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Selected Gay And Lesbian Titles 2001

Compiled and edited by Charles Hix and Robert Dahlin -- Publishers Weekly, 4/23/2001

ABRAMS

Dear Friends: American Photographs of Men Together, 1840–1918 (Apr., $35) by David Deitcher presents more than 100 historical photographs depicting friendship between men, plus analysis and commentary.

ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

The Song of the Earth (May, $24.95) by Hugh Nissenson. The main character of this novel is Johnny Baker, a gay man and the first genetically engineered artist, who is murdered at age 19 in the year 2057.

ALYSON

Endangered Species (Apr., $13.95 paper) by Louis Bayard. A novel about GWM Nick Broome's search for a surrogate mother to have his child through artifical insemination.

Keep Singing: Two Mothers, Two Sons and Their Fight Against Jesse Helms (May, $13.95 paper) by Patsy Clarke and Eloise Vaughn with Nicole Brodeur, foreword by Allan Gurganus, relates the true story of two North Carolina grandmothers, each having lost a son to AIDS, who set aside retirement to oppose the reelection of Jesse Helms.

Onyx (May, $24.95) by Felice Picano focuses on a triangulated relationship fashioned in the aftermath of personal tragedy.

Break Up or Break Through: A Spiritual Guide to Richer Relationships (June, $14.95 paper) by Dina Bachelor Evan counsels gay and lesbian couples against emulating heterosexual relationships in the quest for fulfillment.

The Invisible Glass (Aug., $12.95 paper) by Loren Wahl. First published over 50 years ago, the novel explores homophobia and racism in the military.

The Lavender Couch: A Guide to Psychotherapy for Gay Men and Lesbians (Aug., $15.95 paper) by Michael Bettinger lays out an understanding of the process.

ANCHOR

Not a Day Goes By (May, $6.99) by E. Lynn Harris. In this mass market reprint, ex-football star John Basil Henderson and Broadway performer Yancey Harrington Braxton plan a future. 750,000 first printing.

ARSENAL PULP PRESS

Flat (Sept., $11.95 paper) by Mark Macdonald. In this novel set in Vancouver, a friend cleans up a suicide's apartment and examines notes, books and other fragments of the dead man's life.

Hot & Bothered 3 (Sept., $15.95 paper), edited by Karen X. Tulchinsky, presents 69 pieces of lesbian erotic fiction.

In a Queer Country: Gay and Lesbian Studies in the Canadian Context (Oct., $19.95 paper), edited by Terry Goldie, gathers 14 essays on subjects both gay and national.

ATTAGIRL PRESS

See Dick Deconstruct: Literotica for the Satirically Bent (June, $14.95 paper) by Ian Philips is a story collection the author describes as "erotica for eggheads."

BALLANTINE

Rough Music (May, $25) by Patrick Gale is a novel telling twin stories of past and present; in contemporary time, the protagonist is involved with a married man.

I'm the One That I Want (Apr., $22.95) by Margaret Cho contains humorous autobiographical essays inspired by the Asian-American comedian's Off-Broadway stage show.

Alma Mater (Nov., $24) by Rita Mae Brown is a novel of sexual awakening and conflicted loyalties among three friends at a small Virginia college, circa 1980.

BANTAM

Brave Journeys: Profiles in Gay and Lesbian Courage (May, $13.95 paper) by David Mixner and Dennis Bailey features personal stories of seven men and women, including actor Sir Ian McKellen and Tracy Thorne, the navy fighter pilot who fought the military's official policy of secrecy.

BEACON PRESS

The Stranger Next Door: The Story of a Small Community's Battle over Sex, Faith and Civil Rights (Apr., $27.50) by Arlene Stein chronicles homophobia, spurred by evangelical Christians, in a working-class community in the Pacific Northwest.

When the Drama Club Is Not Enough: Lessons for the Safe Schools Program for Gay and Lesbian Students (July, $22) by Jeff Perrotti and Kim Westheimer addresses gay and lesbian identity, self-esteem, and safety and harassment concerns at the middle and elementary school levels.

BELLA BOOKS

Forever and the Night (May, $11.95 paper) by Laura DeHart Young. When her affair with a younger woman fails, an assistant to the Secretary of the Interior travels to Alaska, where she is drawn to Lela, anInupiat.

Winged Isis (May, $11.95 paper) by Jean Stewart is the fourth installment of the futuristic series.

Death by the Riverside: The First Micky Knight Mystery (Sept., $11.95 paper) by J.M. Redmann returns to print the first adventure of this hard-boiled female detective from New Orleans.

Chicken (Oct., $11.95 paper) by Paula Martinac. Dumped by her longtime lover, Lynn falls apart and into every bed she can find.

Tamarack Creek (Oct., $11.95 paper) by Jackie Calhoun. After finding her lover in bed with another woman, Carly quits her job and moves in with her gay brother at the family homestead.

CALYX

Cracking the Earth: A 25th Anniversary Anthology from Calyx (Sept.; $25.95, paper $12.95), edited by Beverly McFarland et al. celebrates the press's silver anniversary.

CELESTIAL ARTS

I Do: A Guide to Creating Your Own Unique Wedding Ceremony (Apr., $11.95 paper) by Sydney Barbara Metrick includes planning tips for same-sex as well as traditional marriage ceremonies.

