Queer Street: The Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985

James Mccourt

ISBN 10: 0393050513 / ISBN 13: 9780393050516

Editore: WW Norton & Co, 2003

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A fierce critical intelligence animates every page of Queer Street. Its sentences are dizzying divagations. The postwar generation of queer New York has found a sophisticated bard singing 'the elders' history' (The New York Times). James McCourt's seminal Queer Street has proven unrivaled in its ability to capture the voices of a mad, bygone era. Beginning with the influx of liberated veterans into downtown New York and barreling through four decades of crisis and triumph up to the era of the floodtide of AIDS, McCourt positions his own exhilarating experience against the whirlwind history of the era. The result is a commanding and persuasive interlocking of personal, intellectual, and social history that will be read, dissected, and honored as the masterpiece it is for decades to come. A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2003; a Lambda Award finalist.

Codice articolo CIN0393050513G

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Queer Street: The Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985
• Editore: WW Norton & Co
• Data di pubblicazione: 2003
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0393050513
• ISBN 13: 9780393050516
• Rilegatura: Hardback
• Condizione: Good

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Beginning with the influx of liberated veterans into downtown New York in the golden age before McCarthyism, Queer Street tells the explosive story of gay culture in the latter half of the twentieth century. Coming out himself in the "buttoned-up/button-down" 1950s, McCourt positions his own experience against the whirlwind history of the era, summoning a pageant of characters that includes Harry Hay, Judy Garland, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, and Truman Capote. In a learned but lively voice, McCourt highlights the major events of the period: the landmark eruption at the Stonewall Inn, the AIDS crisis that brought an end to a century of bathhouse culture, the ascendancy of the Christian right, and finally the social acceptance of gays that paradoxically marked the demise of queer culture. "Not since Truman Capote's Black and White Ball has there been such a gala collection of sacred monsters, feathered masks, icy pearls, chiseled remarks and bitchy mots all in one glamorous setting....An astonishing book, at once hilarious and touching."J. D. McClatchy

Product Description

Book by McCourt James