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Songs in Black and Lavender: Race, Sexual Politics, and Women's Music
by Eileen M. Hayes Linda TilleryDrawing on fieldwork conducted at eight women's music festivals, Eileen M. Hayes shows how studying these festivals--attended by predominately white lesbians--provides critical insight into the role of music and lesbian community formation. She argues that the women's music festival is a significant institutional site for the emergence of black feminist consciousness in the contemporary period. Hayes also offers sage perspectives on black women's involvement in the women's music festival scene, the ramifications of their performances as drag kings in those environments, and the challenges and joys of a black lesbian retreat based on the feminist festival model. With acuity and candor, longtime feminist activist Hayes elucidates why this music scene matters. Veteran vocalist, percussionist, producer, and cultural historian Linda Tillery provides a foreword.
The Front Runner
by Patricia Nell WarrenBilly Sive is the most exciting thing to happen to U.S. sports in years. He is a champion long-distance runner, idol of American youth and best Olympic runner. Billy Sive is young, proud and gay and he doesn't care who knows it... In this riveting breakthrough novel of homosexual love in the sports world; a bestseller that has won coast-to-coast acclaim as a love story as moving as any ever written... as a candid look into the psychological and physical experience of the new gay world...as a joyous, painful, touching and triumphal novel of love. The first honest popular novel about homosexual love.
The Later Diaries of Ned Rorem, 1961–1972: 1961-1972
by Ned RoremThe esteemed American composer and unabashed diarist Ned Rorem provides a fascinating, brazenly intimate first-person account of his life and career during one of the most extraordinary decades of the twentieth century Ned Rorem is often considered an American treasure, one of the greatest contemporary composers in the US. In 1966, he revealed another side of his remarkable talent when The Paris Diary was published, and a year later, The New York Diary, both to wide critical acclaim. In The Later Diaries,Rorem continues to explore his world and his music in intimate journal form, covering the years 1961 to 1972, one of his most artistically productive decades. The Ned Rorem revealed in The Later Diaries is somewhat more mature and worldly than the young artist of the earlier works, but no less candid or daring, as he reflects on his astonishing life, loves, friendships, and rivalries during an epoch of staggering, sometimes volatile change. Writing with intelligence, insight, and honesty, he recalls time spent with some of the most famous, and infamous, artists of the era—Philip Roth, Christopher Isherwood, Tallulah Bankhead, and Edward Albee, among others—openly exploring his sexuality and his art while offering fascinating, sometimes blistering, views on the art of his contemporaries.
A Green Equinox
by Elizabeth MavorShortlisted for the 1973 Booker Prize, A Green Equinox is a beguilingly Rococo &“study of love, considered in turn as companionship, sickness and mystic devotion . . . a book whose unusual infatuations are well worth lingering over, and puzzling out&” (Russell Davies, The Observer).Hero Kinoull is an antiquarian bookseller whose sedate life in the picturesque English town of Beaudesert is turned upside down between the spring and autumn equinoxes of a single year. First her quiet but forbidden liaison with Hugh Shafto, the curator of the country&’s finest collection of Rococo art, comes to an abrupt halt when she develops an adoration for his straight-talking, do-gooding wife Belle. But this relationship leads to other, even more unexpected feelings for Belle&’s widowed mother-in-law, the majestic Kate Shafto, who spends her days tending her garden and sailing her handmade boats in the waters of the miniature archipelago she&’s constructed in a disused gravel-pit. Published two years after Elizabeth Mavor&’s most famous work, The Ladies of Llangollen—a biography of two eighteenth-century Irish gentlewomen who scandalized their families by eloping to Wales, where they lived together on their own terms—A Green Equinox is itself an intrepid exploration of gender, female sexuality, and passion: romantic, carnal, and cerebral.
