The Lincoln Triangle Barnes and Noble is Closing.
Posted on August 31, 2010
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Three years ago, I reported the sad, sad news that my neighborhood’s Barnes and Noble was closing. The reason for this was not declining sales of books. Indeed, this particular store–in Chelsea–was making a healthy profit. No, this time the villain was a familiar one in New York City: its landlord.
Now comes more bad news for readers: Barnes and Noble’s Lincoln Triangle store is closing.
The Lincoln Triangle Barnes and Noble is a particularly beautiful bookstore and its closing is a tremendous loss to New York City. In addition to hosting a wide variety of author readings, it also presented memorable performances by Broadway stars and cabaret artists.
And what is the cause for this cultural catastrophe? Why has Barnes and Noble chosen to shutter one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world? Are people buying fewer books there? No. Are the performers failing to attract standing room only audiences? No. There is one reason why this store is closing: its landlord is greedy.
Three years ago, the landlord of my local Barnes and Noble chose to double its rent. Barnes and Noble made the rational decision to close the store. And for two and a half years the huge space was vacant. Then recently a new tenant moved in: Trader Joe’s.
So here is my message to all you New Yorkers living in the Lincoln Center area: Say goodbye to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edmund White, Raymond Chandler, Toni Morrison, Andrew Holleran, Ernest Hemingway, Thornton Wilder, Armistead Maupin, Oscar Wilde, Barbara Pym and all those other writers of quality fiction. Say goodbye to all the fine non-fiction. Say goodbye to performances by Barbara Cook, Michael Feinstein, Cheyenne Jackson and Carol Channing.
And say hello to gourmet olives.
Happy Birthday QueerReader.com!
Posted on July 12, 2010
Filed Under Happy Birthday! | 4 Comments
QueerReader.com is two years old today. Twenty-two books have been reviewed by QueerReader.com. This has been a particularly eventful year. It began by QueerReader.com scooping USA Today with the news that Michael Cunningham is working on a new novel. Later this year, QueerReader.com published its first author interview –with Selfish and Perverse author Bob Smith. I don’t know about you, but I am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I began this website on a down note, but as I have written before, I am no longer depressed. Queer Lit which had all but been pronounced dead two years ago, now appears to be making a modest comeback.
In the coming months, many changes will be made to QueerReader.com. Most of these you will not be able to see. Some of them you will. One of these changes will be a new “Strong Recommendation” logo. As you’ve probably noticed by now, all of the QueerReader.com reviews are to some degree or another recommendations. The new “Strong Recommendation” logo will underscore exceptionally high quality titles.
There has been a lot of talk recently about the digitization of books. Much of that talk is quite dire. I myself think the net effect on queer lit will be modestly positive. More on that later. The immediate effect will be to increase the number of titles available. And there will be increased pressure on publishers to re-release out-of-print titles in e-editions. That’s why I’m announcing the beginning of a new QueerReader.com feature: ”Out-of-Print Watch.” I encourage all of my readers to contact me with out-of-print titles worthy of e-edition reprints. With your help, we can make these editions profitable for the publishers and the authors.
Unfortunately, another change you will eventually see is advertisements. I will try to keep these ads as tasteful and non-intrusive as possible. And I will never take ads for any of the books I review.
I have never taken nor will I ever take any form of payment for the reviews at this website.
“All you’ve got is your integrity,” my partner said to me the other day. He said it in a tone that suggested he wished I had something more. Like maybe a car.
Nevertheless, I am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I Love Stephen McCauley’s Insignificant Others.
Posted on June 9, 2010
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I love Stephen McCauley’s new novel, Insignificant Others. It is frequently humorous and for this reason, some are referring to it as a “comic novel.” But this term does not do justice to this book. Because it implies a surface cleverness. And there is nothing superficial about this novel. The term “comic novel” also implies characters which are flat: sit com-like. This isn’t at all true here. Indeed, one of the strengths of Mr. McCauley is his ability to render multi-dimensional characters. He does this by perfectly presenting the first impression and then as the novel progresses, he presents different aspects of these characters–allowing us to view them from various angles.
