Books
New book explores history of Fire Island
Scholarly memoir recounts 1938 hurricane and its aftermath
‘Fire Island: A Century in the Life of an American Paradise’
By Jack Parlett
c.2022, Hanover Square Press
$27.99/272 pages
Ugh, it’s been a week.
Two hours into Monday and your brain was already screaming for something fun, something far removed from work, a getaway that lets you play. You need to dance this weekend. You need to feel the sun on your face and sand between your toes. And you may need to bring “Fire Island” by Jack Parlett with you, too.
Geographically speaking, Manhattan and Fire Island are a mere 60 miles apart.
Sixty miles – and half a world. Stretched out and narrow but walkable, the island is home to several vacation communities. Two of them, Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines, both located in about the middle of the island, feature prominently in LGBTQ history.
Parlett says that Native Americans sold Fire Island to white Europeans for a pittance, after which activities there were shifty and possibly illegal. By the 1820s, conversely, it was a hot vacation spot for the elite; in certain places, it was the place for finding romance, too, which Parlett says was a sign of the future. Famous men like poet Walt Whitman were big fans of Fire Island and over the next century, a then-quiet queer subculture began to grow.
Sometimes, it grew with families and children in the picture, the latter raised by nonconformists and theater people.
Even so, despite these many changes, Parlett says that Fire Island wouldn’t be what it is today, were it not for a hurricane that hit the island on the afternoon of Sept. 21, 1938. It devastated Fire Island and resulted in a real-estate bust. Cottage prices fell significantly, and vacationing there suddenly became affordable for gay New Yorkers.
Throughout the 20th century, Fire Island became a playground for performers, thinkers, and writers such as James Baldwin and W. H. Auden. It was a source of controversy for locals who objected to nude bathing. It was a source of embarrassment for Noel Coward. It allowed everyday gay men and women to dance, drink, and party freely.
And later on, it was a place to mourn.
Considering that this is a book about a getaway destination, “Fire Island” isn’t much of a vacation-y read. It’s actually pretty dry, in fact, and filled with people that were once very famous but aren’t exactly household names anymore. Their drama and the love triangles they struggled with are mildly interesting, in the way that you might perceive great-grandma’s old Confidential magazines in the attic.
And yet – the history. Author Jack Parlett offers a lot of solid information beyond those tired scandals to further show how Fire Island came to be a gay hot-spot and why that was important. These tales envelope the rest of the island, as well as current events in America, as a whole, and the impact those outside influences had on LGBTQ life, even today.
More scholarly than not, this book also includes a fair bit of memoir for readers who are looking for something less frivolous. If you want a book for fun, though, “Fire Island” is weak.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
Books
Randy Rainbow doesn’t hold back in new book
Something snide and cynical that’ll make you laugh
‘Low-Hanging Fruit’
By Randy Rainbow
c.2024, St. Martin’s Press
$28/224 pages
Whine, whine, whine.
You got something to say, say it. Got an opinion? The world is waiting. It doesn’t do any good to mutter, sputter, or whine when something’s bothering you. As in the new book, “Low-Hanging Fruit” by Randy Rainbow, take it to the complaint department.
Randy Rainbow has a lot to say, and he’s not afraid to say it.
For starters, he’s “resigning from trying to fix you, effective immediately.” Any boneheaded thing you want to do now, whatever. Nothing is his responsibility anymore. He has other issues to worry about.
“The truth is,” he says, “I have a lot of complaints about a lot of things.”
There are right ways of doing things, he says, and there are wrong ways and we just all really need to know the difference – especially if you’re a “Karen.” He’s compassionate if you were born with that name, but not too much.
“I’m a flamboyant homosexual who’s lived my entire life with the name Randy Rainbow, so you’ll get little sympathy from me in this department.”
Other than that, you may wonder what Rainbow’s (ahem) “position” is: he’s actually thinking about running for president as a member of “a Rainbow coalition…” He doesn’t have much experience but, he says, if there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past few years, that doesn’t matter at all. He stands on a green platform, but he can’t ban fluorocarbons because, you know, the hair thing and all.
Rainbow misses his 20s, old-school dating sites, hooking up, and his former attention span. He waxes nostalgic about the places he’s lived, including an apartment overlooking a “fruit market.” He wonders why teenagers are suddenly “successful lifestyle gurus.” He hates when “stars begin losing their luster” and he wishes again for actors like Hayworth and Garbo.
But, he says, “Diva-complaints aside… I really do thank God for all the opportunities I’m given.”
So the elephant in the room right now might be one you’ll (never?) vote for, but you know that author Randy Rainbow will reliably skewer that political animal online, hilariously. The fun-poking continues in the most deliciously snarky way in “Low-Hanging Fruit.”
And yet, that’s not the only subject Rainbow tackles. Readers who love catching his posts and videos are treated here to a random string of observations, opinions, and rants-not-rants, with the signature sassy style they’ve come to expect. What you’ll read can be spit-out-your-wine funny sometimes, and other times it touches a nerve with nods toward culture, new and old, that’ll make you nod with recognition. Nothing in Rainbow’s path goes without sharp-edged comment, which is exactly what you want from his books. Unexpectedly, this one also includes a soft word or two and a few slight confessions that are gentle and that might even make you say, “Awwwwww.”
If you’re ready for something snide and cynical that’ll make you laugh, something that you’ll want to read aloud to a companion, “Low-Hanging Fruit” is what you need. Look for this book now and you’ll have no complaints.
