Filled Under: Nonfiction
Folsom Street Blues: A Memoir of 1970s SoMa and Leatherfolk in Gay San Francisco
From 1975 to 1982, Jim Stewart rejoiced in life as a wild young leatherman in San Francisco. Folsom Street Blues is a collection of his memories of “the gay man’s paradise, the leatherman’s Valhalla” that flourished along Folsom Street. Bringing life to sexual fantasies that shifted into performance art was his specialty. So was taking sexy photos of hot young men, some of which appear in this volume (including several self-portraits). Initially selling his pictures through the mail, Stewart went on to have five one-person gallery shows during this period and saw his photographs published frequently in San Francisco’s long-running Drummer magazine. Carpentry was another specialty. He built bars, restraint structures, meat racks, and a life-size cross for one popular establishment, which promptly hired him as a bartender.
Friendships blossomed — with Chuck Arnett, “master artist of the leather scene,” writer Jack Fritscher, and gallery owner and photographer Robert Opel — the man who streaked the Academy Awards. Harvey Milk, the still-unknown Robert Mapplethorpe, and Raymond Burr also crossed Stewart’s path. So did many who are lost to history, like Tom the Boulevardier and the widow with a thing for firemen.
By 1982, a new disease called Gay-Related Immune Deficiency was the topic on everyone’s lips and Harvey Milk had been dead for years. With middle-age approaching, Stewart’s thoughts turned to stability and the advantages of health insurance and a pension. He departed for library school at Western Michigan University.
In a touching epilogue, Stewart returns to San Francisco with his partner of twenty-five years, having become head of the history department at the Chicago Public Library before retiring. He says that now is the time for telling secrets, and he has done so with humor and panache. (He likens one acquaintance who wore gold hoops in both ears and both nipples to a chest of drawers by Salvador Dali.)
Jim Stewart is currently writing a mystery novel. I can’t wait to read it.
Includes 38 black and white photographs.
Recommended for libraries with any interest in GLBT history.
Reviewer: Joyce Meggett
Division Chief for Humanities, Chicago Public Library
Queer Theatre and the Legacy of Cal Yeomans
One of the founders of gay theatre, Cal Yeomans explored sex and sexuality in a candid way, in an attempt to overcome what he had been raised to despise. Queer Theatre and the Legacy of Cal Yeomans is a well-researched biography that explores the life and times of the often forgotten award-winning playwright. Using primary sources donated by Yeoman to the University of Florida Smathers Library as well as the author’s own research using printed materials and interviews, this book is not only a biography of a playwright but a history of theatre and GLBT as a whole during the significant period between the Stonewall riots and the AIDS epidemic, including the desegregation of schools, and coming out and coming to terms with one’s own sexuality during these times.
Organized into ten chapters, Robert Schanke uses eye-catching titles that reflect Yeoman’s writing style (although these do not describe the chapters’ contents for the novice to the field). Numerous photographs are included, providing visual interest.
A documentary history, yet also a biography, this work draws the reader in and would be a valuable addition to any GLBT or theatre collection.
Reviewer: Sine Nomine
The Choosing: A Rabbi’s Journey from Silent Nights to High Holy Days
The story of a Lutheran girl‘s transformation from (outwardly) straight, rich, medical schoolbound girl to Jewish, lesbian, rabbi. Demonstrating
through personal experience and allegories from the Jewish texts, Myers shares wisdom, knowledge, successes, and failures as she navigates finding herself spiritually, religiously, sexually, and more.
Painting images with her words, these vignettes illustrate the power of love and the value of being true to oneself, as well as the importance of keeping an open and humorous view toward life.
Whether recalling a Lutheran mother changing the menorah lights to be more colorful, or the security agent warning against “being like one of those” people of whom one is a part, this book will provide inspiration and a new outlook to many.
While the content is strongly Jewish and has aspects only someone familiar with Jewish traditions will appreciate, explanations and definitions of terms and activities are integrated seamlessly into the narrative, enabling all to enjoy the wit and knowledge being shared.