Mr. McCauley’s work is sometimes likened to that of Armistead Maupin. And there are some clear similarities. Both have naturally humorous dialogue, both have solid structure–and even suspense. And both authors have a strong sense of place. For Armistead Maupin it’s San Francisco. For Stephen McCauley it’s Boston. But for me, this novel more closely resembles the work of John Updike–particularly his last two “Rabbit” books. Like Updike, McCauley demonstrates a surprisingly loving attention to detail. And at the same time, the narrator has a certain ironic distance from his subject. In fact, the title of this book is ironic. Because these “others” don’t turn out to be so “insignificant” after all. Far from it.
As the title implies Insignificant Others is about a man who discovers his long term partner is having a potentially serious affair. The narrator, Richard Rossi, is at the same time negotiating a long term affair with a man who is married with children. It says something about the maturity of Mr. McCauley, that this character is rendered sympathetically. But Mr. McCauley knows too much about humanity to present any of these characters as villains. Or for that matter, heroes. There are none of them in this book. Only beautifully written complex, fascinating characters.
And yes, you will laugh out loud.
Stephen McCauley’s Insignificant Others is published by Simon and Schuster.
Read Sebastian Stuart’s The Hour Between
Posted on May 25, 2010
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As you probably have read by now, Sebastian Stuart’s The Hour Between won the Publishing Triangle Award for Fiction. The best thing about this news for me was that I discovered a book that I had somehow missed when it was published in September. Anyway, here is my long-overdue review:
The nineteen-eighties were not a particularly good time for me. I came to New York to be fabulous, to fall in love or at the very least get laid–a lot. None of that happened to me. Instead I spent a lot of time visiting friends in hospital rooms and wondering why I was one of “the lucky ones.” There wasn’t much that was good in the nineteen-eighties. The few fond memories I have of that period were the times I spent in clubs in the East Village where performance art was thriving. I saw some amazing performances at clubs with names like: 8-BC and The Limbo Lounge. There were also a few decent plays going on there too. One of my favorite playwrights then was Sebastian Stuart. He wrote a play entitled: Smoking Newports and Eating French Fries. It featured a couple of geriatric gals who discover the joys of poppers or as they called it, “that sniffy stuff.” Yes, Mr. Stuart could make me laugh. So I wasn’t surprised that his novel The Hour Between featured natural, frequently humorous dialogue. Nor was I particularly surprised that this novel was seamlessly constructed. No what surprised me the most about this book was the overall quality of the writing. Put simply this is the most beautifully written novel I have read in years.
In this memory novel, our queer hero, Arthur MacDougal, finds himself landing in a 1960’s boarding school with the gently evocative name: Spooner. This almost-magical school seems to capture the spirit–if not the letter–of Christian Science. In the Christian Science cosmology, Love–a synonym of God–literally fills all space. It’s a belief system so unrealistically optimistic that it’s bound to come in for a reckoning eventually. But as one of the more fabulous characters puts it: ”…darling things do fall apart. The trick is not to fall with them.”
To paraphrase Ionesco, it is the ephemerality of this school that gives it lasting value. Because the Spooner School represents adolescence itself: magical, ordinary, fun and above all temporary. Arthur understands this intuitively and yet he can’t help but bask in the warmth of an instant friendship with the most fabulous girl in the school: Katrina Felt. Her mother is a movie star and she is something of a star herself–frequently changing her perfectly selected outfits, inserting French phrases into her conversation and eventually getting photographed by Cecil Beaton–although I don’t want to give away too much.
Arthur seems as surprised as anyone that he is now friends with her. And it opens up new worlds. He gains a circle of friends and access to a few recreational drugs. His aversion to marijuana is perhaps understandable, given that the whole school already seems to be a mile high.
Again, I don’t want to give away too much of the plot. Let me, instead, close with this: Read Sebastian Stuart’sThe Hour Between.
Sebastian Stuart’s The Hour Between is published by Alyson.
See The Kid
Posted on May 11, 2010
Filed Under Theatre Review | 3 Comments
I’m not sure which books I would have recommended for musical adaptation, but I’m pretty sure Dan Savage’s The Kid wouldn’t have been near the top of my list. While I enjoyed Mr. Savage’s book, I just couldn’t see how it could possibly make a musical.
Boy was I wrong. The Kid is a poignant, deeply moving, frequently hilarious musical. I couldn’t be more surprised. How did Mr. Savage’s memoir become a successful musical? As with all musicals, the answer is literally a collaboration of factors. This is a first-class production with a beautiful set, complemented by remarkably seamless multi-screen video presentations. The actors are all very, very good. The songs are tuneful and perfectly suited for this intimate musical. But what struck me specifically about this production was the quality of the writing: both of the lyrics and also the dialogue. It wasn’t an easy thing capturing the spirit of Dan Savage’s dry wit. And I actually found myself going back to Mr. Savage’s book to see if he had put it that way himself. One of my favorite lines isn’t in Mr. Savage’s book:
Dan: (Panicked.) We’re going to be dads today? We’re not ready! The only diapers we have are the ones we wore to the White Party.
