Current Issue

ELI CLARE’S BOOK of essays, Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure, is a clarion call for changing the medicalized disability narrative, that of “defective brokenness,” that often prevails in U.S. healthcare.

HOW MANY openly-LGBT rappers are there? What are the six states without any hate crimes laws? Which country leads the “gay happiness index”? They may not have been questions you’ve thought of before, but the answers to these queries and about a thousand more are answered in LGBTQ Stats.

While the earlier parts of Scores are wryly humorous and almost blithely dismissive of the problems encountered in the nightclub’s formation and early success, the book takes on a more serious and suspenseful tone, especially after Blutrich turns to telling the tale of being an informant.

  anybody by Ari Banias W.W. Norton. 112 pages, $25.95   Primer by Aaron Smith University of Pittsburgh Press 104 pages, $15.95       EVERY SO OFTEN, a poet appears who seems to have sprung fully armed from the head of Zeus. Two such poets are Ari Banias with his first book of poetry,More

Reviews of One Of These Things First: A Memoir, and the movies, Bayou Maharajah: The Life and Music of New Orleans Piano Legend James Booker; Jonathan; and Akron.

IN 1944, Charles Jackson published The Lost Weekend, about a writer battling alcoholism. … Two years later, he published a novel called The Fall of Valor (1946), which describes a married man’s love for a Marine.

Reading this book, which is subtitled My Life in Stories and Pictures, is akin to sitting with Cumming as he leafs through his ever-growing scrapbook of accomplishments, loves lost and won, and collaborations with other name-brand stars.

WHEN EVELYN WAUGH died of a sudden heart attack at 62 on Easter Sunday, 1966, his literary reputation was in decline, his work seen as nostalgic and retrograde compared to the issue-oriented social realism of writers then in ascendance (such as Kingsley Amis and Anthony Burgess). However, as journalist Philip Eade argues in his newMore

At Danceteria and Other Stories can be read in two ways. Each story can be appreciated individually as a reverent elegy to the gay party scene of the 80’s or they can be read together, and the book becomes a haunting descent from the intoxication of that era.

IN THIS CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY of Virginia Woolf, Ira Nadel takes us on a tour of the places of significance in Woolf’s life while drawing connections among these places, her relationships, and her writings.

In A Very Queer Family Indeed Goldhill accomplishes something radical by serving up six characters in search of, not an author, but a sexuality.

  A Very English Scandal: Sex, Lies and a Murder Plot at the Heart of the Establishment by John Preston Other Books. 340 pages, $27.95     IN 1979, Jeremy Thorpe, a former MP of the British House of Commons and leader of the once powerful Liberal Party in the UK, stood trial for criminal conspiracy andMore

FOR THOSE OF US who grew up reading Samuel Delany’s science fiction novels or who benefited from his exceptionally detailed books on the craft of writing, there are so many mouthwatering bits in this volume, his first twelve years of journals, that it’s hard to know where to jump in.

  In Part I of this essay, published in the January-February 2017 issue of this magazine, I described the recent discovery of a large amount of new archival material on Lincoln Kirstein, America’s “cultural czar” for much of the 20th century. The material is now housed in two manuscript depositories, the Houghton Library at HarvardMore

New faces emerged when in January 2017 a series of mosaics became part of the tiled walls of the 72nd Street Station at the new Second Avenue Subway. Vik Muniz’ Perfect Strangers was the transformation of photographs into life-size mosaics installed throughout the mezzanine and entrance area.

  IN LATE SPRING OF 2015, I received a flyer from Bard College advertising their SummerScape opera production of The Wreckers (1904), by the British composer Ethel Smyth, with a libretto by Harry Brewster. It took a moment for me to notice that the opera had been composed by a woman. Two thoughts occurred toMore

  AS the crisp white pages of the newest Bloodbound draft cascade from the printer into a scattered pile on my desk, I engage in the familiar refrain of questions that propel a writer to follow the path to his script’s elusive finish line. A sensible self-critique is always upset by a gnawing neurosis thatMore

  Fun Down There The defeat of North Carolina’s Republican governor, Pat McCrory, last November ran against the general tide of the election, and his loss was clearly due to his support for the infamous HB2 or “bathroom bill” that bars transgender people from using the public restroom of their choice. The law triggered aMore

Many contemporary San Antonio natives would describe Cornyation as a hilariously campy political satire, a veritable Beach Blanket Babylon performed every spring for six shows as a major fundraiser for HIV/AIDS and other causes.

Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne is a tale of resentment and revenge, of enemies who become friends who become enemies of a man with an extraordinary appetite for life and a character that mixed generosity and pettiness, fair-mindedness and bias, snobbery and sympathy for the underdog.

Harry Hervey’s academic career had not been distinguished, but amazingly, at sixteen, he sold a lurid adventure story to a magazine edited by cultural critic H. L. Mencken.

  “A DAY AT THE BEACH” was a well-established national pastime by the turn of the 20th century. Beach colonies developed on land adjacent to waterfronts—Coney Island in New York, Atlantic City and the New Jersey shore, Mission Beach in California—all convenient to large cities. Many locations provided amenities for visitors, including bathhouse changing facilities,More

IF YOUR ACQUAINTANCE with Sodom and Gomorrah were limited to what you see in movies, your impression might differ only slightly from the story in Genesis 19. That’s because the biblical version is already as farfetched as the script of a Hollywood epic.

ONE OF THE SURPRISES of the Trump campaign and presidency has been the presence of prominent and vocal gay male supporters, such as Peter Thiel and Milo Yiannopoulos. In Europe, however, gay men have played a role in populist far-right parties for years ...