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A review by holmesstorybooks
Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two by Allan Bérubé
4.0
I've been researching a historical fiction novel about queer men and women in WWII for some time now, and from the preface, I knew this is the book I was looking for.
Incredibly broad but detailed in its scope, Berube delivers such a meaningful social history. At times, while reading, I felt his voice peeking through the writing, above the academic rigour, above the research to make a point all his own. Some would criticise this, but I liked it because it demonstrated to me how much this book meant to him.
What made this book stand out from the others was its consistent use of first person accounts and interviews. Berube constantly brought LGBTIQA people to the forefront of his book, quoted them and their life stories. I think this really added depth and power to the queer experience and gave his book credibility in a way that facts could not.
You read the text and are constantly reminded that someone, many people lived this experience. Queer people fought in a war only to find that their own military, their own country, did not consider them people, but sexual psychopaths, deviants and perverts.
And yet we persevered, says Berube, with an all-knowing wink the audience. And yet we survived.
The author gives us an alternate history, reveals how queer people had an affect on popular culture, how we transformed the military, how the military's oppressive policies only united us, literally and figuratively, to fight back, to write ourselves into history.
This book is so nuanced without being complicated.
It is compassionate. It is full of spirit.
It is a triumph.
Incredibly broad but detailed in its scope, Berube delivers such a meaningful social history. At times, while reading, I felt his voice peeking through the writing, above the academic rigour, above the research to make a point all his own. Some would criticise this, but I liked it because it demonstrated to me how much this book meant to him.
What made this book stand out from the others was its consistent use of first person accounts and interviews. Berube constantly brought LGBTIQA people to the forefront of his book, quoted them and their life stories. I think this really added depth and power to the queer experience and gave his book credibility in a way that facts could not.
You read the text and are constantly reminded that someone, many people lived this experience. Queer people fought in a war only to find that their own military, their own country, did not consider them people, but sexual psychopaths, deviants and perverts.
And yet we persevered, says Berube, with an all-knowing wink the audience. And yet we survived.
The author gives us an alternate history, reveals how queer people had an affect on popular culture, how we transformed the military, how the military's oppressive policies only united us, literally and figuratively, to fight back, to write ourselves into history.
This book is so nuanced without being complicated.
It is compassionate. It is full of spirit.
It is a triumph.