A Green Equinox (Virago Modern Classics #820)
by Elizabeth Mavor'Funny and brave and moving and absolutely bonkers. I love this novel' CHARLOTTE MENDELSON'Elizabeth Mavor relishes spirited, unorthodox women, free with their tongues and ready to snap their fingers at convention' LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKSHero Kinoull is an antiquarian bookseller whose sedate life in the picturesque English town of Beaudesert is turned upside down between the spring and autumn equinoxes of a single year. First her quiet but forbidden liaison with Hugh Shafto, the curator of the country's finest collection of Rococo art, comes to an abrupt halt when she develops an adoration for his straight-talking, do-gooding wife Belle. But this relationship leads to other, even more unexpected feelings for Belle's widowed mother-in-law, the majestic Kate Shafto, who spends her days tending her garden and sailing her handmade boats in the waters of the miniature archipelago she's constructed in a disused gravel pit.
A Green Equinox: The witty, dazzling rediscovered classic of 2023 (Virago Modern Classics #820)
by Elizabeth MavorWhile I waited for sleep I retraced the road which brought me to you. Unbelievably it only took six months, equinox to equinox. This dazzling rediscovered classic, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1973, is a heady, witty and seductive exploration of female sexuality - perfect for fans of Iris Murdoch and Brigid Brophy. ***'Funny and brave and moving and absolutely bonkers. I love this novel' CHARLOTTE MENDELSON'A transgressive classic . . . intrepid, eccentric, and not giving a damn' OBSERVER'Elizabeth Mavor relishes spirited, unorthodox women, free with their tongues and ready to snap their fingers at convention' LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKSHero Kinoull is an antiquarian bookseller whose sedate life in the picturesque English town of Beaudesert is turned upside down between the spring and autumn equinoxes of a single year. First her quiet but forbidden liaison with Hugh Shafto, the curator of the country's finest collection of Rococo art, comes to an abrupt halt when she develops an adoration for his straight-talking, do-gooding wife Belle. But this relationship leads to other, even more unexpected feelings for Belle's widowed mother-in-law, the majestic Kate Shafto, who spends her days tending her garden and sailing her handmade boats in the waters of the miniature archipelago she's constructed in a disused gravel pit.'A strange little nugget of a novel . . . I'd like any book that could be described as a mix between Beatrix Potter, JG Ballard and Sophocles' Irish Times
Death Claims (Dave Brandstetter #2)
by Joseph HansenDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlow, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. <P> Joseph Hansen's groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald. <P> John Oats is dead; drowned in the treacherous waves of the Pacific. But was it accident, suicide, or murder? Between the mysteriously absent son, the bitter ex-wife and the current lover, there are plenty of people with reason to lie to Dave about what really happened that night - and why.
Death Claims: Dave Brandstetter Investigation 2 (Dave Brandstetter)
by Joseph HansenAfter forty years, Hammett has a worthy successor' The TimesDave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay. Joseph Hansen's groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.John Oats is dead; drowned in the treacherous waves of the Pacific. But was it accident, suicide, or murder? Between the mysteriously absent son, the bitter ex-wife and the current lover, there are plenty of people with reason to lie to Dave about what really happened that night - and why.
Portrait Of A Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson
by Vita Sackville-West Nigel NicolsonThe classic story of the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, and a unique portrait of the Bloomsbury Group.'A brilliantly structured account of the dramas, infidelities and deep emotional attachments' GUARDIAN'An intimate and controversial account of his bisexual parents' open relationship' NEW YORK TIMES'One of the most absorbing stories, built around two very remarkable people, ever to stray from Gothic fiction into real life' TLSThe marriage was that between the two writers, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson and the portrait is drawn partly by Vita herself in an autobiography which she left behind at her death in 1962 and partly by her son, Nigel. It was one of the happiest and strangest marriages there has ever been. Both Vita and Harold were always in love with other people and each gave the other full liberty 'without enquiry or reproach', knowing that their love for each other would be unaffected and even strengthened by the crises which it survived. This account of their love story is now a modern classic.