Positively Gay: New Approaches to Gay and Lesbian Life (June, $14.95 paper), edited by Betty Berzon, foreword by Congressman Barney Frank, is a third edition covering a cornucopia of topics.

CHICAGO SPECTRUM PRESS

White Soul (Nov., $14.95 paper) by Phil Clore is a poetry collection that chronicles the author's childhood in an abusive home and other stops along his life's journey.

CIRCLET PRESS

Wired Hard 3 (July, $15.95 paper), edited by Cecilia Tan, presents a dozen stories featuring men with a yen for men in otherwordly settings.

Best Transgender Erotica (Sept., $16 paper), edited by Hanne Blank and Raven Kaldera, assembles a score of stories by every gender.

Stocking Stuffers (Dec., $14.95 paper), edited by David Laurents, anthologizes gay erotic Christmas stories, including contributions from Felice Picano and Lawrence Schimel.

CLEIS PRESS

Vanishing Rooms (Apr., $14.95 paper) by Melvin Dixon is the 10th anniversary edition of the celebrated African-American gay novel.

Different Daughters: A Book by Mothers of Lesbians (Apr., $14.95), edited by Louise Rafkin. This third edition gathers more personal essays of acceptance.

Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings (May, $14.95 paper) by Gore Vidal confronts topics from sex and the Catholic Church to gay American founding fathers.

Conversaciones: Talking with Parents of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Latino/as (July, $14.95 paper), edited by Mariana Romo-Carmona, collects Spanish-language coming-out stories.

The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Men (July, $14.95 paper) by Bill Brent is a self-help book for men of all sexual orientations.

Odd Girl Out (Sept., $12.95 paper) by Ann Bannon is a new addition to the series of pre-Stonewall lesbian pulp novels.

Loyal Opposition: The Politics of Pleasure and Perversity (Nov., $16.95 paper) by Patrick Califia-Rice is his first nonfiction work since coming out as a female-to-male transsexual.

COLUMBIA UNIV. PRESS

Gay Fiction Speaks: Conversations with Gay Novelists (Feb.; $49.50, paper $18.95) by Richard Canning. Interviews with a dozen gay novelists on the art of writing.

Fashioning Sapphism: The Origins of a Modern English Lesbian Culture (Feb.; $49.50, paper $16.50) by Laura Doan traces the emergence of the "modern lesbian subculture" through social conditions and cultural trends in Britain.

Queer Families, Queer Politics (May; $49.50, paper $18.50), edited by Mary Bernstein and Renate Reimann, connects issues of gender, sexuality and family with broader issues of social movements, politics and law.

The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature: Readings from Western Antiquity to the Present Day (June, $26 paper), edited by Byrne R.S. Fone. Poetry, fiction, essay and autobiography by writers from Ovid to James Baldwin, Plato to Oscar Wilde.

Something to Tell You: The Road Families Travel When a Child Is Gay (June, $16.95 paper) by Gilbert Herdt and Bruce Koff. An anthropologist and a social worker/psychotherapist contend that families can strengthen and thrive when a son or daughter comes out.

Identity Politics: Race, Class and the Lesbian-Feminist Roots of Queer Theory (Aug.; $49.50, paper $18.50) by Linda Garber makes a case for the significant role of lesbian poets as theorists of lesbian identity and activism.

Up from Invisibility (Dec.; $49.50, paper $18.50) by Larry Gross questions whether the increased presence of gays in the media does justice to the complexity and variety of gay experience.

CORNELL UNIV. PRESS

Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair (June; $42.50, paper $17.95) by Hilde Lindemann Nelson focuses on groups of people whose identities have been defined by others seeking to constrain the scope of their actions.

Women Take Care: Gender, Race and the Culture of AIDS (July; $39.95, paper $16.95) by Katie Hogan argues that many narratives of AIDS include the ongoing idea of caretaking as woman's fate, thus perpetuating the demand for female sacrifice.

The Measure of Life: Virginia Woolf's Last Years (Sept., $18.95 paper) by Herbert Marder places special attention on the writer's relationship with her doctor and distant cousin, Octavia Wilberforce.

COUNCIL OAK BOOKS

Strongman: Vintage Photos of a Masculine Icon (May, $24.95), edited by Robert Mainardi, is a portrait album of famous and amateur strongmen; foreword by Jules Bacon, Mr. America 1943.

CROSSROAD PUBLISHING

Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (Oct., $19.95 paper) by James Alison. A gay Catholic priest assesses the sins committed against those "in the closet."

DAMRON

The Damron Road Atlas ( Sept., $21.95 paper). In the ninth edition, inset maps designate gay areas.

Damron Accommodations (Sept., $22.95 paper). The fifth edition lists thousands of gay-friendly places throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand.

Damron Men's Travel Guide 2002 (Nov., $18.95 paper) and Damron Women's Traveller 2002 (Nov., $15.95 paper) offer listings for bars, bookstores, gyms, retreats, cruises and more.

DOUBLEDAY

The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin—A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal (Apr., $26) by Barry Werth profiles the Smith College professor who was Truman Capote's mentor and lover. A Nan A. Talese book.

Any Way the Wind Blows (July, $19.95) by E. Lynn Harris. In the sequel to Not a Day Goes By, John Basil Henderson has jilted Yancey Harrington Braxton.

