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Back to topPulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps (Paperback)
(This book cannot be returned.)
Description
A collection of gay erotic writings tracing the development of a gay identity from the late 19th century to just before the Stonewall Inn riots
Long before the rise of the modern gay movement, an unnoticed literary revolution was occurring, mostly between the covers of the cheaply produced pulp paperbacks of the post-World War II era. Cultural critic Michael Bronski collects a sampling of these now little-known gay erotic writings—some by writers long forgotten, some never known and a few now famous. Through them, Bronski challenges many long-held views of American postwar fiction and the rise of gay literature, as well as of the culture at large.
About the Author
Michael Bronksi is Professor of Practice in Media and Activism in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University, USA. His last book, You Can Tell Just by Looking and 20 Other Myths about LGBT Life and People (2013; co-authored with Ann Pelligrini and Michael Amico) was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for Best Non-Fiction. He is also the author of A Queer History of the United States (2011), which was awarded the Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award for best LGBT book of 2010 by the American Library Association, as well as the Lambda Literary Award for the Best Non-Fiction Book of 2012. His other works include Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility (1984),The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash and the Making of Gay Freedom (1998), and Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps (2003), which won a Lambda Literary Award for Best Anthology in 2004. Professor Bronski's 1996 anthology, Taking Liberties: Gay Men's Essays on Politics, Culture and Sex, won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Anthology in 1997. His work is included in over fifty anthologies and he currently edits the Queer Action / Queer Ideas series for Beacon Press.
Bronski has been awarded the 1995 AIDS Action Committee Community Recognition Award for 20 years of journalism on gay and AIDS-related topics; the 1996 Cambridge Lavender Alliance Lifetime Achievement Award for journalism and political organizing; the 1999 The Martin Duberman Fellowship for scholarly research in LGBT studies, awarded by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, City University of New York, USA; the 1999 Stonewall Award, in recognition for 'helping improve the lives and LGBT people in the United States' granted by the Anderson Prize Foundation; the 2004 Leadership Award from the D-GALA (Dartmouth Gay and Lesbian Alumni Association); and the 2008 Distinguished Lecturer Award granted by Dean of Faculty of Dartmouth College, USA.
Praise For…
“I read through this book saying again and again, 'How did I miss this?' 'How did I manage not to know about this?'--a sign that Michael Bronski has done a necessary job and done it well. Rarely is a book so educational also such a delight. By leaving the hallowed precincts of the 'literary,' Bronski lends a continuity heretofore lacking in many of our pictures of the development of gay fiction from World War II on.” —Samuel R. Delany, author of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and The Motion of Light in Water
“Out of the shadows, into the sheets! Between the covers of gay pulp fiction, Michael Bronski finds forgotten treasures, presenting juicy excerpts and his own wise insights into this neglected bit of literary history.” —Jonathan Ned Katz, author of Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality and Gay American History
“A wonderful book, a sexy, funny, looney-tune work of social history that rewrites the recent past. It's a celebration of the poetry of pulp as well as the truth of pulp. I cannot remember the last time I learned so much while having so much fun.” —Christopher Bram, author of Father of Frankenstein and The Notorious Dr. August
"Prefacing each section with thoughtful background on the period, Bronski then steps back to let the generous novel excerpts speak for themselves. Bronski has searched thoroughly and thought-provokingly, and this book should pop up on required reading lists for gay studies courses (the extensive appendix is invaluable). This is obviously a labor of love, and an absolute must for gay historians and those interested in stimulating gay fiction from years gone by.” —Publishers Weekly