A good line, yes. And it also perfectly crystallizes the story in a way that is faithful to the spirit of Mr. Savage’s fine book.
Some may fault the show for its lack of a show-stopping Andrew Lloyd Weber-style finale. I don’t. Because the end of this story is in fact the beginning.
I strongly recommend this show.
The Kid opened last night at The Acorn Theatre, 410 West 42nd Street.
Allan Carr as Gatsby?
Posted on April 19, 2010
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This queer reader doesn’t usually find himself reviewing books with titles like Party Animals: A Hollywood Tale of Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll Starring Allan Carr. Let alone those with covers like the one shown on the left. No, what attracted me to this book was the simple fact that it was written by Richard Hofler. Mr. Hofler is the author of The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson, which I loved. And once again Mr. Hofler does not disappoint. This is a meticulously researched biography of Allan Carr. Yes, Allan Carr.
In the acknowledgements, Mr. Hofler describes how it all began with a rhetorical question: “Is Allan Carr a book?” A more concise question might simply be: Why? Allan Carr was, after all, the man who brought us such laughably bad movies as, Can’t Stop the Music, Grease II and–let us not forget–Survive: the cheapie Mexican version of the Andes plane crash survivors’ cannibalism. He is also perhaps the only person to be banned from producing the Oscars–the direct result of his casting Rob Lowe in a singing duet with Snow White. It’s really pretty easy to write this man off. But like it or not, Allan Carr was the most powerful gay man in Hollywood for over a decade. He produced the most successful movie musical of all time: Grease. (That is until Mamma Mia knocked Grease off this pedestal.) And he also produced La Cage aux Folles: the first Broadway musical with two gay male leads.
And yet, Allan Carr remains a pathetic enigma–a grandiose Hollywood flop. I found myself straining for some larger theme beneath the narration of his life. Could he be a latter-day Jay Gatsby? His parties, like Gatsby’s, were legendary. Even those who laughed at him behind his back, dutifully showed up for his parties, including a two-night affair–the guests required to show up in alphabetical order. Ifpink suits, Carr had his caftans. Allan Carr even entertained the contemporary Meyer Wolfsheim–Roy Cohn–in his basement disco. One can almost feel Mr. Hofler himself straining to to find the great significance of his subject. As when he paraphrases F. Scott Fitzgerald n the title of the epilogue: “No Second Acts.” Fitzgerald didn’t live to see his own “second act.” And neither did Allan Carr. That is perhaps where their similarity ends.
Whatever your reasons for picking up this book, I suspect that you, like me, will find it difficult to put down. And the reason for this is quite simply the quality of Mr. Hofler’s writing. His chapter on Allan Carr’s Oscars show is, quite frankly, hilarious. Mr. Hofler also describes Allan Carr’s high school experiences in detail and illustrates how these experiences informed the movie production of Grease.
The most relevant–and topical–chapter is the one dealing with the original production of La Cage. It’s easy to forget that this show was very much Allan Carr’s brainchild. And it’s doubtful it would have ever come together without his leadership. Particularly interesting to me was the role of Harvey Fierstein. Mr. Fierstein wrote the book for the musical and he also had some pretty strong opinions on the production. He believed that the role of Albin should be played by an out gay man. And he hated the ending: a Rockettes-style dance number at the end of which the “real” woman appears. These quasi-political questions will be re-visited once again, because the show’s revival opened on Broadway last night.
I wish I could report that this delightful book is flawless. But alas it is not. I unfortunately found a most egregious error on page 174. Here Mr. Hofler describes Village Voice columnist Arthur Bell as a member of ACT-UP. But Mr. Bell died in 1984. And ACT-UP was formed in 1987. Proofreading truly is the dying art.
Nevertheless, I recommend this book.
Party Animals: A Hollywood Tale of Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll Starring Allan Carr is published by Da Capo.