DUKE UNIV. PRESS

Fair Sex, Savage Dreams: Race, Psychoanalysis, Sexual Difference (Mar., $18.95 paper) by Jean Walton disputes the notion that subjects acquire gender identities in isolation from racial ones.

Willa Cather & Others (Mar., $18.95 paper) by Jonathan Goldberg proposes that notions of identity as portrayed in Cather's fiction are at odds with the focus of recent Cather scholarship.

Racial Castration: Managing Masculinity in Asian America (Apr., $18.95 paper) by David Eng. This first title in the new Perverse Modernities series, edited by Judith Halberstam and Lisa Lowe, examines literary, visual and filmic images of Asian-American men.

Gay Fandom and Crossover Stardom: James Dean, Mel Gibson, and Keanu Reeves (Aug., $18.95 paper) by Michael DeAngelis follows the careers of these actors with considerable appeal to both straight and gay audiences.

Foundlings: Lesbian and Gay Historical Emotion Before Stonewall (Nov., $18.95 paper) by Christopher Nealon analyzes how the concept of orphandom in gay and lesbian experience has affected queer subcultures.

EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY

Love Speaks Its Name: Gay and Lesbian Love Poems (May, $12.50 paper), edited by J.D. McClatchy, is a wide-ranging anthology in the Pocket Poet series drawing on lyrics by poets from Sappho and Shakespeare to Cole Porter.

FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX

Pages for You (Apr., $22) by Sylvia Brownrigg is a novel about a 17-year-old college student's attachment to a grad student.

Fixer Chao (Apr., $25) by Han Ong. When a Filipino street hustler encounters a social-climbing writer in this picaresque first novel, the result is love and a feng shui scam.

FSG/FABER & FABER

Groovy Bob: The Life and Times of Robert Fraser (May, $25) by Harriet Vyner profiles a prominent gay figure of swinging London in the '60s, with reminiscences from Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and others.

FEMINIST PRESS

Look Me in the Eye: Old Women, Aging and Agism (Sept., $14 paper) by Barbara Macdonald with Cynthia Rich is an expanded edition uniting personal experiences of aging with feminist theory; Rich's new foreword pays tribute to her longtime lover, Macdonald, who died last spring.

Voice of the Soft-Bellied Warrior: A Memoir (Sept., $14 paper) by Mary Saracen reveals what befell the author after the publication of her previous book, which aired family secrets.

FODOR'S

Fodor's Gay Guide to the USA (May, $21.50 paper). Updated and reorganized, the book covers lesbian- and gay-friendly destinations, with tips on neighborhoods where visitors will feel most at home.

FROG, LTD.

(dist. by PGW)

His Tongue: Stories (Aug., $14.95 paper) by Lawrence Schimel is the latest collection from the author of The Drag Queen of Elfland and Kosher Meat.

GRAYWOLF PRESS

Interesting Monsters (Sept., $14 paper) by Aldo Alvarez. This story collection by a writer born in Puerto Rico asserts that the real "monsters" humans face are the prejudices that keep us silent and invisible.

GROVE

In the City of Shy Hunters (June, $26) by Tom Spanbauer. This novel, set in Manhattan's East Village, opens in 1983 and follows the love affair between a stuttering newcomer from Jackson Hole and a six-foot-five African-American drag queen. 30,000 first printing.

HARCOURT

Before Time Could Change Them: The Complete Poems of Constantine P. Cavafy (Apr., $28) features new translations by Theoharis Constantine Theoharis, a foreword by Gore Vidal and nine poems previously untranslated into English.

HARPER ENTERTAINMENT

Kiss the Girls and Make Them Spy: An Original Jane Bond Parody (July, $13 paper) by Mabel Maneyl. Jane Bond, James's lesbian twin, doubles for her indisposed brother in both the spy game and the bedroom.

HARPER SAN FRANCISCO

Stitching a Revolution (May, $15 paper) by Cleve Jones with Jeff Dawson reports on the gay rights movement in San Francisco in the '70s and events that led to the creation of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

A New Christianity for a New World (Sept., $22) by John Shelby Spong. A champion of liberal Christianity shares his views on what a real Christian church should be.

HAWORTH PRESS

His Hands, His Tools, His Sex, His Dress: Lesbian Writers on Their Fathers (Feb.; $44.95, paper $19.95), edited by Catherine Reid and Holly K. Iglesias, collects poems and essays from 23 lesbian writers.

Being Gay and Lesbian in a Catholic High School: Beyond the Uniform (Mar.; $49.95, paper $17.95) by Michael Maher contends that Catholic educators, clergy and laypeople are not fulfilling their church's mandate to be inclusive of sexual minorities.

The City Kid (Apr.; $39.95, paper $16.95) by Paul Reidinger is a novel that examines the attraction between a 40-year-old man and a 16-year-old.

Gay and Lesbian Parenting (Apr.; $49.95, paper $19.95), edited by Deborah Glazer and Jack Drescher, emphasizes life-affirming growth issues rather than psychological difficulties.

Sissyphobia: Gay Men and Effeminate Behavior (Apr.; $29.95, paper $14.95) by Tim Bergling probes the roots of the rage toward men variously termed fairies, faggots, flamers and queens.

Rebel Yell: Stories by Contemporary Southern Gay Authors (May; $34.95, paper $14.95), edited by Jay Quinn, features the accents of gay men familiar with the horror and tenderness of their heritage.

