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anthroxagorus's review against another edition
5.0
I'm sure I bought this long ago when I was desperate to have books that queer people existed on my bookshelves, and when I had just fallen in love with Edmund White. Naturally, I only read through the parts regarding Edmund White, and then the breakdown of The Boys in the Band. So much to be said! This is still a valuable history account I'll be reading through as I build my queer canon, even if I must devise a new cover over this hideous bright penguin orange book jacket.
chrisvigilante's review against another edition
5.0
Not officially done yet,but I've loved all of this that I have read. I've read more of the authors I haven't since I first picked this up and am really glad that I have. I liked that the book went through eras. The 50's then the 60's.I felt like it was a bit of a journey of gay writers, and queer literature.You really see changes in what is allowed to pass and in what format. poetry, short stories, novels, and plays are mentioned here. It's definitely made me reanalyze some fiction I've read before and added so many things to my want to read list. Bram gives us the history of some really fascinating people and I really enjoyed it. I'm already planning on reading more about Capote and will likely read more about some others mentioned. Really this was right up my alley. I'm very glad my friend Carly suggested it to me after hearing about it in one of her classes.
wesleymccraw's review against another edition
4.0
A very readable history. I highly recommend this to any gay male writer.
ederwin's review
4.0
Interesting biographical sketches of about ten male gay writers of the sorts of serious literature that gets reviewed in places like New York Times, Harpers, New Yorker, etc. That means writers of novels, plays, poems and essays. Specifically Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, James Baldwin, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, James Merrill, Armistead Maupin and a few others. It makes sense to discuss them together, since they had many interactions over the years.
It is true that they "changed America" with their writings. Gradually from the 40's to the 80's it became less difficult to write about gay lives in print, and reviewers gradually stopped referring to how disgusting they thought the topic was until it finally became fairly mainstream.
But they weren't the only ones. Literature by women is barely mentioned. The introduction explains that would require a separate book by an author with more knowledge of that, and that seems fair. Also not discussed are works from non-Americans, or works of science, or of less serious literature: pulp novels, science fiction, mysteries, films, musicals, pop music, young-adult books, comics, etc. Those sorts of things were just as important in shifting public opinion, and certainly had some influence on the authors being studied.
Still, the limited focus on a few handfuls of writers who knew each other and worked in the same milieu works well as a microcosm of what was going on in the wider world. I now have more insight into their work, and a short list of titles I want to explore further.
It is true that they "changed America" with their writings. Gradually from the 40's to the 80's it became less difficult to write about gay lives in print, and reviewers gradually stopped referring to how disgusting they thought the topic was until it finally became fairly mainstream.
But they weren't the only ones. Literature by women is barely mentioned. The introduction explains that would require a separate book by an author with more knowledge of that, and that seems fair. Also not discussed are works from non-Americans, or works of science, or of less serious literature: pulp novels, science fiction, mysteries, films, musicals, pop music, young-adult books, comics, etc. Those sorts of things were just as important in shifting public opinion, and certainly had some influence on the authors being studied.
Still, the limited focus on a few handfuls of writers who knew each other and worked in the same milieu works well as a microcosm of what was going on in the wider world. I now have more insight into their work, and a short list of titles I want to explore further.
gerhard's review
5.0
What makes this history of gay literature so effective is Christopher Bram’s cogent and effective commentary on books, people and events. At the beginning he says he excluded his own oeuvre as this would have been self-serving; this made me wonder if he simply balked at turning his kiss-and-tell approach on his own role in this narrative. However, it was only towards the end that I realised, and appreciated, what Bram has done: he is the proverbial Greek chorus, elucidating, championing, lambasting, praising (and even excoriating).
He writes in the Acknowledgements:
Without being aware of it, I spent much of my life preparing to write this book. I came of age during a remarkable period of American history – the Sixties and Seventies – reading many of the novels, poems, and plays discussed here when they first came out.
The book is divided into five parts: the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s and after. In each part, Bram examines the major writers and works of the time period, together with an incisive analysis of the cultural context. However, the parts are not discontinuous, with Bram telling a seamless story, with characters moving into the wings when new ones take the stage, and then reappearing when their own stories intersect with those of others.