The Journals of May Sarton Volume One: Journal of a Solitude, Plant Dreaming Deep, and Recovering
by May SartonNow in one volume: Three exquisite meditations on nature, healing, and the pleasures of the solitary life from a New York Times–bestselling author. In a long life spent recording her personal observations, poet, novelist, and memoirist May Sarton redefined the journal as a literary form. This extraordinary volume collects three of her most beloved works. Journal of a Solitude: Sarton&’s bestselling memoir chronicles a solitary year spent at the house she bought and renovated in the quiet village of Nelson, New Hampshire. Her revealing insights are a moving and profound reflection on creativity, oneness with nature, and the courage it takes to be alone. Plant Dreaming Deep: Sarton&’s intensely personal account of how she transformed a dilapidated eighteenth-century farmhouse into a home is a loving, beautifully crafted memoir illuminated by themes of friendship, love, nature, and the struggles of the creative life. Recovering: In this affecting diary of one year&’s hardships and healing, Sarton focuses on her sixty-sixth year, which was marked by the turmoil of a mastectomy, the end of a treasured relationship, and the loneliness that visits a life of chosen solitude. By turns uplifting, cathartic, and revelatory, Sarton&’s journals still strike a chord in the hearts of contemporary readers. Through them, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, &“we are able to see our own experiences reflected in hers and we are enriched.&”
Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community
by Martin DubermanTo the extent that Black Mountain is known today it is as the site of a now defunct experimental community located in the foothills of North Carolina--a forerunner and exemplar of much that is now considered innovative in art, education and life style. It is known, too, as the refuge, in some cases the nurturing ground, for many of the singular, shaping talents of our time: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Olson, Josef Albers, Paul Goodman, Robert Rauschenberg--men whose work has significantly affected the actuality as well as the mythology of American cultural life. Yet the full story of Black Mountain during its twenty-three-year existence (1933-1956) is more intricate and poignant than a recitation of the famous names associated with it. Its daily history is the story of a small group of men and women who founded a college based on an idea of community among individuals working and learning together; who attempted to find some consonance in their ideas and their lives; who risked the intimacy and exposure that most of us emotionally yearn for and rhetorically defend, but in practice shun. At its best, Black Mountain showed the possibilities of a disparate group of individuals committing themselves to a common enterprise, resilient enough to absorb the conflict and now and then even brave enough to be transformed by its accompanying energies. The echoes of Black Mountain's unique experiment are to be found in the current debate in our universities as to the measure of commitment and response between school and student; in the communes and alternative societies seeking integration between life and work. Perhaps the most innovative aspect of Black Mountain is Martin Duberman's effort to challenge the ideal of "objectivity" that has long been the hallmark of academic historical writing. By removing the protection of anonymity, that is by letting the reader see the actual process by which he interacts with the data--his feelings, fantasies and needs--Mr. Duberman has brilliantly converted "history" to life. Martin Duberman is Distinguished Service Professor of History at Lehman College, City University of New York. He was born in New York City and received his B.A. from Yale and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard. He has received numerous awards and has written biographies, history, plays and novels.
Comrade Loves the Samurai
by Ihara Saikaku Edward Powys MathersIn old Japan, sexual love among the samurai was permissible, and often matured into lifelong companionships. Comrade Loves of the Samurai touches the subject of both normal and abnormal love with honesty and tenderness.
I Am Elijah Thrush
by James PurdyOn its surface, I Am Elijah Thrush is the story of Millicent De Frayne and her sensational half-century campaign to win the love of Elijah Thrush. Elijah, after ruining the lives of countless men and women, is finally in love “incorrectly, if not indecently,” with his great-grandson, Bird of Heaven. To support an unusual habit, a young Black man, Albert Peggs, reluctantly agrees to tell their remarkable story. It is in this telling that the ambitions, desires, and true natures of Elijah, Millicent, and Albert come to light. With a delicately controlled balance of whimsy and pathos, James Purdy gives us this comedy of the heroic, the tragic, and the truly bizarre.Met with critical bewilderment upon its initial publication fifty years ago, this new edition offers a Foreword by Robert J. Corber illuminating Purdy’s “complicated allegory” of objectification, desire, and race in the immediate post–civil rights moment.