From Hate Crimes to Human Rights: A Tribute to Matthew Shepard (Sept.; $59.95, paper $24.95), edited by Mary E. Swigonski et al., concludes that international law and the child welfare system can contribute to prejudice and hate crimes.

HOHM PRESS

Black Sun: The Collected Poems of Lewis Thompson (Sept., $14.95), edited by Richard Lannoy, introduces the work of an Englishman who spent many years living in India before his death, at 40, in 1949.

HENRY HOLT/ METROPOLITAN

Afterimage (Apr., $23) by Helen Humphreys is a novel that reimagines the love triangle between master, mistress (photographer Julia Margaret Cameron) and maid (who posed for her most famous photos) in Victorian England.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN

Dupont Circle (May, $24) by Paul Kafka-Gibbons is set in the near future and deals with a case before the District Court of Appeals of two men legally married in one state but denied this status in Washington, D.C.

The Marble Quilt (Sept., $25) by David Leavitt explores in short stories the theme of political inclusion and exclusion within the gay community in the wake of AIDS. Leavitt's Martin Bauman; or, A Sure Thing ($14 paper) is reprinted simultaneously.

INTERCULTURAL PRESS

Wimmin, Wimps & Wallflowers: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Gender and Sexual Orientation Biasin the United States (Apr., $39.95) by Philip H. Herbst rounds up terms that label or stereotype.

JUSTICE HOUSE

Josie & Rebecca: The Western Chronicles (Jan., $17.95 paper) by BL Miller and Vada Foster. Josie is a deadly, bitter gunslinger; Rebecca is a gentle dreamer intrigued by the outlaw.

The Deal (Mar., $17.95 paper) by Maggie Ryan is a fictional behind-the-scenes look at television news as two dynamic women fall for each other.

KENSINGTON

Can't Buy Me Love (May, $23) by Chris Kenny. An out-of-work fellow starts a new career running Harden Up, a male escort service.

Bound in Blood (May, $14 paper) by David Thomas Lord introduces a gay vampire in search of his soul mate.

Flight Dreams (May, $13 paper) by Michael Craft reissues the first in the Mark Manning mystery series; next are Eye Contact (June, $12) and Body Language (July, $13).

Cathedral City (June, $23) by Gregory Hinton. Will a fading desert town regain its former glory and will the gay owners of a local nightspot see better days?

Tricks of the Trade (July, $23) by Ben Tyler. Revenge is sweetest in Hollywood when a gay studio publicist gets even by leaving no closet unopened.

Any Kind of Luck (Aug., $23) by William Jack Sibley. A gay couple from New York tries adjusting to rural Texas.

The World of Normal Boys (Aug., $14 paper) by K.M. Soehnlein reprints a novel that tells a coming-of-age story against the backdrop of family tragedy during the '70s.

Someone Killed His Boyfriend (Sept., $22) by David Stukas is the first in a mystery series with a pair of homosexual sleuths and their lesbian sidekick in Provincetown.

The Long Shot (Sept., $15 paper) by Paul Monette. After a one-night stand is found dead, a gay screenwriter is intent upon uncovering the truth.

It Had to Be You (Oct., $23) by Timothy James Beck. A former drag queen finds love next door.

Panthers in the Skins of Men (Oct., $15 paper) by Charles Nelson. A gay soldier returns home from Vietnam.

KNOPF

James Merrill: Collected Poems (Mar., $35), edited by J.D. McClatchy and Stephen Yenser, brings together five decades of work by the recipient of two National Book Awards and the Pulitzer Prize.

Dazzler: The Life and Times of Moss Hart (Apr., $27.50) by Steven Bach traces the successes of the Broadway playwright/director, but does not flinch from revealing Hart's conflicted sexuality and battles with depression.

The Practical Heart: Four Novellas (Aug., $25) by Allan Gurganus. The title piece won the National Magazine Prize.

MODERN LIBRARY

Giovanni's Room (May, $16.95) by James Baldwin. This gay classic traces an American expatriate's struggles with sexual identity in '50s Paris.

MOREHOUSE

Gifted by Otherness: Gay and Lesbian Christians in the Church (Sept., $16.95 paper) by L. William Countryman and M.R. Ritley. Two Episcopal priests in California assert that being gay or lesbian is a vocation and a gift to today's church.

MYSTERIOUS PRESS

The Last Blue Plate Special (Mar., $23.95) by Abigail Padgett is the second in a series featuring social psychologist Blue McCarron and her mate, Roxie Bouchie, an African-American prison psychiatrist.

NAIAD PRESS

Death Club (May, $11.95 paper) by Claire McNab is the 13th Detective Inspector Carol Ashton mystery, in which murder is par for the course at a women's golf tournament Down Under.

Frosting on the Cake (May, $11.95 paper) by Karin Kallmaker is a baker's dozen of romantic short stories.

Out of Sight (Oct., $11.95 paper) by Claire McNab in the third Denise Cleever thriller, an intelligence agent infiltrates a band of terrorists.

She Walks in Beauty (Oct., $14.95 paper) by Nicole Conn. A writer retreats from her reckless pursuit of too much wine and too many women.

