Love, Christopher Street: Reflections of New York City [Paperback]

Thomas Keith (Editor), Christopher Bram (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2012

These twenty-six original essays by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered writers include personal stories that span forty years of LGBTQ life in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island, and together create a queer love letter to New York City. Chapters in this volume range from personal anecdote to memoir, reportage, history, herstory, and daydream, as well as tributes to people, places, and events.

The essays: "Silence = Death: The Education of a Comedian" by Bob Smith, "An Old Queen's Tale" by Penny Arcade, "The Isle Of Staten" by Michele Karlsberg, "Finding Jesús on Christopher Street" by Brendan Fay, "Dis-membering Stonewall" by Rev. Irene Monroe, "Before I Begin" by David McConnell, "A Bite of the Big Apple" by Val McDermid, "Irrespective of the Storm" by Mark Ameen, "My Last Big Addiction" by Martin Hyatt, "My Family Tree" by Amos Mac, "The Opera Singer's Pants, and How I Got In Them" by Justine Saracen, "The Sum of Our Parts" by Jewelle Gomez, "The Myths of this Place" by Shaun Levin, "The Voices" by Charlie Vázquez, "As I Stood Frying..." by Fay Jacobs, "Borders, Rivers and Time: Gay Gotham Revisited" by Shawn Syms, "White Angel/Pale Blue Eyes" by Nicky Paraiso, "My Gay New York: A Symphony in Four Acts" by Aaron Hamburger, "The Place I Parked My Car" by G. Winston James, "Bad Boy" by Felice Picano, "Two Near Water--And One Very Quiet" by Thomas Glave, "Goodnight, New York: A Sermon on the Move" by Rabbi Andrea Myers, "In the House of Strangers" by Ocean Vuong, "A 1986 Bronx Story" by Charles Rice-González, "Perry Street Redux" by Christopher Bram, "An Interview with Michael Musto" by Kathleen Warnock, and "Next Year at Sonny's" by Eddie Sarfaty.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"By turns funny, outrageous, poignant, uplifting, incendiary--you name it, it's here. The scope is sweeping, but editor Thomas Keith has done a brilliant job... No matter what your relationship is with New York City, you're bound to find something here to make you smile, laugh or be homesick."
--Jerry Wheeler, Out in Print

About the Author

Thomas Keith has edited over a dozen titles by Tennessee Williams including, Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays, The Traveling Companion & Other Plays, The Magic Tower & Other One-Act Plays as well as Williams’s last full-length play, A House Not Meant to Stand, for which he also wrote the introduction. Keith is the co-author of The Histories of Gladys and The Collector’s Guide to Mauchline Ware, the editor of Robert Burns Selected Poems and Songs and the anthology Christmas Poems, the co-editor of The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams and James Laughlin, and has written articles and chapters for American Theatre Magazine, The Drouth, Studies in Scottish Literature, Fickle Man: Burns in the 21st Century, Tenn at One Hundred, The Tennessee Williams Encyclopedia, and Robert Burns in North America, among others.

Product Details

• Paperback: 422 pages
• Publisher: Vantage Point (June 1, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1936467348
• ISBN-13: 978-1936467341
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #482,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Love Song to New York City June 9, 2012

By Grady Harp HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Thomas Keith is the editor and commentator responsible for this outstanding collection of essays by some brilliant writers who have shared their various experiences with living in New York City. Keith himself has lived in the Lower East Side since 1985 and has observed the changes since Stonewall in the activity and maturation of the LGBT population whose center of notoriety has moved form Christopher Street to Chelsea. But this is not a history of Christopher Street, as the title might suggest, but instead this is a collection of love letters from LGBT writers whose vantages are from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island and whose essays cover the gamut from hilarious to probing and each of the essays Keith has selected is top notch writing.

While there isn't a weak story among the twenty six stories collected here, to sample the differences would be to highlight the story by Vietnamese immigrant Ocean Vuong who details his choice to move to New York to become a writer and finds himself living among the homeless in Penn Station and the influence that had on his subsequent poetry and work. Or there is an hilarious story by Justine Saracen about how as an opera lover she discovers the trouser roles sung by mezzo-sopranos and her obsession to meet the mezzo who plays Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier - one of the famous trio of women who fall in love with each other. Felice Picano shares the old days of free physical gratification available in various parts of the city, Charlie Vázquez shares the his brave movement from the homophobic Puerto Rican and Cuban community into the gay life of Christopher Street, Christopher Bram details the change in the housing district where he and his partner Draper live- moving form crack house to haughty wealthy needless swmming pool installations, to cheap rent, Michele Karlsberg shares a history of the changes in Staten Island, and on it goes.

This book is over 400 pages of tremendously entertaining stories written by some of our more gifted writers, known and emerging, and promises to provide all readers with a glimpse into what makes New York City special. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, June 12

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A terrific and diverse collection June 24, 2012

By Finnegan

Format:Paperback

This is the kind of volume I find it nearly impossible to put down. Each contribution has its own distinctive themes and rhythms. Favorites of mine are Bob Smith's very moving essay on living with ALS,the pseudonymous Justine Saracen's operatic piece on mezzos and pants roles, Penny Arcade's personal perspective on the evolution of the Village and the community, and Brendan Fay's treatise on immigrating to New York from Ireland and finding Jesus (that's Hay-Soos to you!) in the late lamented Oscar Wilde Bookstore. This volume is not limited to views only of the Village or Christopher Street. All boroughs are represented, as is the entire the tri-state area.
Joy, sadness, nostalgia, anger, disenchantment, desire: a whole world of experience flows through these pages. Highly recommended to anyone and everyone, gay or straight, who loves or hates or is simply intrigued by New York City.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Read of NYC LGBT Essays October 12, 2012

By twp77

Format:Paperback

Love, Christopher Street is an excellent collection of essays from a variety of LGBT New Yorkers. Its strength lies in the inclusion of multiple LGBT voices from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds. Overall it paints a real, moving and eminently readable portrait of New York's LGBT community past and present. Whether one is a part of this community or merely an outside observer, Love, Christopher Street is one of those books that will leaving you thinking - and feeling for days and months after you've put it down. An excellent read.