The Golden Age of Gay Fiction [Paperback]

Drewey Wayne Gunn (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2009

It was the first great explosion of gay writing in history. These books were about gay characters. They were written mostly by gay writers. Above all, they were for gay readers. And, as this entertaining chronicle of the emergence of gay literary pride makes clear, it was a revolution that occurred several years before Stonewall! Their characters were mostly out or struggling to get out. The books were definitely out -- out on the revolving paperback bookracks in grocery stores, dime stores, drugstores, magazine agencies, and transportation terminals across the nation for youths and senior citizens, in the cities and the rural areas alike, to find and to devour. Here 19 writers take you on a tour of this Golden Age of Gay Fiction -- roughly the period between the first Kinsey Report and the first collection of Tales of the City -- paying attention to touchstone novels from the period but, even more, highlighting works of fiction that have been left unjustly to gather dust on literary shelves. Written by authors, scholars, collectors, and one of the publishers, their essays will inform you. They will sometimes amuse you. They will take you into literary corridors you only suspected were there. And the some 200 illustrations, chosen for their historical as well as their artistic interest, provide a visual record of why this was the golden age. It is guaranteed that you will emerge from reading this book with a long list of good reads to request from your favorite booksellers!

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: MLR Press (September 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1608200485
• ISBN-13: 978-1608200481
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,090,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ambitious and fascinating history of gay pulp fiction!, January 18, 2010

By 

Bob Lind "camelwest" (Phoenix, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Golden Age of Gay Fiction (Paperback)

Same as many avid readers of gay fiction in my generation, I first became aware of that genre through the pulp fiction paperbacks of the 1950's-1970's, which served as one of the few visible signs - especially to those of us who were not familiar with (or afraid of) big city gay bars - that we were not alone. The books were usually cheesy in writing style, cheaply manufactured, and often portrayed its gay characters in less than a completely positive light. But they provided visibility, and fueled countless daydreams and fantasies, as showed gay men fighting crime, taming the Wild West, fighting in the armed services, dealing with satanic creatures, or simply falling in love, all the time also having to deal with homophobia and a society that largely excluded us.

"The Golden Age of Gay Fiction" is an impressively ambitious work, bringing together the experiences and observations of 19 diverse writers, ranging from incredibly productive gay authors (such as Victor J. Banis and William Maltese, who released dozens of pulp gay novels under a multitude of pseudonyms), prestigious academics, publishers and simply book lovers. The 22 essays are arranged by category, starting with those giving some background on the "paperback explosion" in publishing, to the evolution of gay books amid censorship trends, and finally to an examination of the subgenres in gay fiction, such as mysteries, science fiction, romance and others. Each section gives numerous examples of books depicting that era or subgenre, most with photos of the cover art, and gives mini-biographies (and bibliographies) of many of the authors.

An excellent reference, or a "conversation-starter" on your coffee table, this book is definitely a keeper, and any avid gay fiction reader should consider buying one. The book is priced as a reference book, but reasonable for the work that went into it, and nowhere near what I'll probably spend hunting down the many interesting titles that the book alerted me I'd missed! Fascinating read, which I give five pulp stars out of five.

- Bob Lind, Echo Magazine

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Golden Age of Gay Fiction edited by Drewey Wayne Gunn, October 11, 2009

By 

Elisa (Italy) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Golden Age of Gay Fiction (Paperback)

You can face this essay in many different ways (guess what is mine?)...

- as one who was there and reading all the books and authors named in it, has that common feeling of "oh, yes, I remember that", or rather than, "wow, I almost forget that it was like that".

- as one who was not there, but that for all his life has loved and searched for the things from the past, a past that maybe seems better than the one he is living in. And all the vintage covers you will find inside the book will make your inner collector gone crazy, you will probably print copy the final references page, Index of Fiction Discussed, and start to doing the check, I have, I haven't.

- as one who did it, maybe it's even named among the authors, or maybe not, maybe he did not have the courage to do the same things those authors did, and now he is regretting the choice.

- as one who wants to understand better what was before, a newbie that, till last year believed that the gay romance was a recent phenomena, maybe even thought it was something who was fated to decline, and now realizes that it's only another roar of an old lion, who was only taking a nap.

Maybe the last one is not represented among the crowd of authors who contributed to this essay, but all the others are. There is love in this essay, love for an era that was your own one, or that you consider as inspiring. And there are different perspective: for example there is who love an author, and another one who thinks he was sugary and unrealistic, there is who dissects the genre trying to find an hidden meaning, and who, more or less, said that those paperbacks were the only flight from a reality that was not the one he wanted to live in.

There is not hate in this essay. Yes, maybe there is a bit of proud in the words of some authors, stating that, "hey, I was there way before someone started to speak of "Gay Literature"", but more or less, to everyone who contributed in the field of the Gay Fiction was given the right credit.

Who has to read this book? the newbie gay author who wants to write the Great American Novel? it could be useful, it's always useful to know who was before you. But most of all, this essay is directed to the questioning mind, to who is fascinated by those names, by those authors who have at least 20 pen names, who wonders, "how it was to live and write in a world where there wasn't internet?", when to find those novels you had to do miles and miles, maybe to that only bookstore you knew had in store the books you wanted. When you were judged not for who you were, but for what you read... Wait, Am I speaking of 40 years ago, or of today?! See time is passed, but things maybe are not changed so much. And so yes, you can still learn something from an essay like The Golden Age of Gay Fiction.

And no, I will not summarize all the essays inside it as maybe some of you are expecting, and I will not say who was my favorite: they are all my favorite, I love the presentation, the layout, all those little covers scattered around. I love the writers, they made me feel the love they have for the genre. And now I'm also damning them, since my "to read" list is bigger than ever!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb examination of mostly ignored books, January 30, 2011

By 

Wayne M. Malin "Preppy" (Malden MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Golden Age of Gay Fiction (Paperback)

As an avid reader (and an out gay man) I was always searching for books dealing with gay men or subjects. I grew up in the 1970s and, except for the occasional gay character, I didn't think gay fiction even existed. It's not until the past 20 years or so that I found out I was (happily) wrong. It started with old gay fiction books being reprinted (such as Gordon Merricks books and the outrageous C.A.M.P. ones) and studies of gay fiction have been written. First up was Michael Bronski's excellent "Pulp Friction" which dealt with a few key novels. Next comes this which is an exhaustive and fascinating study of ALL gay pulp fiction! It starts with essays showing how the novels were published and distributed. Then it gets into the themes and characters and follows how they were developed over the years. It really surprised me to find out how many gay novels were actually published in the 1950s and 60s (it numbers in the triple digits). The various essays here are never boring--they're lively, detailed and don't get bogged down in boring discussion. As an added bonus they have various covers of the books they're discussing! My only quibble was the essay on Gordon Merrick. Seriously--he was no genius and I question his inclusion here. But thsat's a small complaint. This is a fascinating book--well worth reading! The cover price is WAY too high (69.99) but the content is well worth it. Well worth reading!