Substitute for Love (Oct., $11.95 paper) by Karin Kallmaker. After a night of passion, Holly realizes that pleasure without emotion is no substitute for love.

NEW VICTORIA PUBLISHERS

Theoretically Dead (Oct., $11.95 paper) by Tinker Marks. Murdered philosophers, frozen sperm and a lesbian protagonist figure in this mystery set on a college campus.

W.W. NORTON

Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for the AIDS Vaccine (Jan., $27.95) by Jon Cohen charts how divergent forces have hindered the vaccine's development.

Fox: Poems 1998–2000 (Oct., $21) by Adrienne Rich is a collection that revisits, among other themes, interlocutions within and across gender.

Rimbaud (Dec., $18.95 paper) by Graham Robb reprints a biography untangling the mysteries of the gay pioneer.

OVERLOOK PRESS

Where the Rainbow Ends (Mar., $14.95 paper) by Jameson Currier is a novel that follows the personal odyssey of a gay Everyman who settles in New York City in 1978.

Bending the Landscape: Horror (Apr.; $26.95, paper $16.95), edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel, brings together a slew of horrific tales with a twist.

PAINTED LEAF PRESS

Mr. Bluebird (Apr., $12.95 paper) by Gerry Gomez Pearlberg is a new collection of poetry from the 1998 Lambda winner for Marianne Faithfull's Cigarette.

Tarzan, My Body, Christopher Columbus (June, $15.95 paper) by Jaime Manrique combines in a single bilingual edition three works that span a quarter century by the gay Latino poet best known for My Night with Federico Garcia Lorca.

Tramps Like Us (June, $17.95 paper) by Joe Westmoreland. The novel's narrator leaves his Kansas City home in 1974, hitchhikes the country and winds up in San Francisco.

PARTHIAN PRESS

(dist. by Dufour Editions)

Welsh Boys Too (Apr., $12.95 paper) by John Sam Jones is a collection of gay stories set in Wales. This new Welsh publisher also offers two drama collections, One Man, One Voice (May, $14.95 paper), edited by David Adams; and New Welsh Drama II (May, $12.95 paper), edited by J.H. Teare, each with a play about homophobic prejudice in Wales.

PLUME

Burning Ground (Sept., $13 paper) by Pearl Luke is a first novel about a woman on fire duty in the Canadian woods and her unrequited passion for her best friend.

POLESTAR/RAINCOAST BOOKS

(dist. by AGD)

The Predicament of Or (Sept., $12.95 paper) by Shani Mootoo. Marrying English words to Trinidadian intonation, Mootoo exposes the contradictions of loving another woman in this series of love poems.

PUTNAM

Rag and Bone (Mar., $24.95) by Michael Nava is the seventh and final novel in the Henry Rios mystery series.

RIVERHEAD

Black, White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting-Self (Jan., $23.95) by Rebecca Walker. Her mother is Alice Walker; her father is liberal Jewish lawyer Mel Leventhal. Having dated both black and white men, Walker, who calls herself a "Third Wave" feminist, is now in a committed relationship with a black woman.

ROUGH GUIDES

The Rough Guide to Gay & Lesbian Australia (June, $16.95 paper) by Neil Drinnan is the company's first title exclusively for gay and lesbian travelers.

ROUTLEDGE

Bisexual Spaces (Feb.; $85, paper $23.95) by Clare Hemmings discusses how Northampton, Mass., and San Francisco developed into safe places for the gay, lesbian and bisexual communities.

Masculinity: Bodies, Movies, Culture (May; $75, paper $21), edited by Peter Lehman, explores issues of masculinity as depicted in film.

Same Sex Intimacies: Families of Choice and Other Life Experiments (Sept.; $90, paper $27.95) by Jeffrey Weeks et al. interviews people in nontraditional relationships to explore what constitutes a family structure.

Culture of Queers (Dec.; $75, paper $20.95) by Richard Dyer identifies queer readings of such directors as Visconti, Fassbinder and Pasolini, and such stars as Rock Hudson.

The Spectacle of Violence: Homophobia, Gender and Knowledge (Dec.; $75, paper $23.95) by Gail Mason ruminates on how lesbians and gay men manage the risk of homophobia-related violence.

ST. MARTIN'S PRESS

An American Family (Feb., $24.95) by Michael and Jon Galluccio with David Groff. After two gay men living in New Jersey become foster parents to a baby born with the AIDS virus, they embark upon a legal battle to adopt him.

Broken Fever: Reflections of Gay Boyhood (Mar., $23.95) by James Morrison is an essay collection in which a North Carolina State University English teacher attempts to pinpoint the beginnings of his gay self-identity.

The Struggle for Happiness (Mar., $13.95 paper) by Ruth Robinson is an story collection by the lesbian writer. A Griffin/Stonewall Inn book.

Sex Tips for Gay Guys (Apr., $22.95) by Dan Anderson follows up his 1997 book, Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man.Something for the Boys: Musical Theater and Gay Culture (Apr., $16.95 paper) by John M. Clum contemplates gay males' musical theater obsession. A Palgrave book.

The World in Us: Lesbian and Gay Poetry of the Next Wave (Apr., $17.95 paper), edited by Michael Lassell and Elena Georgiou, is a wide-ranging collection. A Griffin/Stonewall Inn book.