This makes for a surprisingly incestuous and ribald narrative, as many of the writers and personalities here were either involved with each other romantically and/or professionally, or were engaged in protracted intrigues, catfights, literary and/or personal feuds (this is particularly true of the 1950s to 1960s, when giants like Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and James Baldwin bestrode the literary landscape). Bram is not afraid to step into the fray with his own (often droll and acerbic) observations.
He writes:
This is not an all-inclusive, definitive literary history. I do not include everyone of value or importance. Nor am I putting together a canon of must-read writers. I am writing a large-scale cultural narrative, and I include chiefly those authors who help me tell that story – and who offer the liveliest tales.
Bram also adds: “The story of these men has never been told as a single narrative before, which is surprising.” And what a story it is, chockablock with epiphanies and tragedies, comedy and melancholy, eroticism and anger. I was shocked at what the nascent gay community faced in the 1950s and 1960s in particular. (One has to bear in mind that homosexuality was only declassified as a psychological disorder in the US in 1973.)
However, this is by no means a grim book. Bram humanises all the writers, playwrights and poets he describes, warts and all (some with more warts than others, of course), and places them in their socio-cultural context, as well as considering their overall role and status in the overall evolution of gay literature (even though Bram shies away from using the ‘c’ word, the aggregate effect here is to produce something of a gay canon, which is by no means a bad thing for new gay people to discover, or older ones to revisit).
My only quibble is that the part dealing with the 1990s and beyond is the sketchiest section of a very full and nuanced book. Bram does touch briefly on the end of the gay midlist after 2008, and the uncertainty introduced by ebooks, but points to the plethora of small presses, blogs and independent publishers in the 2000s, and the quantity and quality of extraordinary LGBT literature that continues to be written, published and, most importantly, read.
He writes in the Acknowledgements:
Without being aware of it, I spent much of my life preparing to write this book. I came of age during a remarkable period of American history – the Sixties and Seventies – reading many of the novels, poems, and plays discussed here when they first came out.
The book is divided into five parts: the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s and after. In each part, Bram examines the major writers and works of the time period, together with an incisive analysis of the cultural context. However, the parts are not discontinuous, with Bram telling a seamless story, with characters moving into the wings when new ones take the stage, and then reappearing when their own stories intersect with those of others.
This makes for a surprisingly incestuous and ribald narrative, as many of the writers and personalities here were either involved with each other romantically and/or professionally, or were engaged in protracted intrigues, catfights, literary and/or personal feuds (this is particularly true of the 1950s to 1960s, when giants like Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and James Baldwin bestrode the literary landscape). Bram is not afraid to step into the fray with his own (often droll and acerbic) observations.
He writes:
This is not an all-inclusive, definitive literary history. I do not include everyone of value or importance. Nor am I putting together a canon of must-read writers. I am writing a large-scale cultural narrative, and I include chiefly those authors who help me tell that story – and who offer the liveliest tales.
Bram also adds: “The story of these men has never been told as a single narrative before, which is surprising.” And what a story it is, chockablock with epiphanies and tragedies, comedy and melancholy, eroticism and anger. I was shocked at what the nascent gay community faced in the 1950s and 1960s in particular. (One has to bear in mind that homosexuality was only declassified as a psychological disorder in the US in 1973.)
However, this is by no means a grim book. Bram humanises all the writers, playwrights and poets he describes, warts and all (some with more warts than others, of course), and places them in their socio-cultural context, as well as considering their overall role and status in the overall evolution of gay literature (even though Bram shies away from using the ‘c’ word, the aggregate effect here is to produce something of a gay canon, which is by no means a bad thing for new gay people to discover, or older ones to revisit).
My only quibble is that the part dealing with the 1990s and beyond is the sketchiest section of a very full and nuanced book. Bram does touch briefly on the end of the gay midlist after 2008, and the uncertainty introduced by ebooks, but points to the plethora of small presses, blogs and independent publishers in the 2000s, and the quantity and quality of extraordinary LGBT literature that continues to be written, published and, most importantly, read.
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