Spanning a childhood spent questioning traditions and religion, college life as a non-Jew at Brandeis University, the decision to convert to Judaism and the conversion process, living in Jerusalem, finding love, life as a wife, mother, and rabbi, this book will resound not only with those questioning their religion and beliefs but also those questioning their sexuality and seeking words of guidance and advice on how to successfully be true to oneself.
This biographical narrative is a must add to any Jewish or GLBT collection for adults or young adults.
Reviewer: Sine Nomin
A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers
Michael Holroyd‘s memoir-infused biography will amuse not only those whose
hearts flutter for Merchant-Ivory films, but also those who delight in reading about the intersections of artistic lives or lives artfully lived. Holroyd employs the Italian village of Ravello as a thread to connect the lives of artists and those in their orbits. He focuses on the stories of two women: Eve Fairfax and Violet Trefusis née Keppel.
Enchanted decades previously when seeing a Rodin bust in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Holroyd researches its subject and discovers the Victorian-steeped story of a woman without means. With beauty
but without money, the striking Eve Fairfax must marry, and becomes
engaged to the fickle Ernest Beckett, who during their engagement commissions Rodin to sculpt a bust of his bride-to-be. Although their engagement does not result in marriage, it provides Fairfax with the friendship of a lifetime with Rodin.
Led by his scholarly curiosity, Holroyd follows Fairfax‘s story and those tangential such as those of Beckett‘s wives and mistresses. Notably, Beckett has a love affair with the married Alice Keppel, later the mistress of King Edward VII, and fathers a daughter, Violet.
Holroyd credits his interest in the life of this daughter, Violet Trefusis, to the enthusiasm of Tiziana Masucci, a young Italian academic enamored by Trefusis. In Part II, he introduces the reader to the world of the articulate, imaginative and vibrant Trefusis during a time of crisis: her not-so-closeted affair with writer, Vita Sackville-West. Holroyd beautifully introduces the Edwardian saga of love lost against the backdrop of ancestral homes, genteel social mores, mother-daughter relationships, and literary ambition.
For those long obsessed with the turbulent love story of Sackville-West and Trefusis, Holroyd does not provide new information or any provocative revelations. Holroyd and Masucci hold that Violet‘s literary reputation has been maligned by previous recounts of the affair. However, the LGBT community has never been compelled to choose sides.
Indeed, it is likely that those with interest have copies of works by both authors in their collections: acknowledging that in love we have all been Violet and we have all been Vita–in the end unequivocally marked by love.
Without question, the book not only succeeds in furthering Masucci‘s mission of engendering interest in literary works by Trefusis, but also in the works of Sackville-West and, of course, the more luminous writers of their acquaintance such as Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and E.M. Forster.
Holroyd‘s narrative brims with the excitement of discovery and is deft enough to include light meditations on belonging (familial or otherwise), love, possession and longing. The slim book also includes a family tree for
reference, a select bibliography, and an index.
Book of Secrets is a splendid companion read to 2011 Stonewall Honor book, Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E.M. Forster by Wendy Moffat.
Recommended for public and academic libraries
Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme
Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme. Ed. by Coyote, Ivan E./Zena Sharman. Trans. David Miller. Vancouver, B.C.: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2010. Paperback. 134p. $12.95. ISBN: 978-1-55152-344-6
This collection of personal essays was written by individuals who identify on points all along the butch/femme continuum. Persistence opens with a foreword by Joan Nestle, cofounder of the Herstory Archives and editor of the 1992 classic The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader.
Nestle describes her original opposition to the similar title of this new
book before relating how its themes won her over: “The voices of another generation, of other cultural positions, new possibilities of gender discourse, and erotic adventuring are presented here, and these extend in complex ways the passionate and embattled conversation of the now out-of-print Persistent Desire.”