Books
‘The Loves of My Life’ is not for prudes
Edmund White’s thoughtful read about pursuing pleasure
‘The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir’
By Edmund White
c.2025, Bloomsbury Publishing
$27.99/256 pages
Celebrated author Edmund White is just as prolific with men as he is with books. “The Loves of My Life” is a steamy memoir about his decades-long sex life. Now in his 80s, he’s had, in his own words, “thousands of sex partners” and this book recounts many of them, including some many amusing, some poignant, stories.
A warning: this book is not for prudish readers. White describes his encounters in lovingly explicit detail, fondly recalling his partners’ equipment and their skills. Some were shockingly creative: one partner belonged to a “fisting colony” where another member once inserted a football into a man, requiring surgery.
White began early, as a teenager sleeping with other boys at his boarding school, neighbors, and the son of his mother’s lover. Later, working for his father’s business, he picked up male hustlers. He would take these predominately “straight” men to cheap hotels for one-sided, quick affairs; many kept their socks on during. Some threatened violence afterwards, demanding more money or that White spend more time with them.
As an adult, a sex worker he took to a country home to help get clean spent nearly all his time alone in the bedroom, leaving only to pick up meals.
White lingers on his experience with Stan, “my first husband.” They met in college, at a play Stan starred in. Moving to New York, they lived together off and on as Stan found acting work. He became involved with a group led by a former Marine, who kept the party going with drugs and orgies. Thankfully, he would later leave and get clean.
White had many memorable adventures abroad. Visiting Puerto Rico, he and his partner went home with two men they met on the beach; the natives laughed during, speaking mostly Spanish. In a park in Spain, he encountered a man who robbed him after propositioning him. Because homosexuality was illegal, he couldn’t go to the authorities, although they had a quickie afterwards. Years later, he rented a house in Madrid with a younger, Spanish lover, who took him to “geezer” clubs, but who threw tantrums if White spoke to any men there. He felt like a housewife, keeping the home spotless and prepared to satisfy his partner anytime, only once visiting a museum.
The book’s tone is generally humorous, although White recounts how, when he was a young man, many gay men saw themselves. Most only wanted to sleep with straight “trade,” which carried the threat of violence. Even successful professionals thought they were “sick.” White saw a therapist hoping to become straight. While the community’s self-image has improved considerably, there are still plenty of hang-ups. White’s younger friend Rory, for instance, Asian, athletic, and intelligent, only loves white men and feels depressed if one doesn’t return his affections.
He surprisingly doesn’t talk much about his husband, Michael, apart from him walking in on White with a lover and an airplane encounter. It might be useful to hear how they met, and their arrangements with other partners. Perhaps their relationship was off limits.
Mixing self-deprecating anecdotes with insights into writing and literature, “The Loves of My Life” makes for a fun, yet thoughtful read about pursuing pleasure.
Books
Thom Gunn bio explores joys, complexities of modern gay life
‘A Cool Queer Life’ presents author’s humanity, poetic genius
‘Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life’
By Michael Nott
c.2024, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
$40/720 pages
A confession: Until reading “Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life,” I hadn’t known much about the accomplished, controversial gay poet’s life or read many of his poems. But this first biography makes me feel like I know him and his large body of work intimately. Michael Nott, coeditor of “The Letters of Thom Gunn,” draws on interviews with friends and family, as well as Gunn’s letters, notebooks, and diaries, to tell the triumphs and tragedies of his life.
Born in England in 1929 to journalist parents, when he was 15, he and his younger brother Ander found their mother dead from suicide. He would not discuss this tragic event in his poetry for years, including one of his last poems “My Mother’s Pride.” He published his first book of poems, “Fighting Terms,” while still an undergraduate at Cambridge University.
At Cambridge, Gunn met his life-long partner, Mike Kitay, an American studying theater. Gunn followed Kitay to America, studying poetry under Yvor Winters at Stanford University. At one point, Kitay, doing his military service, was investigated as part of suspicion of homosexuality among his unit. Gunn wrote to friends of his worry both of what might happen to Kitay as well as to himself. While nothing happened, the event reminds us of the precarious state in which gay men lived until recently.
Eventually, they settled in San Francisco, which Gunn loved. Even when he became worldwide famous, he enjoyed the anonymity of the city’s gay bars, where he could pick up men. He taught at UC Berkeley for 40 years, one term every year so he could concentrate on his poetry. His and Kitay’s home was filled with friends and sex partners, usually of Gunn. This arrangement seems common for many gay men of the time, reminiscent of Dan Savage’s idea of “monogamish,” where committed gay couples might have other side partners.
In San Francisco, Gunn discovered leather and drugs, both of which he took to readily. He caused a stir by appearing in his British publisher’s conservative club in leather gear. Toward the end of his life, he became a crystal meth addict, frequently using with other addicts whom he also slept with. In 2004, his housemates found him dead from substance abuse.
He explored leather, drugs, and gay sexuality frequently in his poems. His collection “Moly” (named after the drug in The Odyssey protecting from the witch Circe’s magic), looked at the appeal and downfall of drugs. The Man with Night Sweats, perhaps his most famous collection, dealt with the AIDS epidemic, the painful death of so many friends and lovers. He won the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant afterwards.
The biography presents Gunn in all his humanity, from his poetic genius to his insecurities. After each book came out, he struggled with writer’s block, which led to hookups and drug use. As he aged, he worried about finding “gerontophiles” who would sleep with him. I hope this book encourages readers to discover or revisit his work, filled with the joys and complexities of modern gay life.
-
Politics4 days ago
Gay members of Congress challenge Vance over the ‘normal gay guy vote’
-
Movies3 days ago
A writer finds his voice through sex work in ‘Sebastian’
-
Kenya4 days ago
Kenyan court awards two gay men $31K
-
Opinions2 days ago
Progressive LGBTQ community should not throw conservative siblings under the bus