On The Boys in the Band and its Sequel
Posted on March 29, 2010
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When Gay Plays: The First Collection was published in 1979, the editor, William Hoffman made the conscious decision to omit Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band. There were a lot of reasons why 1970’s gays didn’t like The Boys in the Band. And these objections were sometimes coached in quasi-political terms. But I suspect the real reason was quite simply: they had been to that party before. Thirty-plus years later, there doesn’t seem to be any doubt that Mr. Crowley’s play is an American classic–perhaps the quintessential gay play. Interest in The Boys in the Band has recently been renewed, because of a sold-out production in Chelsea. It closed last night, but the play is available on DVD and a book of Mart Crowley’s collected plays was recently published by Alyson. This book includes The Boys in the Band and a sequel entitled Men from the Boys. There has been talk about a New York premiere production of Men from the Boys some time soon.
I had several problems with Men from the Boys. First, the set up: the boys are re-united in the present day to “celebrate the life” of Larry–the first in the group to die. Unfortunately this scenario is way too optimistic. This particular age group of New York gays was decimated by AIDS. (By 1993 five of the original cast members of the play–and movie–had died of AIDS.) And those who survived were transformed by the crisis. Many were politicized for the first time. Others were completely turned around. Gay Republicans found themselves getting arrested at ACT-UP demonstrations. But the characters in Men from the Boys don’t seem transformed at all. Rather they seem almost frozen in time. They don’t have any more of a social conscience. They are no more interested in politics. They still have the exact same character traits. Michael still over-spends. Emory still speaks in rhymes and alliterations. For these reasons I came to view Men from the Boys as a fantasy play: a situation comedy in the most literal sense of the term. All that said, I found this play to be absolutely delightful.
When it comes to one-liners, Mr. Crowley is at the top of his form here. And once again it is the most effeminate character, Emory who gets the lion’s share of them. Such as when he refers to the non-introspective host, Michael: “He’s here. He’s veneer. Get used to it.”
I was surprised that Harold didn’t get more good lines. This notoriously pock-marked character got the best lines in The Boys in the Band, including: “Give me Librium or give me meth.” But in this update, his character came up short. A new younger character picks up the slack though–more than holding his own against these LBJ-era queens. His best line: “You need help, Michael. Professional help. Your mind is like a bad neighborhood. You shouldn’t go in there alone.”
If the rumors of an upcoming New York production are true, I myself will be near the first in line for the tickets.
The Collected Plays of Mart Crowley is published by Alyson.
UPDATE 5/28/10: Last night it was announced that The Collected Plays of Mart Crowley won the Lambda Literary Award for drama. Good call!
David McConnell’s The Silver Hearted is Excellent.
Posted on February 20, 2010
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I’m delighted to report that David McConnell’s new novel The Silver Hearted is excellent. The Silver Hearted is a suspenseful adventure story that is clearly influenced by Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad and Edgar Alan Poe. This unfortunately implies a pastiche. But Mr. McConnell has a style that is all his own. And it is at once minimal and lyrical.
As an example, let me quote this paragraph explaining how the novel’s narrator learned that he was broke:
My reaction wasn’t what I would have expected. I didn’t know what not having money was like. Over the next few days, I kept myself busy packing things in boxes (for no reason I could pinpoint) and drank heavily. This seemed like the natural continuation of the strange frustration I’d felt before. I was constantly changing my mind. I was going to call a friend, then I didn’t want to . I was going to find work in a museum, then I decided that was a bad idea. I ate in expensive restaurants. I had no care for the little money I had left. I slept badly. I’d never felt so powerless. I was happy.
Long before Tennessee William’s Blanche du Bois lost Belle Reve, Chekhov covered similar territory in The Cherry Orchard. But niether of them did so with this efficiency.
I’m reluctant to go into the plot of The Silver Hearted, because the plot is one of the key pleasures of this novel. Suffice it to say, it is a genuine page-turner. And let me also add that Mr. McConnell is particularly skillful at conveying a sense of doom–a gloomy foreboding–throughout the novel.
It’s worth noting that the homosexuality of the narrator is incidental to this tale. So while the main character is homosexual, the book isn’t really about his homosexuality. This just happens to be a first-rate adventure novel with a narrator who just happens to be gay. I strongly recommend this book.
David McConnell’s The Silver Hearted is published by Alyson.
Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln! America’s Second Gay President?
Posted on February 12, 2010
Filed Under Book Review, Happy Birthday! | 2 Comments
Today is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. It’s a good time to read (or re-read) C.A. Tripp’s The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln. In it, Mr. Tripp intelligently makes the argument that President Lincoln was gay.