Shockproof Sydney Skate
by Marijane Meaker M. E. KerrA uniquely witty novel exploring sex, freedom, and the process of growing upSydney Skate considers himself shockproof. For as long as he can remember, he&’s known that his fashionable Manhattan mother is secretly a lesbian, although he&’s never let on that he knows. He spends his summer days caring for snakes at the local pet shop before leaving for college at Cornell, shrugging off his father&’s demands that he skip college and join the exciting world of swimming pool sales for suburbanites.Far from throwing himself into work, Sydney can&’t seem to keep his thoughts from wandering to women. He has memorized the sex scenes of every book he&’s ever read in order to better seduce the opposite gender. When he&’s called to help remove a snake from a bathtub that belongs to the gorgeous and sophisticated Alison Gray, everything changes. But nothing could prepare him for his glamorous mother sweeping the girl of his dreams off her feet.This hypnotizing coming-of-age story captures the timeless ecstasies and struggles of adolescence, and has been a classic of lesbian literature since it was first published in 1973. Hailed as the Catcher in the Rye of the seventies, Shockproof Sydney Skate exposes the confusion of its time and remains keenly relevant to the sexual absurdities of today.This ebook features an illustrated personal history of Marijane Meaker including rare images from the author&’s collection.
The Fourth Angel (Books That Changed the World)
by John RechyFrom the New York Times–bestselling author of City of Night: a &“powerful work that may very well be Rechy&’s best&” (Kirkus Reviews). Compelling and ferociously relevant, The Fourth Angel is the story of four teenagers playing deadly games with drugs, sex, and one another. Behind a facade of tough cynicism, on a raging search for kicks, they explore the hot, dusty city, bent on trouble. There are three &“angels&”—Shell, Cob, and Manny—and their recruit Jerry, who becomes the fourth. Hovering in that uncertain limbo between childhood and adulthood, the four angels maintain a precarious balance among themselves and with the outside world. Each one is today&’s street kid: still tinged with innocence and capable of beauty, but at the same time, full of rage and violence, attempting to conceal an ugly past. Praise for John Rechy &“Rechy shows great comic and tragic talent. He is truly a gifted novelist.&” —Christopher Isherwood, author and playwright &“His tone rings absolutely true, is absolutely his own, and he has the kind of discipline which allows him a rare and beautiful recklessness. He tells the truth, and tells it with such passion that we are forced to share in the life he conveys. This is a most humbling and liberating achievement.&” —James Baldwin, novelist, playwright, and activist &“Fresh, beautiful, totally courageous and totally cool, passionate . . . His uncompromising honesty as a gay writer has provoked as much fear as admiration . . . John Rechy doesn&’t fit into categories. He transcends them. His individual vision is unique, perfect, loving and strong.&” —Carolyn See, author of Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America
The Man Without a Face
by Isabelle HollandCharles didn't know much about life ... until he met The Man Without a Face. "I'd never had a friend, and he was my friend; I'd never really, except for a shadowy memory, had a father, and he was my father. I'd never known an adult I could communicate with or trust, and I communicated with him all the time, whether I was actually talking to him or not. And I trusted him ...... Fourteen-year-old Charles desperately wants two things: a father and a way out. Little love has come his way until the summer he befriends a mysterious scarred man named Justin McLeod, nicknamed ""The Man Without a Face." Charles enlists McLeod's help as tutor for the St. Matthew's school entrance exams, his ticket away from the unpleasant restrictions of his home life. But more important than anything he could get out of a book, that summer Charles learns from McLeod a stirring life lesson about the many faces of love.
