One of my first art memories was a childhood visit to the Art Institute of Chicago. My father had taken me there to see the current exhibition . (I can’t remember what it was.) And along the way we passed
R. Tripp Evans’s Grant Wood Biography is Sublime. Read More »
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
Stephen McCauley’s Insignificant Others is Delightful. Read More »
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
Edmund White’s City Boy: Literate, Historical, Delightful Read More »
Having read William Mann’s classic queer Hollywood history, Behind the Screen, Queer Reader expected his new Katharine Hepburn biography to be very good. It isn’t very good. It’s great. Mr. Mann’s Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn may just
Read William Mann’s Kate. Read More »
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with reformers in the Oval Office, he responded to their requests with three cryptic sentences: “I agree with you. I want to do it. Now make me do it.” This possibly apocryphal quotation has become
We think we know them. We’ve seen Picasso’s strangely flattering portrait of Gertrude Stein (painted from memory.) And the famous Man Ray photograph of Gertrude and Alice B. Toklas–looking like the old married couple that they were. Then there is
Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice is Now in Paperback. Read More »
If you haven’t read it yet, now is the time to read Armistead Maupin’s latest novel, Michael Tolliver Lives. It is arguably Mr. Maupin’s best novel and it is now available in paperback.
It’s okay to get excited about
Did you know that Thomas Mann’s daughter was married to W.H. Auden? When asked why he agreed to the marriage, Auden replied: “What else are buggers for?” In fact, Auden met Ericka Mann the day he married her. He did
Thomas Mann’s Queer Kids Read More »
The state of queer fiction is miserable. Fewer and fewer queer titles are being published. And those that are published don’t sell, because they aren’t very good. It is not the intention of this blog to dwell on the negative.
Read Andrew Holleran’s Grief. Read More »