Gay Travels: A Literary Companion (Traveler's Literary Companions) [Paperback]

Lucy Jane Bledsoe (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1883513065 | ISBN-13: 978-1883513061 | Publication Date: June 1998 | Edition: First Printing

From the foreword by Felice Picano

"This volume makes no attempt to rival those gay travel guides that already exist. It is something different, far more intriguing: a collection of stories that aim at being what Herman Melville deemed "an inside narrative." That is, what being a gay man in a foreign land really feels like, smells like, tastes like, and hurts like. The voices here might be likened to those of friends sitting around a dinner table the night before your journey who provide you with insights and warnings that only later do you discover add infinitely to your excursion."

Table of Content

Felice Picano "Foreword"
Lucy Jane Bledsoe "Preface"
Spain Brian Bouldrey "Pilgrim's Regress"
Beijing Philip Gambone "Invading Their Space"
Olympia Darieck Scott "Ride of the Centaurs"
Tangier Joe Orton "Tangier Diary"
California Rondo Mieczkowski "Bodies in Motion"
India Adam Klein "A Desert Shade"
Israel Hanns Ebensten "First Night in the Promised Land"
Berlin and beyond Edmund White "Shopping"
Central Africa Cary Alan Johnson "Obi's Story"
Mexico City Andrew Holleran "Sleepless in Mexico"
Sacramento Michael Nava "Journey to 1971"
Tobago Achim Nowak "Jungle Fever 138"
Russia David Tuller "Broken Romance"
Barcelona Erasmo Guerra "La Placa Reial"
Indiana Michael Lowenthal "Sand Niggers and a Tallboy Bud"
Paris James Baldwin "Equal in Paris"
Capri and beyond Paul Monette "A One-Way Fare"

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Travel literature can offer a delicious way of anticipating, enhancing, and savoring your travels, especially if the theme coincides with your own experiences. In Gay Travels: A Literary Companion, Lucy Jane Bledsoe has compiled 17 travel stories by some great contemporary gay writers, wherein they explore Russia and Tangier, India and Israel, Central Africa, Indiana, and a multitude of gay travel experiences. Philip Gambone goes to China, "determined to find gay life in Beijing"; Achim Nowak meets an Indian boy in Tobago whose "eyes shine so impossibly black, like bursting embers as he speaks"; and Andrew Holleran, "passing" for straight in Mexico, says "Mexico is where foreigners come when their own masks are coming apart." This is not a guide to gay-friendly accommodations and entertainments. Rather, it's a beautiful companion set that invites you to enrich your own travels, contemplate, compare, and enjoy a lot of good literature.

From Library Journal

This collection of 17 essays by contemporary gay writers takes the reader to foreign and domestic destinations, revealing travel moments so intimate it feels as though one were stealing glimpses of personal diaries. Whether it's Brian Bouldrey's tale of walking into Spain without a single peseta, Edmund White's reflections on the mementos he and his partner bought on their journeys, or Philip Gambone's visit to a bathhouse in China, the theme throughout these narratives is crossing borders?geographic, linguistic, and sexual. This spectrum of literary pieces, many in print for the first time, makes a fine literary companion for the gay traveler, proving that small discoveries, both personal and cultural, are the most memorable. A volume of lesbian travel essays is forthcoming from the publisher in the near future. Highly recommended for libraries with strong gay collections.?Pamela W. Bellows, Northwestern Connecticut Community Technical Coll. Lib., Winstead
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Whereabouts Press; First Printing edition (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883513065
• ISBN-13: 978-1883513061
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,825,516 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)