Abraham Lincoln is depicted as a tall, handsome–even sexy–young man who displayed virtually no interest in women. He had several intense–even romantic–relationships with men. And he probably had sex with at least a couple of these men. His marriage to Mary Todd is described as pragmatic. They had four children and they also had separate bedrooms at the White House. When Mary was away, President Lincoln would sometimes share his bed with David Derrickson–the captain of the White House Guard. Yes this makes for quite an interesting read.
Unfortunately, Mr. Tripp died before the editing of the manuscript was done. I suspect that, given just a little more time, Mr. Tripp would have engaged in a bit of “judicious pruning.” And–perhaps more importantly–at least a few gaps would have been filled in. As it stands, this is an uneven text; some chapters are better written than others. For me, the best was “Yours Forever”: Mr. Tripp’s description of the intimate friendship between Abraham Lincoln and a handsome young man named Joshua Fry Speed. The two gentlemen lived together for four years. They shared the same bed–even though there were other beds in the house. They shared this bed in the warm as well as the cold months. This is just one piece of circumstantial evidence in what amounts to an inconclusive case. But when taken together, this queer reader came away with the impression that Mr. Tripp might just be right.
After all, we can’t get just James Buchanan.
C.A. Tripp’s The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln is published by Thunder’s Mouth.
Nathaniel Frank Wins the Stonewall Book Award.
Posted on January 18, 2010
Filed Under Gays in the Military, Queer Lit News | 1 Comment
Today it was announced that Nathaniel Frank won the Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award for his book, Unfriendly Fire How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America. This was one of my favorite books of 2009 and I am delighted to see it getting the recognition it so richly deserved. Click here to read my review.
David Francis won The Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Literature Award for his novel, Stray Dog Winter. And Nick Burd won Stonewall’s first children’s and young adult literature award for his book, The Vast Fields of Ordinary.
Congratulations to the winners!
UPDATE MARCH 2, 2010: Mr. Frank’s book is available in paperback today. As the Obama administration finally is addressing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” it’s more important than ever for us to be informed on this subject. Please buy this book today.
Happy Birthday Edmund White!
Posted on January 13, 2010
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Today is the birthday of Edmund White. It’s a good time to reflect on the courage of one of America’s great writers. Courage is not a word often used when describing today’s American writers, but Mr. White is different. We learned from his recently published memoir, that the sixties were a time of tremendous struggle for him. In this day of yuppie writers, it’s almost impossible to imagine a writer struggling so long to be published.
Edmund White’s great breakthrough was, of course, A Boy’s Own Story. It took courage to write A Boy’s Own Story. It was one of the first literary novels to present a gay boy as anything other than sick. It is a sweet irony that this courageous tome went on to become the first gay-themed New York Times Bestseller. Many believe A Boy’s Own Story is the Great American Queer Novel. For me, A Boy’s Own Story –alone–doesn’t quite rise to this level. But when taken together with its two sequels–Beautiful Room is Empty and Farewell Symphony–this trilogy perfectly represents The Great American Queer Novel–epic in sweep, historical and deeply personal.
If Edmund White had written only these three novels, he would be one of America’s great writers–gay or straight. But Mr. White didn’t stop here. He has written several more novels–including some historical fiction. He has written an award-winning biography of Proust and a highly entertaining biography of Rimbaud.
One of my favorite Edmund White books is his memoir, My Lives. Rather than presenting a chronological history of his life, Mr. White made the interesting decision to divide the book into different “Lives.” The two chapters that deal the most frankly with sexuality are: “My Hustlers” and “My Master.” Mr. White appears to have no interest in justifying his behavior. He is neither an apologist nor a propagandist. The writing is matter of fact, fascinating–occasionally humorous. Mr. White could have easily omitted these chapters from the book. After all, how many Princeton professors write about this sort of thing? But Mr. White once again made the courageous choice.
While we’re on the subject of courage, I should mention Mr. White’s recent play, Terre Haute. There are a lot of reasons great American novelists rarely try their hand at playwriting. For one thing, their record as a whole hasn’t been too good. Henry James’s one and only play was a notorious flop. Hemingway’s one and only play never got off the ground. And F. Scott Fitzgerald’s one and only play bombed in a “Broadway Bound” Atlantic City try-out. Plus, it can be painful. It’s tough submiting your writing to a producer and a director, actors and finally an audience who may or may not get it.
