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Laramie, Wyoming, is a complicated town that has only become more so since the infamous murder of a gay University of Wyoming student named Matt Shepard on a lonely dirt road in October 1998. A university town in the middle of one of the country's most rural, poor, and conservative states, it was unwittingly thrown into the middle of the nation's debates over homosexuality and hate crimes. While "Laramie didn't kill Matt," as University of Wyoming professor Beth Loffreda writes, "It might let us see how the politics of sexuality--perhaps now the most divisive issue in America's 'culture wars'--plays out in a forgotten corner of the country." As an insider and an outsider (she is the straight advisor to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Association and a state newcomer clearly in love with her surroundings), Loffreda approaches the complex questions the media, with their pack mentality, overlooked or shied away from using her own local but not provincial perspective. Why did Matt's death, which was one of 33 anti-gay murders that year, grip the nation? Why did none of the seven bias crimes bills proposed in Wyoming after the murder pass? What is the experience of being homosexual in a state with not a single gay gathering place to speak of and most people too afraid to be out? What happens when emotion--rather than action--is the only response to a hate crime? And how should Matt be remembered?
Leaving the media assumptions about the "hate state" in the dust, Loffreda deftly portrays a people deeply affected by what has happened in their midst, replete with the daily contradictions, political clashes, and halting transformations that defy sound bites. She introduces us to those the media never thought to interview--a jaded gay American Indian as well as Mexican American university students with their own stories of bigotry--and those making the real change in Laramie: people like Mike, who came out after Matt's death and has found the courage to become an activist, and the gays and lesbians who dressed as angels during the murderers' trials, blocking defrocked minister Fred Phelps and his virulent anti-gay messages with their enormous wings. Loffreda's nuanced, perceptive, and graceful discussion reminds us that the inheritance of Matt's death is far from settled for any of us. --Lesley Reed
From Publishers Weekly
In 1998, the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student, shocked the country. His death and the subsequent trials of his two (ultimately convicted) murderers made headlines for more than a year. In this pungent and astute account, Loffreda, an assistant professor of English at Shepard's alma mater and the faculty adviser to the campus's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Association, details not only the murder and trials but also the profound effect of the ensuing publicity upon a basically decent and friendly community. Loffreda mixes a journalist's sharp eye with a sociologist's attentiveness to such issues as class, race, homophobia and gender, deftly bringing together interviews with Laramie's gay and straight residents, news reporting and cultural analysis. By debunking much of the media coverage (Shepard was not tied to a fence like a scarecrow), humanizing those convicted of the crime (Chasity Pasley, who supplied a fake alibi for one of the killers, worked closely with the campus gay group) and raising difficult questions (gay residents of Laramie were furious that little of the intense fund-raising for lesbian and gay causes that occurred around Shepard's death benefited local gay causes), she paints a judicious portrait of how such a murder could happen, and how the town was caught in the jaws of the national media circus that ensued. Getting behind the headlines, preconceptions and easy stereotypes, Loffreda has produced a book that mixes intelligence and compassion with crack reporting and sharp insight. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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