The Persian Boy: A Novel Of Alexander The Great: A Virago Modern Classic (The Novels of Alexander the Great #2)
by Mary RenaultA New York Times–bestselling novel of the ancient king of Macedon and his lover by the author Hilary Mantel calls &“a shining light.&”The Persian Boy centers on the most tempestuous years of Alexander the Great&’s life, as seen through the eyes of his lover and most faithful attendant, Bagoas. When Bagoas is very young, his father is murdered and he is sold as a slave to King Darius of Persia. Then, when Alexander conquers the land, he is given Bagoas as a gift, and the boy is besotted. This passion comes at a time when much is at stake—Alexander has two wives, conflicts are ablaze, and plots on the Macedon king&’s life abound. The result is a riveting account of a great conqueror&’s years of triumph and, ultimately, heartbreak.The Persian Boy is the second volume of the Novels of Alexander the Great trilogy, which also includes Fire from Heaven and Funeral Games.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author.&“Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us.&” —Hilary Mantel
The Poetry of May Sarton Volume Two: A Durable Fire, A Grain of Mustard Seed, and A Private Mythology
by May SartonThree compelling volumes of poetry from a feminist icon, poet, and author of the groundbreaking novel Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing.A Durable Fire: This collection borrows its title from Sir Walter Raleigh, who wrote, “Love is a durable fire / In the mind ever burning.” It is a fitting sentiment for a collection on solitude, wherein the author finds herself full of emotion even in seclusion. A Durable Fire is a transformative work by a masterful poet. A Grain of Mustard Seed: In this beautiful collection, Sarton explores dark and destructive femininity. She writes of “Crude power that forges a balance / Between hate and love,” finding an amalgam of dark and light within a single act. These graceful and nuanced poems join timeless ideas and specific moments in history. A Private Mythology: To celebrate her fiftieth birthday, Sarton embarked on a pilgrimage around the world. Traveling through Japan, India, and Greece, she captured her spiritual discoveries in this vivid collection of poetry. Arresting images and meditations on the differences between East and West are rendered in this “colorful, polished” winner of the Emily Clark Balch Prize (Kirkus Reviews).
Against the Season: A Novel
by Jane RuleA decades-spanning novel of sisterhood and family secrets from an &“extraordinary writer&” (Katherine V. Forrest). Born lame, Amelia Larson lives in the house that has been in her family for generations. Now she has a decision to make: Should she honor the dying wish of her sister, Beatrice, to burn her diaries? There are sixty-nine in all: one journal for each year of Beatrice&’s life since the age of six. Beginning in 1913 and traversing World War I and beyond, the diaries become a moving counterpoint to Amelia&’s life as they unpeel layers of family history. As the past starts to impinge on the present, her relations—then and now—come to vivid life. Told from alternating points of view, Against the Season opens an illuminating window into small-town life. As the sins and secrets of a family are revealed through the sometimes-faulty lens of memory, it is a story about the seasons of life and the ties that bind us even beyond death.
Greenland: A Novel
by David Santos DonaldsonA dazzling, debut novel-within-a-novel in the vein of The Prophets and Memorial, about a young author writing about the secret love affair between E.M. Forster and Mohammed el Adl—in which Mohammed’s story collides with his own, blending fact and fiction.In 1919, Mohammed el Adl, the young Egyptian lover of British author E. M. Forster, spent six months in a jail cell. A century later, Kip Starling has locked himself in his Brooklyn basement study with a pistol and twenty-one gallons of Poland Spring to write Mohammed’s story.Kip has only three weeks until his publisher’s deadline to immerse himself in the mind of Mohammed who, like Kip, is Black, queer, an Other. The similarities don't end there. Both of their lives have been deeply affected by their confrontations with Whiteness, homophobia, their upper crust education, and their white romantic partners. As Kip immerses himself in his writing, Mohammed’s story – and then Mohammed himself – begins to speak to him, and his life becomes a Proustian portal into Kip's own memories and psyche. Greenland seamlessly conjures two distinct yet overlapping worlds where the past mirrors the present, and the artist’s journey transforms into a quest for truth that offers a world of possibility.Electric and unforgettable, David Santos Donaldson’s tour de force excavates the dream of white assimilation, the foibles of interracial relationships, and not only the legacy of a literary giant, but literature itself.
Kathleen and Frank: The Autobiography of a Family (Fsg Classics Ser.)
by Christopher IsherwoodA pivotal book in Isherwood's career that reveals as much about him as the parents he set out to portrayKathleen and Frank is the story of Christopher Isherwood's parents—their meeting in 1895, marriage in 1903 after his father had returned from the Boer War, and his father's death in an assault on Ypres in 1915, which left his mother a widow until her own death in 1960. As well as a family memoir, it is a social history of a period of striking change, and a portrait of the world that shaped Isherwood and that he rejected.
Maurice
by E. M. ForsterNovel written in 1913 that describes the long and difficult process by which a typical product of middle-class suburbia realizes that he is a homosexual.