Shirts & Skin [Paperback]

Tim Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1997

Performance artist Tim Miller unleashes his childhood demons and adult trials-by-fire in this bizarre, fascinating account of his life. Through humor, memory, fantasy, gratuitous sex, and unabashed honesty, Shirts & Skin charts one gay man's take on the challenges of the last two decades of the millennium.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Tim Miller became famous for two not unrelated reasons: taking his clothes off during his (critically acclaimed) performance art pieces and being seriously chastised by Senator Jesse Helms for doing so by having his National Endowment for the Arts grant rescinded. Miller's genius has always been his just-folks approach to talking about his life and sexuality. His memoir, Shirts and Skin, which uses excerpts from his performance scripts, is a genial, witty, and engrossing portrait of the artist as a young satyr. Moving easily from tales of school and sex to love and sex to work and sex, Shirts and Skin entertains and illuminates the importance of the erotic in everyday life. Always graphic but never prurient, Miller consistently manages to make sex into healthy, good, clean, American fun. Take that Senator Helms.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Alyson Books; 1st edition (October 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555834256
• ISBN-13: 978-1555834258
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #854,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Searingly honest account from one of our best solo artists, February 2, 2000

By 

Paul Harris (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shirts & Skin (Paperback)

I read every single word in this book. I suppose the first and obvious thing to say is that as with Tim Miller 'the performance artist' with Tim Miller 'the writer' there is the same integrity and raw honesty. There are times you squirm, and there are times you smile...

Someone once said "if something is human it is mentionable, and if it is mentionable it is manageable." Here we see Miller warts and all. He acknowledges how open relationships can cost you a loss of intimacy with your primary partner. Above all we experience his fearlessness which many of us have experienced when seeing him perform on stage, even when it leads to his near-capture by the Moonies.

Tim Miller's delight in life and the experiences it offers made this a book I took around with me for several days until I had read every last word.. Enjoy!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars sexy, juicy, smelly stories of hopes, dreams, and community., July 5, 1999

By 

Fausto - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shirts & Skin (Paperback)

This is the complete TIM MILLER, in the sense we see a full his-story of the texts which his performance works are based on. Miller is known as the New York City Gay spoken word artist/ NEA-4 artist-funding controversy that sparked a generation of avant-garde identity-politics performance art movement. Shirts and Skin is Tim's "Greatest Hits", which includes most of Miller's publicy/performance photos from the past 20 years of performance art. Its good reading, its energetic, melodic writing might just spark another revolution of gay male identity, or at least reading this book gives you a sense history surrounding gay politics of the 1980 and mid 90's. Some may find it gratuitous for Mister Miller to be doing a retrospective-like book at such a young age (he just turned 40). By putting his best works in a single text, Miller puts forth inadvertently a very nice retrospective of his life. Buy this book not because Christian hate-mongers don't want you to read it, buy it beacuse its a inspiring journal of the life of a truly remarkable white gay man from southern california. Beacause gentle words of love and passion can change minds, moods and stimulate the consciousness of a whole nation.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and sexy with profound impact, August 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Shirts & Skin (Paperback)

I flew through this book. It was everything you would ever want it to be (you'll laugh, you'll cry, it's better than "Cats"). But, more than just being being entertaining, Miller forces queer men to examine their lives and our struggle. While laughing and crying (and fantasizing about the author) I really started to reexamine my queer politics, finding myself at a very different place than where I began. I am thankful for this opportunity to expand my thinking, and I hope everyone will read this book and begin challenging themselves in the same way I did.