Boy Toy: A Mark Manning Mystery (June, $23.95) by Michael Craft is the fifth in the series. In this entry a teen dies suspiciously and Manning's nephew is a suspect. A Minotaur/Stonewall Inn book.

One Dead Drag Queen: A Tom and Scott Mystery (July, $12.95 paper) by Mark Richard Zubro. A clinic bombing is only the beginning of mayhem. A Griffin/Stonewall Inn book.

Dancing with Demons: The Authorized Biography of Dusty Springfield (Sept., $24.95) by Penny Valentine and Vicki Wickham is a revealing portrait of the pop diva.

Dirty Pictures (Sept., $16.95 paper) by Micha Ramakers examines the work of gay pornographic artist Tom of Finland. A Griffin book.

The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood (Sept., $16.95 paper) by Diana McLellan celebrates the early century in Hollywood when lesbians reputedly ruled the roost. A Griffin book.

National Nancys: An Alex Reynolds Mystery (Oct., $12.95 paper) by Fred Hunter. Politics prove deadly when a progressive Chicago senatorial candidate's campaign office is blown up. A Minotaur/Stonewall Inn book.

Beach (Nov., $19.95 paper) by David Morgan contains photographs of sexy men enjoying the beach and themselves. A Griffin book.

SAN DIEGO WRITERS' MONTHLY PRESS

Echo Park (Jan., $24) by Steve Scott. In this novel, a gay narrator introduces an eccentric array of characters living in and around Los Angeles's famous park.

SIMON & SCHUSTER

True Enough (June, $24) by Stephen McCauley. A gay man in a long-term relationship and a straight woman with a husband and son complicate everyone's lives when they collaborate on a documentary series.

Rainbow Boys (Oct., $16) by Alex Sanchez , from S&S Books for Young Readers, features a popular high-school jock with a girlfriend and a secret yearning. Ages 12 and up.

STANFORD UNIV. PRESS

God's Beauty Parlor: And Other Queer Spaces in and Around the Bible (Dec.; $55, paper $22.95) by Stephen D. Moore brings contemporary gender studies to bear on such matters as how the Song of Songs became a pretext for literary cross-dressing for male Jewish and Christian commentators.

STERLING

Table Talk—Oscar Wilde (June, $17.95), edited by Thomas Wright, is a compilation of stories recited by Wilde at dinner parties, in literary salons and other venues. A Cassell book.

TRAFALGAR SQUARE

Naked Life (Mar., $45) by Julian Hargreaves. Homoerotic photographic images ride the cusp between the blunt and the beautiful. A Westzone book.

The Stately Homo: A Celebration of the Life of Quentin Crisp (Apr., $22.95), edited by Paul Bailey, offers tributes from friends and admirers of the late raconteur. A Bantam Press UK book.

Oscar Wilde: A Life in Quotes (Apr., $17.95), compiled by Barry Day, links quotations to portray the wit's life. A Metro book.

The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde (Apr., $16.95 paper) by Joseph Pearce probes Wilde's life and spiritual yearnings. A HarperCollins UK book.

Chicken Shack: A Letty Campbell Mystery (Apr., $13.95 paper) by Alma Fritchley is the fourth entry in the English lesbian mystery series. A Women's Press book.

Gay London (July, $13.95 paper) by Graham Parker. This new edition incorporates entries on social clubs, political organizations, health services, restaurants and night clubs. A Metro Publication book.

UNIV. OF CHICAGO PRESS

Money, Myths and Change: The Economic Lives of Lesbians and Gay Men (June, $30) by M.V. Lee Badgett disproves the assumption that gay men and lesbians are more affluent than heterosexuals.

All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America (Oct., $30) by Suzanna Walters warns against equating visibility with full integration into society's fabric.

Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality (Nov., $35) by Jonathan Ned Katz includes Abraham Lincoln in its accounts of men's intimacies with men in the 19th century.

UNIV. OF WISCONSIN PRESS

You're Not from Around Here, Are You? A Lesbian in Small-Town America (Apr.; $49.95, paper $19.95) by Louise A. Blum reveals how a town responds when the author and her partner decide to have a child.

Outbound: Finding a Man, Sailing an Ocean (Aug., $29.95) by William Storandt. While crossing the Atlantic in a 33-foot cutter, the author and his life partner encounter a fierce storm.

Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions (Oct., $19.95 paper) by Suzanne Jill Levine is a profile of the late Argentinian writer.

AIDS in French Culture: Social Ills, Literary Cures (Dec.; $50, paper $21.95) by David Caron traces the origin of French attitudes toward AIDS back to 19th-century anxieties about nationhood, masculinity and sexuality.

VIKING

Familiar Spirits: A Memoir of James Merrill and David Jackson (Feb., $22.95) by Alison Lurie flows from her intimate acquaintance over four decades with Pulitzer-winning poet Merrill and his writer/artist partner.

The Rose City and Other Stories (May, $22.95) by David Ebershoff. The author of The Danish Girl tells of seven men struggling with their identities.

Our Arcadia (June, $23.95) by Robin Lippincott. Friends (homosexual, heterosexual and in-between) seek to create a haven for themselves on Cape Cod in 1928 in this novel by the author of Mr. Dalloway.

Empress of the World (Aug., $15.99) by Sara Ryan. This first novel from Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers ponders the question: What do you do when you're a teenage girl attracted to guys, but then you meet a girl who steals your heart? Ages 12 and up.

