Crimp attacks the idea that the epidemic is over, instead pointing out that the issue of AIDS has gone underground to influence a pseudo-moralistic anti-sex stance that many queer activists, in what Crimp calls the “melancholy” of loss, have identified with, thus unwittingly aiding the anti-gay rights agenda. He analyzes media representations of gay life to demonstrate how reality is continually distorted in order to accommodate conservative prejudices about homosexuality. Unlike many cultural studies by academics, Melancholia and Moralism is not obscure or filled with jargon – the style is bold, clear, and accessible. Challenging the way American culture reflects the issues of AIDS and gay life, it’s an invigorating and thought-provoking book that should inspire outrage and a new sense of commitment in the reader, and in queer politics. (Chris Dashiell)

Divine, born Harris Glen to Harris and Frances Milstead, their only child who they called by his middle name Glen, became one of the most outrageous and well-loved performers of the 20th Century. Frances knew that her son was headed down a different path when as a boy the family doctor gave her a “little talk” about his feminine behavior and mannerisms, noting that they could cause him trouble in the future. To his credit the doctor never suggest that he join the little league or prescribed any method to change young Glen’s innate characteristics but tried to get her to accept him as he is. She cried all the way home, but reconfirmed her love for him. A love which she still feels.

For a period of nine years, when John Waters and his films were starting to make waves, Mrs. Milstead's only communication with her son were the post cards and letters she received from various locations and addresses, each stating that he was happy and loved and missed them dearly. The estrangement was due to an argument about his spending habits, he left in a huff and went and lived on his own. She and Harris had reached a breaking point, Glen would habitually use her charge card to buy vast amounts of flowers or to cover for car repairs and other things and then not pay them leaving her with the growing bills, (this behavior was fairly ingrained, even when he was a successful star he still managed to stick her with a couple of unpaid credit card bills).

One day she came across an article in LIFE Magazine that was written about John Waters and the underground films he was making in Baltimore (the Milsteads had relocated to Florida by then) and mentioned his star, Divine and how his mother had sold the family business and moved to Florida when they found out about the films. This wasn’t the case, but it piqued her interest and the light when off – Divine was her son. As it happened Female Trouble was playing nearby at the time and Frances went to see the flick. Francis, after being warned not to, saw the movie and enjoyed it to boot! One film she hasn’t seen is Pink Flamingos, a classic with the notorious dog poop scene. Referring to that film her son told her that it’s amazing with what they can do with trick photography these days.

It was a sad day when Divine died, he was just beginning to taste the commercial success that had eluded him and that John Waters now rightly enjoys. Who knows how far he would have gone? For a warm, insightful, parental look at the most outrageous drag artist of them all, read, My Son Divine.
(Richard DiRusso)

Bloom briefly places each phenomenon in historical context, followed by recent medical and psychological standards and data. She then compassionately interviews those closely involved; individuals who were not born with medically "normal" genitalia, female to male transsexuals, crossdressing heterosexual men, their partners and loved ones, social scientists, physicians, and psychologists. Just as Bloom's understanding of gender and sexuality radically changed through the course of writing this book, your own ideas of what is male and female are bound to be challenged by this fascinating and extremely well written book.
(Karyn Prechtel)

On The Down Low: A Journey into the Lives of “Straight” Black Men who Sleep with Men
by J.L. King
(Broadway Books, 2004)
The premise of this book is that a sizeable percentage of “straight” African-American men are having unsafe man-to-man sex, thus exposing their female partners to HIV, in ever increasing numbers. With this in mind Mr. King writes to a female audience; giving them pointers on what to look for in order to tell if the man they are involved with is on the Down Low (DL).

I felt that the book is really more about raising suspicion in your relationships then about the proclivities of certain men. The reader continually is told about the behavior of “brothers” who while ostensibly heterosexual have an alternative self that is engaged in all kinds of homosexual behavior – which they just won’t acknowledge. Almost anything a man does or doesn’t do is suspect. I feel bad for the women who rely on this book to clarify things for them. According to Mr. King’s logic nothing short of catching your husband or boyfriend in the act is going to prove that they’re on the DL. To ease fears about the possibility of being in a relationship with a DL man each dire warning is countered with an acknowledgement that the guy might be a bona fide heterosexual with no DL inclinations at all. I won’t even get into the part were he tells women to have a gay friend play a decoy to “draw” their man out and then tell them if he played or not. Besides being a terrible thing to ask a friend to do, it doesn’t say much for Mr. King’s attitude about gay men. Though, to his credit he does state that honesty in a relationship is the best way to deal with problems.

