Sullivan’s new book a cornucopia of wit, provocation
Kathi WolfeBooks
‘Out on a Limb: Selected Writing, 1989-2021′
By Andrew Sullivan
c.2021, Avid Reader Press
$35/576 pages
Gay writer and political commentator Andrew Sullivan’s first day in journalism began on a Sunday afternoon in 1984 in London at the Daily Telegraph. The paper was housed on the “original Fleet Street,” Sullivan writes, “the place Evelyn Waugh had made eternal in his satirical novel Scoop.”
The editor that day, “a high Tory intellectual,” was completely blind, chain-smoked and “wore a patch over one eye, like a pirate,” Sullivan writes.
He was told to write an editorial on a topic he knew nothing about. Using, “all the skills my Oxford training in extemporaneous bullshitting had given me,” Sullivan writes, he wrote the piece.
Sullivan, who was instrumental in bolstering support for mainstream equality and for dismantling “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the military, hasn’t stopped writing since.
Sullivan’s writing is as colorful as the Fleet Street editor with the eye patch.
I’m a blind lesbian. Reading “Out on a Limb” (on Audible and Kindle), there were times when I rolled my blind eyes.
At other moments, I marveled at Sullivan’s bravery and compassion.
But, whether I disagreed with or applauded Sullivan, I couldn’t stop reading him.
I’m betting this will be the case with you.
An Irish Catholic gay man, Sullivan is one of our most provocative and fascinating writers.
The essays in “Out on a Limb” cover everything from the death of Princess Diana to AIDS to “Brokeback Mountain” to Abraham Lincoln’s sexuality.
Sullivan, a self-described small-c conservative who was one of the first to bring Barack Obama to the attention of the mainstream press, has angered many.
“I have been criticized for abandoning the right,” he writes, “and for criticizing the left.”
Sullivan’s voted for, among others, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair in Britain, and Ronald Reagan, Obama and Joe Biden in America.
The causes he has supported over 40 years include: marriage equality, the legalization of recreational drugs, welfare reform and, as he writes, “a very expansive concept of free speech.”
If you didn’t disagree with Sullivan on anything, you wouldn’t be human.
But, if you didn’t agree with him on some things, you wouldn’t have a heart or a brain.
The essays in “Out on a Limb,” are a time capsule of Sullivan’s career from his time with The New Republic (where he was the youngest editor in the magazine’s history) to his current perch with “The Weekly Dish.”
The collection shows how Sullivan’s views have evolved over the years. Sullivan, who with “The Dish,” was a blogging pioneer, is a refreshingly honest writer.
Some writers never want to cop to a mistake. This isn’t true with Sullivan, who says he was wrong about supporting the Iraq war.
It’s hard to remember how brave it was for Sullivan in 1989 to pen the essay “Here Comes the Groom: A Conservative Case for Gay Marriage” for The New Republic.
Then, when sodomy laws were on the books in many states, it was courageous to be out as Sullivan was.
Marriage equality wasn’t on the horizon – let alone on a magazine cover.
Sullivan writes movingly about seeing the AIDS quilt in 1992 on the Mall in Washington, D.C.
The collection includes some controversial pieces such as “When Plagues End: Notes on the Twilight of an Epidemic.”
It’s true that for many AIDS is no longer a deadly plague.
But AIDS is still a death sentence for many who don’t have health insurance or access to care.
Sullivan’s essays on gender and campus life such as “The He Hormone” or “We All Live on Campus Now” made me want to throw the book across the room.
I wish Sullivan hadn’t published a symposium on Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein’s book “The Bell Curve” in The New Republic. (The book says there is a connection between race and intelligence.)
But I was moved by the essay “Dear Ta-Nehisi,” in which Sullivan explains why he felt compelled to air writing of, as he writes, “sometimes painful topics.”
“Out on a Limb” is a cornucopia of wit, queer cultural history and provocation. Enjoy the feast.