I didn’t get a chance to see Mr. White’s play when it was produced in New York, but I did recently read it. And I was struck by two things. First, the quality of the dialogue. And second, the humor. As you probably know, the play is a series of conversations between a man who seems a lot like Timothy McVeigh and a writer who seems a lot like Gore Vidal. Mr. White gives the Gore Vidal stand-in a Yale education and he even has him quoting Norman Mailer(!) but the similarities with Gore Vidal are obvious. This character also gets all the good lines. Like his response when asked if he slept well: “I always sleep well. I leave nothing to chance. I’ve taken a ten-milligram valium every night of my life.”
It’s nice to see one of America’s great writers taking a stab at playwriting. And succeeding. I hope he will continue to write plays. I understand he is working on a sequel to City Boy. Will he also be writing some more fiction? Or perhaps another quality biography? Whatever his next project, I’m sure it will be courageous.
Four Gift-able Queer Coffee Table books
Posted on December 18, 2009
Filed Under Book Review | 1 Comment
Here are four gift-able queer coffee table books–in no particular order:
- Gore Vidal’s Snapshots in History’ Glare.
Mr. Vidal has assembled an amazing collection of photographs–mostly candids of him and his friends. We see Paul Newman, Johnny Carson, Tennessee Williams and many others. They are often positioned casually around a pool or at the beach–frequently shirtless. The interiors of Mr. Vidal’s fine homes are presented beautifully. And the behind-the-scenes photos of his talk show appearances are interesting. I particularly enjoyed the snaps of his political excursions: his run for congress, his later appearances with Abby Hoffman and others.
Unfortunately, this book is also littered with Mr. Vidal’s self-serving, pompous, often-hilariously inaccurate comments. Particularly egregious is Mr. Vidal’s description of the famously trashy film: Suddenly Last Summer. Mr. Vidal writes: “I know (Sam) Spiegel has listed beside my name Tennessee Williams himself, who did not contribute one line to the screenplay. But Tennessee Williams was quite happy with the result.”
Gore Vidal is eighty-four years old. Perhaps his memory is failing him. He might have considered refreshing it by consulting Tennessee Williams’ Memoirs–published in 1975. In his Memoirs Mr. Williams didn’t spend a lot of time on the movie Suddenly Last Summer. He mentioned that Sam Spiegel gave him fifty thousand dollars plus fifteen percent of the profits for the movie rights. Then he added: “…the profits were as good as the movie was bad.” So yes: “Tennessee Williams was quite happy with the result.” If we define “the result” as: large residual checks.
- Katharine Hepburn: A Life in Pictures
Chronicle recently published a magnificent book of Katharine Hepburn photographs. These photos span almost all of Ms. Hepburn’s sixty-two year career in film. There are a number of candids as well as the glamour photos of the day. I found the candids the most interesting, because they reveal sides of Katharine Hepburn which she tried hard to conceal. For example, the candids of her on the set of Suddenly Last Summer reveal a woman who looks surprisingly old. (Ms. Hepburn famously spat in the eye of director, Joseph Mankiewicz, when she saw the finished film.) In the candid photos, Ms. Hepburn also looks surprisingly freckled and one can see why Howard Hughes nicknamed her, “Red.” She’s also frequently photographed smoking. And I couldn’t help but think: For someone who lived to be ninety-six, this woman sure smoked a lot of cigarettes.
Don’t expect too much from the text. It’s written by the man who wrote the authorized biography of Katharine Hepburn. And this text feels authorized also. No mention of Ms. Hepburn’s lesbianism. (And none of the corroborating photos.) This is strictly boilerplate: “Kate and Spensah.”
For some hints of Katharine Hepburn’s homosexuality, one might just as well read her full-page quotes–sprinkled throughout the book. My favorite:
I never realized until recently that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.
- Some Like it Hot: The Official 50th Anniversary Companion
Some Like it Hot doesn’t start out as a very queer film. It opens in Chicago in nineteen twenty-nine and it’s, of course, the night of the Saint Valentine’s Massacre. There are machine guns and sight gags about hiding the prohibition-era booze. And there is a gangster leader named Spats who wears spats and flicks a coin like Geor
ge Raft, because, of course, he is George Raft. When Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon throw on the dresses and the make-up for the first time it’s an amusing sight gag–particularly Jack Lemmon’s cupid’s bow lipstick–but it still feels like another guy film. Even the extra-terrestrial appearance of a spaced-out Marilyn Monroe doesn’t quite lift this movie above a slightly formulaic comic diversion, for me. About three quarters into the film, though, Billy Wilder throws a surprising loop into the formula: Jack Lemmon’s character gets excited about the idea of marrying an older man. And the comic dialogue, which had started out almost predictable, becomes madly unpredictable, unexpected. As when Tony Curtis’s character asks Jack Lemmon’s: “Why would a guy want to marry another guy?” His response: “Security!”