Indeed, the voices in Persistence reflect a diversity of gender identities, racial identities, class backgrounds, and sexualities. While many of the writers identify as lesbians or queer women, there are transgender writers and even a cis gay man here and there. Far from reinforcing any binary, many writers celebrate the mutability of butch and femme: there are repeated references to femmes who kill spiders and butches who bake. One writer coins the term “futch” to describe her personal blend of gender presentation. In one of the most reflective chapters, singer-songwriter Rae Spoon, a transgender man, remembers scoring “high femme” on an online quiz.
Most of the essays are reflections of personal experiences with butch and femme, although a few investigate more theoretical frameworks. Throughout, writers honor the history of butches and femmes who went before, for pioneering a culture where gender can be performed in a variety of ways.
The authors, largely Canadian, include poets, musicians, essayists, novelists, professors, and sex writers.
As an extension of the themes in The Persistent Desire, this book belongs in any collection of queer studies or gender studies. Because of the personal nature of many chapters, it may also be of interest to a nonacademic audience, particularly to queer folks exploring butch and femme in their own lives.
Reviewed by Kelly McElroy
Undergraduate Services Librarian
University of Iowa Libraries
The Inverted Gaze: Queering the French Literary Classics in America
Cusset, François. The Inverted Gaze: Queering the French Literary Classics in America. Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2011. Paperback. 142p. $17.95. ISBN: 978-1-55152-410-8.
“François Cusset (author of the acclaimed French Theory) investigates the queering of the French literary canon by American writers and scholars in this thought-provoking and freeminded journey across six centuries of literary classics and sexual polemics.”
From the Middle Ages to the present, Cusset critiques the critics, not so much offering fresh interpretations as laying out the reasons for his skepticism.
Cusset writes with many puns that sexualize what could otherwise be a dry text, but the result can be distracting to the reader. Nevertheless, this may well be an enjoyable read in the original French, but the translation by David Homel is not as accessible as it might be.
While the text is somewhat difficult, I would still suggest The Inverted Gaze to those with an interested in the subject, as it is a great introduction to how American queer critics interpret French texts.
I would recommend this book to an academic library, especially one with both a strong English program and a strong program in Queer Studies.
Given the complexity of language and ideas in the book, I would suggest this for those who are 18 and older.
Reviewer: Talia Earl
Out Behind the Desk: Workplace Issues for LGBTQ Librarians
This volume brings together twenty-seven narratives authored by twenty-nine librarians, all of whom identify as being part of the LGBTQ community. At least one of the six parts–trajectories (or coming-out stories), sex and the institution, the rest of the rainbow (beyond L and G), coming out in time, coming out in place, and coming out in the field—will hit home with any reader.
Baring their souls, the authors inspire as they educate, not only on individual
scenarios but on the lives as LGBTQ librarians throughout the United States.
Whether just starting out and searching for a type of library and environment, seeking a career change, or pondering the right time to come out LGBTQ people will benefit from this book. It covers not only the personal issues but
also the history of librarianship as related to LGBTQ persons and topics, domestic partnerships, and attitudes toward LBGTQ.
Similar to first person narratives in Daring to Find Our Names edited By J. V.
Carmichael (Greenwood, 1998) and Liberating Minds edited by N. G. Kester (McFarland, 1997), this is the first collection in over 10 years that demonstrates the changing times and attitudes not evidenced earlier because of changes in the past decade.
Contributors include the well-known such as Ellen Greenblatt and the unknown such as a pseudonymous legislative librarian.
This is a must read for any professional collection, and would work well as additional readings for any library school course addressing diversity.
Reviewer: [s.n.]
Gay in America: Portraits
“If I had realized growing up that there were so many options–that I didn’t haveto be this kind of gay or that kind of gay–had I been able to take comfort in knowingI was not alone in my feelings, it would have made a huge difference in how and when I accepted and learned to love myself.”