VILLARD

The Truth Is... My Life in Love and Music (June, $24.95) by Melissa Etheridge with Laura Morton. In her autobiography, the two-time Grammy-winning star addresses the huge impact of her public coming-out.

VINTAGE

The Bull from the Sea and The Last of the Wine (both June, $14 paper) by Mary Renault are new editions of her celebrated novels set in ancient Greece.

The Laramie Project (Sept., $10 paper) by Moises Kaufman and the members of the Tectonic Theater Project is a theater work shaped from hundreds of interviews conducted in Laramie following the murder of Matthew Shepard.

The Married Man (Sept., $14 paper) by Edmund White is a novel of love and loss.

Mona and Other Tales (Sept., $12 paper) by Reinaldo Arenas collects stories written in prison and in exile.

The Powerbook (Oct., $13) by Jeannette Winterson is a novel that explores the boundaries of love and desire.

WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS

Sleep Demons: An Insomniac's Memoir (Mar., $24.95) by Bill Hayes weaves the author's experiences with sleep deprivation and his partner's struggle with AIDS into an account of the biology and mythology of sleep.

WILDCAT CANYON PRESS

Straight Women, Gay Men: Absolutely Fabulous Friendships (Sept., $15.95 paper) by Robert H. Hopcke and Laura Rafaty theorizes that, freed from stereotypical roles, homosexual men and heterosexual women can relate to each other simply as people.

WILDCAT PRESS

The Wild Man (Apr., $19.95 paper) by Patricia Nell Warren, set in the fascist Spain of the '60s, explores the subject of oppressive state religion as four closeted young gay people struggle to find love and freedom.

 Sidebar

On the Move

"You can't talk about just the gay market anymore. The coming-out story has been done," says Raphael Kadushin, humanities acquisitions editor, University of Wisconsin Press. "What I like about this book is that it's a classic adventure story that takes being gay for granted." The September book to which he refers is Outbound: Finding a Man, Sailing an Ocean by William Storandt. In it, flashbacks recall Storandt's marriage to a girl he'd known since seventh grade, the acceptance of his sexual orientation and his first visit to a big-city gay bar, where he met Brian, now his life partner of 22 years. These personal developments combine with a white-knuckled tale of the two men crossing the Atlantic with a friend in a 33-foot cutter. "We hit the worst storm ever recorded in July off the coast of Ireland," says Storandt, who has contributed sailing articles to Cruising World for 20 years. "We had 85-knot winds and 30-foot seas in two storms that covered a 48-hour period. The book is that story, plus a frank account, told with dry humor, of someone coming to terms with being gay."

For those who want to cover some distance without quite as much drama, there's The Rough Guide to Gay & Lesbian Australia (June) by Neil Drinnan. The publisher promises that it "allows for smooth sailing into the art, culture and music of Australia's queer scene." Marketing director Simon Carloss reports, "This will be the first Rough Guide title published exclusively for the gay and lesbian traveler." The ninth edition of the Damron Road Atlas, with maps to cities all across the U.S., Canada and Europe, is set for September, while Fodor's releases its updated and reorganized Fodor's Gay Guide to the USA in May. Asserting that the market for gay guides is enormous, Fodor's senior publicist Jane Glennon notes that the gay and lesbian community represents a $47-billion travel market; that 86% of gays and lesbians took a vacation last year; and that 89% want to experience gay life at their destinations.

Hispanic Headliners

Shifts in the U.S. populace revealed by the 2000 census include the fact that our Hispanic population grew 58% since 1990. It nearly doubled in Rhode Island and now makes up almost a third of California's residents. This obviously means that lesbian and gay Hispanics have increased as well, a development that has not gone unnoticed by publishers. Just take a look at Conversaciones: Talking with Parents of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Latino/as (Cleis, July), edited by Mariana Romo-Carmona, which is described as the first anthology of Spanish-language coming-out stories by and for Latino/a men and women.

Jaime Manrique's epic poem, "Christopher Columbus on His Deathbed," completed in 1979 and unpublished until now, is collected with two other works by this gay Colombia-born poet in Tarzan, My Body, Christopher Columbus (Painted Leaf Press, June). Tarzan was written in English, but the other two works are provided here in bilingual versions, with translations by Edith Grossman and Margaret Sayers Peden. "This is one of the most important books I've ever published," says publisher Bill Sullivan, who adds that his publication of Manrique's My Night with Federico Garcia Lorca is in its third printing. "I have a strong commitment to the bilingual publishing of poetry," remarks Sullivan. "To be true to works in translation, you have to print the original." Reinaldo Arenas, the gay Cuban writer profiled in the recent film Before Night Falls, wrote an introduction to "Christopher Columbus on His Deathbed" and that now provides the intro to the Painted Leaf volume. The late Arenas's name comes up again with Mona and Other Tales (Vintage International, Sept.), which gathers stories written both in political prison and in exile. Many have not been published before in English; the translator is Dolores Koch.

