadness and possibility
offered by romantic and familial love. Mourning the death of his wife, Paul
McLeod travels from Scotland to Greece one June; there he confronts both the
truth of his marriage and the reality of his age in a brief flirtation with a
much younger woman, an American artist. At the beginning of another summer,
after Paul's death, his son Fenno, a gay man who has exiled himself to New York,
confronts his family's disappointments and their complicated hope. Years later,
in yet another June, Fenno befriends a pregnant woman who traveled to Greece one
summer during college and who now faces a choice that will change her life. In
prose as shimmering as the summer sun, Three Junes paints a haunting portrait of
love's redemptive powers.
Written with the warmth, wit, and
heartbreaking humor that have made Stephen McCauley's previous novels beloved by
readers and critics alike, True Enough is a story of love and lust, trust
and betrayal, commitment and denial; it signals a major leap forward in the
career of a novelist whom the San Francisco Chronicle has called "a
writer of insight, surprise, and finesse."
True Enough begins with Jane
Cody; at forty she has it all: a satisfying career as a producer at a Boston
public television station, a successful second marriage, a wildly precocious
six-year-old son who loves to bake. She's definitely not worried about losing
her job, couldn't care less what the neighbors think of her child, and
absolutely never longs for her rakish, unfaithful first husband. Honestly.
Equally pleased with his life is Desmond Sullivan. His
(secretly) monogamous relationship with Russell has been the happy center of his
New York life for half a decade, and his second book, the biography of an
obscure '60s-era female vocalist is (and has been for three years) mere pages
away from completion. By accepting a temporary teaching job in Boston, he'll get
enough distance from his distracting happiness to finish his book and maybe even
figure out how much blissful domesticity he can stand. When Jane and Desmond
meet, they're drawn to each other by needs and fears they never knew they had.
They team up to work on a series of TV documentaries on the lives of America's
forgotten artistic mediocrities -- according to Jane, "the whole culture is
drifting away from geniuses and exceptional people who only make the rest of us
feel inadequate" -- that could save Jane's career and help Desmond wrap up his
book. They embark on a journey that proves to be surprising, revealing, and
stunningly life-affirming.
Of course, no journey is easy, and their progress toward
uncovering the truth about enigmatic pop singer Pauline Anderton (a real singer,
even if, at times, a really bad one) is slowed by pesky personal crises -- like
Jane's realization that adultery with one's former husband is still adultery,
and Desmond's discovery, on a return trip to New York, of a suspiciously
unfamiliar pair of eyeglasses on his nightstand. Maybe Jane's shrink -- to whom
she's confessing all, more or less -- can help. And maybe Desmond can learn
something from Jane's handsome, flirtatious married brother. Or maybe the answer
to each of their problems has been there all along, like a lost coin, waiting to
be picked up and polished and put back into circulation. But then, true love can
be so embarrassing.
As if Alexander the Great, the Harlem Renaissance, A Member of the Wedding, and
piano bars weren't enough, here are the fabulous reasons to celebrate the rich
heritage and vast cultural contributions of gays and lesbians. This inspiring,
joyous book triumphantly commemorates the many ways gays and lesbians have
profoundly shaped the face of the world's politics, art, literature, music,
theatre, cinema, sports, civil rights, and much more. From the fighting spirit
of the Radical Faeries to the groundbreaking TV comedy of Will and Grace, from
Walt Whitman's immortal "Song of Myself" to the incendiary power of Tony
Kushner's Angels in America and the searingly candid art of Frida Kahlo, gays
and lesbians have made life sweeter, deeper, more humane, and, well, so much
more fabulous. Included are the myriad ways to be glad, such as:
- Gay places of pride: The Castro, Bloomsbury, Metropolitan Community Church,
Berlin.
- Gays in history: The Ancient Greeks, Alexander the Great, Eleanor Roosevelt,
Harvey Milk.
- Literary gays: Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin,
Dorothy Allison.
In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in
the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: conservative Member of Parliament Gerald,
his wealthy wife Rachel, and their two children, Toby-whom Nick had idolized at
Oxford-and Catherine, highly critical of her family's assumptions and ambitions.
As the boom years of the eighties unfold, Nick, an innocent in the world of
politics and money, finds his life altered by the rising fortunes of this
glamorous family. His two vividly contrasting love affairs, one with a young
black clerk and one with a Lebanese millionaire, dramatize the dangers and
rewards of his own private pursuit of beauty, a pursuit as compelling to Nick as
the desire for power and riches among his friends. Richly textured, emotionally
charged, disarmingly comic, this U.K. bestseller is a major work by one of our
finest writers.
The first in-depth biography of the celebrated composer/lyricist who created
Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage aux Folles. This revealing and comprehensive
book tells the full story of Jerry Herman's life and career, from his early work
in cabaret to his recent compositions for stage, screen, and television. Stephen
Citron draws on extensive open-ended interviews with Jerry Herman as well as
with scores of his theatrical colleagues, collaborators, and close friends. The
resulting book--which sheds new light on each of Herman's musicals and their
scores--abounds in fascinating anecdotes and behind-the-scenes details about the
world of musical theater. Readers will find a sharply drawn portrait of Herman's
private life and his creative talents. Citron's insights into Herman's music and
lyrics, including voluminous examples from each of his musicals, are as
instructive as they are edifying and entertaining. Stephen Citron is well known
for shedding fresh light on the American musical theater and the artists who
inhabit it. His previous books include Songwriting, The Musical from the Inside
Out, and biographies of Noel Coward, Cole Porter, Alan Jay Lerner, Oscar
Hammerstein 2nd, Stephen Sondheim, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank
Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about
her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did
she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?
Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will
never look at Oz the same way again. "Wicked" is about a land where
animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens,
Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin
Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little
green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous
Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who
challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and
evil.
Whether
discussing his father's murder or encounters with cult figures like Marilyn
Manson, each vignette in Palahniuk's first collection of nonfiction offers a
unique glimpse into the life of one of our most flagrantly daring and original
literary talents.
FRESH
MEN: NEW VOICES IN GAY FICTION
Moe's
Villa and Other Stories 
Eustace Chisholm and the Works 
How the Homosexuals Saved Civilization
Biceps of Death 
Fruit: A Novel about a Boy and His Nipples
Three Junes 