A great movie deserves a first-class companion. And I honestly don’t think anyone could have done a better job than Laurance Maslon and the people at Collins Design. This is the perfect gift for anyone who loves Some Like it Hot.
- Joan Crawford: The Enduring Star
Earlier t
his year, Rizzoli published a superior Joan Crawford coffee table book. This beautifully-produced book is comprised primarily of high quality studio shots of Ms. Crawford. One is reminded of how beautiful she could photograph–particularly when she was young. And this book also shows how long Joan Crawford’s career was. The overall effect is respectful. And the text by Peter Cowie is also respectful in tone. No mention of Ms. Crawford’s bisexuality here. But I must say the quality of the writing is very high. I actually learned a few things from reading this book. For instance, I never knew that Joan Crawford became interested in Christian Science while filming Susan and God.
This is an ideal gift for the Joan Crawford fan in your life.
What Would Auden Review?
Posted on December 1, 2009
Filed Under Deep Thoughts | 3 Comments
The great queer poet, W.H. Auden once said: “One cannot review a bad book without showing off.” Maybe that’s why I have been so reluctant to review bad books. Maybe I thought having a website was showing off enough.
I began this blog on a down note. Gay and Lesbian bookstores were closing. Queer Lit was increasingly marginalized. Carrol and Graf was shuttered. Could it be possible, I wondered, to honestly recommend, say, one queer book a month? I had my (unstated) doubts. And I was kind of bummed out.
Well, alert the media: This queer reader is no longer depressed. LGBT bookstores are still under threat. The Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York has closed. Philadelphia’s Giovanni’s Room is struggling mightily. And the superstores continue to marginalize queer lit in distantly positioned “Gay and Lesbian” sections.
And yet, there are bright spots. Don Wiese, the former head of Carrol and Graf is now the executive editor of Alyson. He is re-making Alyson in his own image and that is a very good thing indeed. Also, I would point to Edmund White. His memoir, City Boy, is by far the best book of the year. It was just yesterday announced that City Boy is on The New York Times Notable Books list. And it’s selling. I’m told City Boy has a sequel on the way: something to look forward to. Mr. White is so prolific, it’s sometimes hard to keep up with him. For instance, if you’re not paying close attention, you might not notice that his Rimbaud biography The Double Life of a Rebel is being published in paperback today.
It’s reassuring to know that our standard-bearers are still writing. I’m very much looking forward to Armistead Maupin’s upcoming novel: Mary Ann in Autumn. And a much-anticipated new book by Dorothy Alison. Michael Cunningham has revealed that he is working on a new novel. The brief excerpt that was recently published in Electric Literature Magazine was exquisitely haunting.
It’s also nice to see a younger group of queer writers continuing to make an impact. Among them are Stephen McCauley, Bob Smith, Alison Bechdel and Patrick Ryan.
And while we are on the subject, I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of the university presses in cheering this Queer Reader up. These small publishing houses have repeatedly picked up the slack–publishing important academic titles, as well as highly entertaining ones. In particular, I would point to The University of Chicago Press who really did a beautiful job packaging and publishing Andrea Weiss’s vividly illustrated: In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain.
Quality queer lit is out there. And in the coming weeks I will be offering guidance on some gift titles for the holidays. In the meantime let me leave you with this: Support our queer bookstores. If you don’t live near one, buy a book from one of them online. It’s easy.
The paperback edition of Edmund White’s Rimbaud The Double Life of a Rebel is published by Atlas.
UPDATE 12/10/09: Since I posted this, three more LGBT bookstore’s have announced that they are closing soon: Lambda Rising in Washington, DC, its satellite store in Rehoboth and Out Word in Indianapolis. It’s sometimes easy to forget that these gay institutions are also retail businesses. And the holiday season is crucial to their survival. So do your part. Buy a book from one of the few remaining queer bookstores. Now more than ever, they need your support.