I guess what bothered me the most about Mr. King is his own homophobia, He can’t bring himself to say he’s gay, he somewhat grudgingly admits to bisexuality, but I don’t buy it. Maybe he’s not gay, but he sure does engage in a lot of homosexual activity. He states, “If I admit I’m gay, my son’s friends will look at him differently. If I’m gay or bisexual, every time they talk about some gay thing on television, some gay bashing, or some gay issue you’ll think about me. I don’t want that.”

Besides being somewhat self-centered (is he really the center of that much attention?) I wonder what is so wrong with his son’s friends thinking that he’s gay? Maybe such knowledge would change their perceptions of gay men for the better? To Mr. King’s way of thinking, what others think about us is more important than how we think about ourselves. How does he expect conditions of gay men in the black community (and society in general) to ever change with an attitude like that?

On The Down Low would have been a better book if Mr. King had let other men speak of their experience more often and had not continually repeated the same litany of DL warning signs over and over. The subtitle, A Journey into the Lives of “Straight” Black Men Who Sleep with Men, might have worked better with the singular, “Man”, since Mr. King’s experience and outlooks are what the book is all about. (Rich DiRusso)

Queer Street: Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985
by James McCourt (Norton, 2004)
From the first line (“In which times, places, weather conditions, and descriptions of what people were (so to speak) wearing come of necessity into figurative play”) it’s clear that this is not a conventional history of gay New York, but a word-carnival of gay style, refracted through the lens of McCourt’s free poetic associations and meditations on everything witty and camp. His interest lies not in sociology, but in “the mind of the life”: the way the thoughts of gay men in postwar New York were expressed through the conversations, personal displays, and popular images and icons of culture. The book is filled with unattributed quotations and asides about everything from opera, nightclubs, and All About Eve, to the hidden meanings of Cardinal Spellman and Douglas Sirk.

The result reads like an experimental novel of gay magic realism. You can dip into it at any place and find something strange, puzzling, or hilarious. McCourt explodes the idea of the chronological narrative, choosing instead to soak the reader in a scented blanket of extravagant attitude and atmosphere, recreating the mood and feel of being right in the middle of the vibrant intellectual and cultural whirlwind of gay life. The author’s personality dominates. His voice is that of a flaming, devil-may-care queen of the night world. His language is bright and flashy, yet full of dense allusions and subterfuge. Queer Street is a literary tour de force, and there’s no real way to describe it other than reading it aloud - you can either succumb to McCourt’s odd, seductive method, or just give up and put the book down. I succumbed.
(Chris Dashiell)

In Sioux City, Iowa, in 1954, an 8-year-old boy was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered. 50-year-old salesman Ernest Triplett was charged with the crime despite the fact that there was no evidence against Triplett except that he admitted to having sex with men. While under arrest, Triplett was given huge amounts of experimental drugs (LSD and amphetamines) to help him “remember” the murder, and his enjoyment of Liberace was used against him in court. Another gruesome murder occurred while Triplett was incarcerated, and his conviction was later overturned in 1972. The two murders created a public hysteria, which the Iowa legislature responded to by passing a sexual psychopath bill. In 1955 the police rounded-up 20 middle-class gay men not suspected of the crimes, and sentenced them to the state mental hospital until deemed “cured.” The Mount Pleasant Hospital established a special ward for those sentenced under the new law, and Miller provides first person accounts of life in the sexual psychopath ward. A gripping story of murder and antigay hysteria, award-winning journalist Neil Miller’s carefully researched account shows how the paranoia of the McCarthy era destroyed the lives of gay men in the American heartland.

Neil Miller is the author of Out in the World: Gay and Lesbian Life From Buenos Aires to Bangkok, Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present, and In Search of Gay America, the winner of the 1990 Stonewall Award from the American Library Association, as well as the Lambda Literary Award. He teaches journalism and nonfiction writing at Tufts University in Medford, Mass.
(Terry Nordbrock)

James struggles with the decision to become Jenny, because he’d fallen in love with, married, and had two sons with a wonderful woman named Grace. He had spent much of his life searching for the love that would free him of his need to be a woman, and he’d believed Grace was that love. He’s terrified of destroying their family. At last he decides he must make the transition, and describes how Grace and their dear friend, Richard Russo, support him, despite their heartache, confusion and fears. Jenny’s young sons are marvelously accepting of their father’s new identity, and create the name Maddy - a combination of Mommy and Daddy. Perhaps the greatest irony is that Jenny and Grace could remain legally married, but if they were to divorce they would not be allowed to remarry each other.

The administration at Colby College, in Maine, is supportive and accepting. Jenny is co-chair of the English department. As James Finney Boylan, she wrote the novels The Constellations, The Planets, and Getting In. (Laura Thomas Sullivan)