Picture Perfect

Boasting one of the most eye-catching, heart-warming covers in memory, Dear Friends: American Photographs of Men Together, 1840–1918 (Abrams, Apr.) by David Deitcher contains more than 100 early posed photographs, compiled from private and public collections, of unidentified men unself-consciously holding hands or embracing each other. David Rosen, co-editor at InsightOutBooks, calls the book "one of the highlights of the year, a wonderful reclaiming of a past that we always knew existed." In Dear Friends, Deitcher, an instructor at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Art and Science in New York City, muses: "Looking at these photographs has made me wonder about the kind of affection that the men in them actually shared. How was it that such men were so comfortable posing so closely together?" He hypothesizes several answers before concluding, "In their elusiveness, their resistance to naming and categorization, such photographs become their own best poetic evidence of the fluidity that marked the relations they reveal yet cannot prove."

Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality (Univ. of Chicago Press, Nov.) by Jonathan Ned Katz lacks the images of Dear Friends but shares its focus on intimacy between men in the 19th century. The book opens with an account of the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Fry Speed, who in 1837 began sharing a double bed for more than three years. To return to a world before "gay" and "straight" referred to sexuality, Katz quotes diaries, letters, newspapers and poems of the period.

Strongman: Vintage Photos of a Masculine Icon (Council Oak Books, Mar.) by Robert Mainardi boasts an arresting cover that attests to the perennial allure of photographs from earlier times. Spanning the 1880s to the 1950s, Strongman depicts an assortment of bodybuilders, both professional and amateur, solo and in groups, in a variety of poses and settings, some photographed by renowned masters of the genre. In his introduction to the collection, Mainardi confesses his early half-hearted efforts to teach himself the fundamentals of weightlifting: "I quickly realized I lacked both the motivation and the interest to transform my own body. I was not athletic and no amount of daydreaming seemed likely to change that fact.... Besides, I didn't want to be Hercules; I wanted to see Hercules."

Wedding Belles-Lettres

In his epigraph to Dupont Circle (Houghton Mifflin, May), novelist Paul Kafka-Gibbons quotes from a March 1998 brief to the Supreme Court of Vermont: "The right to marry the person we love, the person with whom we want to share our lives, is one of the most fundamental of all our human and civil rights." Having already decided several years earlier to write a comedy of manners involving marriage in many guises, Kafka-Gibbons traveled to Vermont in 1998 to hear summary arguments in this historic case that ultimately affirmed civil unions between same-sex couples. Dupont Circle fictionalizes the next step.

"My catalyst for the book was the character of a judge who has two children. One child, a son, is gay and very competent; the other, a daughter, is straight and not at all competent," he explains. The competent son and his male lover end up parenting the incompetent sibling's offspring. "I wanted to use this polemic to expose the false logic behind the decision to deny gay couples the legal right to marry." To do so, Kafka-Gibbons set Dupont Circle in the near future, when New Mexico has recognized same-sex marriage as legal but other states and Washington, D.C., haven't.

In I Do: A Guide to Creating Your Own Unique Wedding Ceremony (Celestial Arts, Apr.), author Sydney Barbara Metrick states forthrightly, "Although not yet recognized as legal nationwide, marriages between people of the same sex are not uncommon." She describes a prototypical same-sex ceremony based upon the heterosexual model that concludes with an exchange of rings and a kiss. Metrick asserts that planning and enduring a wedding ceremony can strengthen gay and lesbian commitments: "Marriage is always a challenge, but when two people are not only different from each other as individuals but also 'different' as a couple in the eyes of the world, these challenges may be greater. Working through these issues frequently serves to bring partners even closer together because of the efforts they must make to really understand and accommodate the elements of difference."

By chance, the covers for both Dupont Circle and I Do share common design elements. Each pictures the very same wedding-cake decorations in bride/groom and groom/groom configurations. For good measure, the cover of the how-to-vow manual depicts a bride/bride duo as well.

Sapphic Superstars

The sexual orientation of certain female performers is less a matter of speculation and more often a point of honesty these days. That's why Bruce Tracy, Villard editorial director, acquired Melissa Etheridge's autobiography, The Truth Is...: My Life in Love and Music, written with Laura Morton (June). "Melissa's connection with her fans is tremendously strong," he notes. "We knew we'd have a core group who would want to read what she wanted to say—and we expect to reach well beyond that, too." The Grammy-winning rock artist who came out in 1992 during the Clinton inaugural festivities had a very public break-up with her long-time companion not long ago, and although Tracy declines to release the private details Etheridge divulges in her book, he declares, "She's candid and honest and holds nothing back."

Dusty Springfield, who died in 1999, is no longer here to declare herself, although she did disclose her orientation to those who knew her. Penny Valentine, a friend of Springfield, and Vicki Wickham, the singer's manager, join forces on Dancing with Demons: The Authorized Biography of Dusty Springfield (St. Martin's, Sept.), which tells all about the British singer who gained fame with songs like "Son of a Preacher Man." "There hasn't been a biography of her published in the States," says assistant editor Michael Connor. "She had a couple of lovers who lived with her—not at the same time. The book also reveals that for a time in the early '80s, she was almost living on the streets in L.A., making $10 a night singing her hits in gay bars." Then, after freeing herself of drugs and alcohol, she was diagnosed with breast cancer while enjoying a career resurgence.

Although not proclaiming herself a lesbian, stand-up comic Margaret Cho has a large gay following, in part because she pokes her finger in bigotry's eye by saying things like "I am fortunate enough to have been a fag hag for most of my life." That line and more like it can be found in I'm the One That I Want (Ballantine, Apr.).

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