The Bob Smith Interview
Posted on October 23, 2009
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When I formally requested an interview with the author, Bob Smith, I had no idea what to expect. I knew that he was an excellent writer and I figured he probably had a good sense of humor, but I had no idea that the author of Selfish and Perverse was, in fact, a world-class mensch. Not only did he grant me an interview within a week of my request, he spent over an hour with me at my apartment in Chelsea.
He calls Armistead Maupin an influence. Also: Ronald Firbank, Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh and Joe Orton. Interestingly, he considers Dawn Powell and Barbara Pym to be strong influences as well. And he calls Stephen McCauley, “… one of the most under-rated writers today–gay or straight.”
Mr. Smith talks about what it was like writing for MADtv. Why it took him six years to write Selfish and Perverse. Why, “Alaskans are the coolest people.” And why his new novel will be significantly shorter than his first. It’s a long interview. That’s why I have posted it at my sister website: QueerReader.Blogspot.com.
Edmund White’s City Boy: Literate, Historical, Delightful.
Posted on October 5, 2009
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Edmund White’s City Boy is the kind of book we rarely see in the United States: a literate memoir. It is an important book. And It is also a delightful book. In a conversational–frequently humorous–style, he chronicles his own life in the sixties and seventies. For most of these years, Mr. White was struggling. I was frankly startled to learn how long he struggled. Today Edmund White is such a literary institution that it comes as a surprise to learn how difficult his early years were. It is somewhat ironic that these difficult years make such an enjoyable read. But Mr. White intelligently includes thorough descriptions of New York City throughout the book. It’s changed significantly since the sixties and seventies. New York was certainly dirtier, smokier, emptier and less safe. But it also had a bohemian art/literature culture that is now gone. So while Edmund White struggled for years to get his work published, he spent much of this time in the presence of artists and writers. A lot of names come up in this book: Susan Sontag, Vladimir Nabokov, Robert Mapplethorpe, Christopher Isherwood, Harold Brodkey, Lillian Hellman, William Burroughs to name a few. But it never feels like Mr. White is name-dropping. All of these names arise organically through the narrative of the story. And Mr. White is never catty. Indeed this is a surprisingly warm-hearted memoir. Thus City Boy manages to be both educational and a pleasure to read.
One gets the impression that Edmund White has been writing this book years before he actually put it down on paper. He covered the Stonewall riots in his excellent novel, The Beautiful Room is Empty, but here he seems determined to fill in some blanks. For instance, he has in the past compared the Stonewall to the Bastille, but here he further explains this analogy:
The Stonewall was a symbol, just as the leveling of the Bastille had been. No matter that only six had been in the Bastille and one of those was Sade, who clearly deserved being locked up. No one chooses the right symbolic occasion; one takes what’s available.
The Stonewall riots remain an enigmatic event: a flash of violence in an otherwise peaceful movement. Queer leaders all have their own ways of interpreting and reinterpreting this seminal event. Mr. White has this advice for them:
GLBT leaders like to criticize young gays for not taking the movement seriously, but don’t listen to them. Just remember that at Stonewall we were defending our right to have fun, to meet each other, and to have sex.
It is interesting that while many of the writers Mr. White encounters were gay, sex–or even sexuality–rarely enters into this book. He does point out that most of them kept their sexuality a secret, except to close friends and family. But for all their drama, manipulations–even deceptions–these really were writers struggling to define great literature and to write it.
The selection of the sixties and the seventies for this volume of memoirs is significant. The sixties and the seventies truly were a pivotal period for queers, for society and for literature. And the first person narrator–as in Mr. White’s best fiction–has a certain universality to his character. Here he is likable, humorous, slightly self-deprecating. At the beginning of the book he smokes three packs a day and drinks heavily. By the end of the book he has quit smoking and drinking and, by his own description, has gained a few pounds. At the beginning of the book he believes he is sick and goes to more than one therapist to “cure” himself of his sexuality. By the end of the book he is becoming a gay leader. His journey is that of a gay everyman. But this gay everyman is extraordinary. Because Mr. White’s most important evolution is his journey from struggling writer to internationally acclaimed author. How he made this journey, and who and what influenced him along the way, forms the core of this book. And it’s what makes this book great.
Edmund White’s City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960’s and 1970’s is published by Bloomsbury.
UPDATE 11/29/09: City Boy just made the New York Times Notable Books of 2009 List. Good call!
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