Greetings from Amazon.com Delivers Gay Studies FEATURED IN THIS E-MAIL: * "Firebird," by Mark Doty * "Eminent Maricones," by Jaime Manrique * "In the Studio," by Tom Bianchi * "Gore Vidal: A Biography," by Fred Kaplan * "The Trouble with Normal," by Michael Warner "Firebird" by Mark Doty http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060193743/entertainmentsit "Childhood's work is to see what lies beneath," Mark Doty writes in "Firebird." And adulthood's work, he suggests, is to make sense of what the child self once saw. Doty, a poet, does this remarkably well, capturing the peculiar talismans of youth--"little cars of fragrant plastic whose wheels turn on wire axles that can be popped loose and examined; hard candies; sweet, chalky wafers strung together into wristlets and necklaces"--but it's clear from the start that the author's home life was not happy. His father's job with the Army Corps of Engineers kept the family crisscrossing the country; his older sister got pregnant at 17--"these girls knew what they were doing, these girls married to get out"--and ended up, eventually, in prison; and his mother, a frustrated artist, sank eventually into depression and alcoholism. As if growing up in this family during the 1950s and '60s weren't difficult enough, Doty's homosexuality provided additional anguish. At times you might wonder why you'd want to put yourself through the ordeal of reading about Doty's heart-wrenching experiences, and even he seems aware of it. "Why tell a story like this, who wants to read it?" he demands near the end of the book, then responds, "Even sad stories are company. And perhaps that's why you might read such a chronicle, to look into a companionable darkness that isn't yours." "Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me" by Jaime Manrique http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0299161803/entertainmentsit Jaime Manrique's slim "Eminent Maricones" starts off with some disjunctive memories of his childhood in Colombia, but truly begins to pick up steam when Manrique recounts his friendship with Manuel Puig (best known as the author of "Kiss of the Spider Woman"), who, despite his "drag queen mannerisms," was "one of the most tough-minded people I've ever met." After a short chapter portraying an encounter with Reinaldo Arenas two days before Arenas, his body ravaged by the effects of HIV, committed suicide, Manrique launches into an in-depth consideration of the shifts in attitude toward homosexuality in the writings of Federico Garcia Lorca. Reading Lorca after the deaths of Puig and Arenas, Manrique explains, helped him come to terms with his own internalized homophobia; it also creates a loose canon of gay Latino writers who fought against tyranny--even if Manrique leaves undiscussed any influence this canon may have had on his own writing. Although its intimate portraits will be appreciated by those with an interest in gay or Latino literature, or both, other readers may find "Eminent Maricones" too brief to hold their interest. "In the Studio" by Tom Bianchi http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312243049/entertainmentsit For years, Tom Bianchi thought certain of his photographic studies of male nudes were unpublishable, too frankly erotic. Then a mentor explained to him that "the better pictures were the ones which took the viewer behind closed doors." For "In the Studio," Bianchi frees himself from all restraints, reveling in male bodies galore. Quite a few of the photographs play with the idea of images and representation, as Bianchi poses his models in front of life-size drawings and mirrors, and even makes the occasional appearance in the mirror himself, a camera held tightly to his eye. In "Richard/Bound," Bianchi reenacts the Prometheus myth, substituting a gradually ripped jockstrap for the eating of the liver, bringing the series of photos--and the model--to a provocative climax. "Authority is inevitably impotent to suppress the beauty I see," Bianchi exults. "In the Studio" certainly supports that assessment. "Gore Vidal: A Biography" by Fred Kaplan http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385477031/entertainmentsit Fred Kaplan, praised for his evocative portraits of 19th-century masters such as Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle, turns with aplomb to a contemporary writer in this lengthy yet cogent work. Indeed, the multifaceted Gore Vidal, born in 1925 but positively Victorian in the breadth of his interests and achievements, is fortunate to have a biographer as wide-ranging as Kaplan, who traces the familial roots of Vidal's lifelong political engagement (his maternal grandfather was a U.S. senator) and lucidly assesses his nonfiction as well as his bestselling novels, reminding readers that Vidal has for decades been an astute, sardonic observer of the American scene. Vidal's personal relations are depicted frankly but briskly, as befits a staunch defender of homosexual rights who is open about his own orientation but refuses to be pigeonholed as a gay writer. The famous feuds with William Buckley, Norman Mailer, and Truman Capote get enjoyably full treatment, properly situated in the context of larger issues. If the inner workings of Vidal's psyche remain ultimately elusive, despite Kaplan's access as authorized biographer to thousands of unpublished letters, that, too, seems right for someone of whom a friend once remarked, "I've always thought that Gore is a man without an unconscious." "The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life" by Michael Warner http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684865297/entertainmentsit "The Trouble With Normal" argues passionately against same-sex marriage, but here's the twist--not because it denigrates the institution of marriage, but because it perpetuates the cultural shame attached to sex between consenting but unmarried adults. When gay men and lesbians try to claim that they're just like "normal folk," Michael Warner writes, they do a profound disservice to other queer folk who choose not to live in monogamous or matrimonial bliss and who believe that the solution to being stigmatized for your sexuality is not to pretend it doesn't exist. Same-sex marriage advocates, he continues, often seem to be willfully blind to the cultural ramifications of their position, viewing marriage as "an intensified and deindividuated form of coming out"; they don't seem to realize that if society validates *their* relationships, other types of relationships will by necessity be invalidated. (He also makes a strong case for the fight against sexual shame's being more than a queer issue, citing 1998's presidential impeachment crisis: "[Bill] Clinton, certainly, was not the first to discover how hard it is in this culture to assert any dignity when you stand exposed as a sexual being.") Extending his analysis, Warner shows how the championing of married gays and lesbians as "normal" is part of the same cultural climate that leads to "quality of life" crackdowns against queercentric businesses--as is already underway in New York City--and a deliberate sabotage of safer-sex education that puts millions of Americans at continued risk of exposure to HIV. Warner's precise, straightforward argument is enlivened by numerous sharp zingers, as when he accuses Andrew Sullivan of "breath[ing] new and bitchy life into jesuitical pieties" about sexual morality. "The Trouble with Normal" is a bold, provocative book that forces readers to reconsider what sexual liberation really means. If "The Trouble with Normal" interests you, you may also want to read Michael Bronski's "The Pleasure Principle." http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312156251/entertainmentsit ****** You'll find more great books, articles, and interviews in Amazon.com's Gay & Lesbian section at Browse Book ****** Looking for power tools? From screwdrivers to scroll saws, our brand-new Home Improvement Store offers the planet's best selection of tools and more. Home Improvement ******
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