“Poofter” is hardly a common term in American English, but “faggot” is. Both refer to an effeminate homosexual male. More importantly, while one is British and the other is American, both derogate the male at whom they are... Read More

Several notable works of late-millennium journalism profile ordinary people. Studs Terkel’s Working, a series of interviews with members of the American workforce, is a good example of this. More recently, Alan Wolfe, in One Nation,... Read More

“The first time I ever fell in love with someone was in my first year of junior high. It was a girl in my class, and even after coming home from school I would think of her and long to touch her. But I kept my feelings hidden because I... Read More

More travelogue than travel guide, Lesbian Travels: A Literary Companion is a smart collection of stories from lesbians on the road. Each piece provides good, short, literate reading for that cross-town bus trip or airport layover. The... Read More

This book has appropriately been dubbed “A road movie of young queer life and gender transformation.” It chronicles the experiences of four performance artists collectively known as Taste This, and succeeds as a fascinating study... Read More

In his introduction to this slim but feisty volume of poetry by Norman Nichols (d. 1995), who wrote under the pen name Abnorman, David Williams maps Nichols’s poetic territory: “leather sex, heavy drug trips, orgiastic nights, high... Read More

This volume of essays constitutes a formidable, eloquent and contentious new work of gay literary criticism. Woodhouse is not afraid to stir up conflict as he nominates—or rejects—texts for the gay canon, then guides his reader... Read More