This statement from Pasfield in the Huffington Post describes his motivation for traveling 52,000 miles through all 50 states to find the 150 gay men highlighted in these stunning personal portraits. Activists, farmers, professionals, fathers—all these men have one thing in common: they are all openly attracted to other men, sometimes with severe consequences and other times profound rewards.
This book, the first photographic look at gays in their homes, includes an extensive range of age, class, and ethnic
backgrounds from a modern Manhattan apartment to a small town outside Fargo. Both narratives, written by the men themselves, and telling images intimately show Pasfield‘s deep respect for his subjects as he avoids the stereotypes of contemporary gay men and celebrates the diversity of family life in the contemporary gay community. The men in these breathtaking images cover the gamut of emotions–happy and sad, hopeful and accepting—as they tell their stories of life and death, positive in the face of adversity.
Pasfield has accomplished his goal, “to create a book that would change opinions and educate,” by showing these men as neighbors and friends, vital especially for people who live where gays are not typically closeted. This is a must addition for all public and upper-level libraries.
Reviewed by Nel Ward
The Gay Man’s Guide to Timeless Manners and Proper Etiquette
Rosenberg, Corey. The Gay Man’s Guide to Timeless Manners and Proper Etiquette. New York: Chelsea Station Editions, 2011. Paperback. 111p. $15.00. ISBN: 978-0-9832851-4-4.
These twenty-five brief chapters present tidbits of advice that are directed towards gay men, although many apply to society as a whole.
Whether learning to be the proper host and the polite guest, how to deal with wine with a meal at home or in a restaurant, how to negotiate the paths of friendship, or decipher the rules of netiquette, readers will enjoy this tonguein-cheek guide to behavior appropriate for any situation.
Neither preaching nor directive, Rosenberg entertains as he educates, sharing the wisdom he gained through a series of mishaps.
While clearly labeled chapters make the specific topics accessible, readers may find themselves reading cover to cover for the sheer delight of hearing more of Rosenberg‘s witty delivery. Besides etiquette, grooming and dressing tips, recipes, and brief biographies of “gays who paved the way” and “noteworthy gay artists,” there is a glossary of terms used.
While the content is applicable, for the most part, to any person, the title will dissuade many from reading or wanting to follow the advice given. Whether a junior high school student or a senior citizen, all can benefit from this work.
Reviewed by Sine Nomin
Steven Petrow’s Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners
This comprehensive guide to LGBTQ manners covers it all, from first dates to public sex to coming out on Facebook. Petrow’s acceptance of such practices as bathhouse sex and online hookups – subjects not usually discussed in etiquette guides – mean that he’s not judgmental. Topics like how to get out of a boring conversation at a club prove that the author understands what etiquette really means, and it’s not whether the water glass goes on the left or the right. It’s about treating people with kindness and respect.
The guide is up-to-the-moment without forgetting the past; a page on internet dildo purchases sits next to a decryption of the old-school hankie codes. This balanced look at the queer community continues throughout the book. Petrow realizes that the queer population has its own set of rules, but also that we have straight friends and family; in the helpful Q&A sidebars, for example, he puts a gay twist on some questions that otherwise apply just as well in the straight world (“I lent my friend money for his business but he spent it on a gay cruise”), while some are specific to queers (“My friends want to set me up with all the gay guys they know just because they’re gay”).
It’s refreshing to read dating advice that doesn’t assume the partners are of different genders. The section on blind dates, for example, uses same-sex couples throughout its coverage, offering much of the same information that would be addressed in a conventional etiquette or dating book ― safety first, what to do if you want to end the date early, etc.
A book that focused only on the gay aspects of dating or etiquette would be incomplete; some of the human experience is, after all, universal. It’s better to have the info. all in one place than to have to purchase a “regular” etiquette book along with a supplemental gay one – how othering!
There is nothing out there like this book. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.
Reviewed by, Daisy Porter
Manager of KACY (King Access, Children’s, and Youth)
San José Public Library