Books
Despite the hype, Wenner memoir is a buzzkill
Reading this book is as exciting as perusing a spreadsheet

‘Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir’
By Jann S. Wenner
c.2022, Little, Brown
$35/592 pages
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” the Rolling Stones sang in 1965.
When reading “Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir” by Jann S. Wenner, you may well find yourself singing along with the Stones.
Whether you’re a Boomer who grew up to the soundtrack of the rock ‘n’ roll, Woodstock generation (from the Grateful Dead to Jimi Hendrix to Bob Dylan to Joni Mitchell), a Gen-Xer who listened to punk rock, a millennial who voted for Barack Obama or a Gen-Zer who put Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” back on the charts, you’re likely curious about Wenner’s memoir.
In 1967, Wenner, 76, co-founded (with music critic Ralph J. Glisten) Rolling Stone, the magazine of youth culture and politics. Decades later, Wenner co-founded the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Today, Wenner with his husband, designer Matt Nye and their three children, divides his time between Montauk, N.Y., Manhattan, and Sun Valley, Idaho. He and his ex-wife Jane are on amicable terms. Wenner and his former spouse have three sons.
Who other than Wenner, you’d think, digging into “Like a Rolling Stone,” would be better at taking us behind the scenes of the cultural history of more than half a century (from the late 1960s through the early 2020s)?
You’d expect, given the rock stars and politicians Wenner has known, worked with and interviewed (from Mick Jagger to John Lennon and Yoko Ono to Bob Dylan to Obama to acclaimed photographer Annie Leibovitz to Bill Clinton), that Wenner’s memoir would be brimming with dazzling anecdotes, wit, and insights.
Unfortunately, despite all of the hype and anticipation, “Like a Rolling Stone” is, by and large, a buzzkill.
Wenner, who grew up in San Francisco, has been associated with bold-faced names since he was a child. When he was hard to handle, Dr. Benjamin Spock stepped in to treat him.
His life was privileged from the get-go. His father was in the baby formula business and his mother was a novelist.
In boarding school, Wenner wrote a gossip column for the school paper and discovered (though he would be in a hetero marriage for decades) that he liked boys. He went on to college in Berkeley, Calif., during the height of the Free Speech movement. At 21, he was able to obtain the money he needed to start “Rolling Stone.”
Nearly every page of Wenner’s nearly 600-page memoir is infested with name-dropping. Celebs, tony nightspots and jet-setting locales appear more often than ants at a July 4th picnic.
But Wenner rarely reveals anything interesting about the famous names or his interactions with them.
Take Bruce Springsteen. What do we learn about the Boss from Wenner? That Springsteen at Wenner’s 60th birthday party sang, “Champagne, pot cookies and a Percocet/Keep him humming like a Sahre jet.”
Wenner’s name-dropping is a reminder that in 1986, Wenner with the Walt Disney Company bought Us Weekly, the celeb gossip magazine.
What’s most disappointing about the memoir is that Wenner says so little about what life has been like for him as a gay man.
It’s understandable that he, as a man of his generation, didn’t come out until the 1990s.
But, a fifth of the way into the 21st century, Wenner writes little about what it was like to be closeted for decades. Or how being closeted impacted Rolling Stone.
Wenner interviewed Bill Clinton extensively for Rolling Stone. Yet, he doesn’t reflect on DOMA or “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Wenner wasn’t totally insensitive to what it means to be LGBTQ. One of his sons, Theo, talked to him about kids speaking of his “dad being gay.”
Wenner sent a condolence note to the parents of a Rolling Stones staffer and one of Andy Warhol’s lovers who died of AIDS. Rolling Stone published one of the first stories about AIDS.
But you can’t help wishing that “Like a Rolling Stone” had more of a queer quotient.
Thankfully, Wenner sometimes tells a revealing anecdote about a celeb. One day, he recalls, when he dined with John Lennon in a restaurant, a fan approached Lennon for an autograph. “Can’t you see I’m eating,” Lennon said to the fan, showing how annoying it was to have his privacy breached.
Yet, even with the glitz and glam, reading much of this memoir has the excitement of perusing a spreadsheet.
Wenner has done what neither God nor the Devil could do: he’s made his friend Bette Midler seem dull.
Wenner has led a fascinating life. His story is more interesting than anything a novelist, like his pal Tom Wolfe, could have imagined.
If only Carrie Fisher or Oscar Wilde had written his memoir.
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Books
Chronicling disastrous effects of ‘conversion therapy’
New book uncovers horror, unexpected humor of discredited practice

‘Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors’ Stories of Conversion Therapy’
By Lucas F. W. Wilson
c.2025, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
$21.95/190 pages
You’re a few months in, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.
You made your New Year’s resolutions with forethought, purpose, and determination but after all this time, you still struggle, ugh. You’ve backslid. You’ve cheated because change is hard. It’s sometimes impossible. And in the new book, “Shame-Sex Attraction” by Lucas F. W. Wilson, it can be exceptionally traumatic.

Progress does not come without problems.
While it’s true that the LGBTQ community has been adversely affected by the current administration, there are still things to be happy about when it comes to civil rights and acceptance. Still, says Wilson, one “particularly slow-moving aspect… has been the fight against what is widely known as conversion therapy.”
Such practices, he says, “have numerous damaging, death-dealing, and no doubt disastrous consequences.” The stories he’s collected in this volume reflect that, but they also mirror confidence and strength in the face of detrimental treatment.
Writer Gregory Elsasser-Chavez was told to breathe in something repellent every time he thought about other men. He says, in the end, he decided not to “pray away the gay.” Instead, he quips, he’d “sniff it away.”
D. Apple became her “own conversation therapist” by exhausting herself with service to others as therapy. Peter Nunn’s father took him on a surprise trip, but the surprise was a conversion facility; Nunn’s father said if it didn’t work, he’d “get rid of” his 15-year-old son. Chaim Levin was forced to humiliate himself as part of his therapy.
Lexie Bean struggled to make a therapist understand that they didn’t want to be a man because they were “both.” Jordan Sullivan writes of the years it takes “to re-integrate and become whole” after conversion therapy. Chris Csabs writes that he “tried everything to find the root of my problem” but “nothing so far had worked.”
Says Syre Klenke of a group conversion session, “My heart shattered over and over as people tried to console and encourage each other…. I wonder if each of them is okay and still with us today.”
Here’s a bit of advice for reading “Shame-Sex Attraction”: dip into the first chapter, maybe the second, then go back and read the foreword and introduction, and resume.
The reason: author Lucas F. W. Wilson’s intro is deep and steep, full of footnotes and statistics, and if you’re not prepared or you didn’t come for the education, it might scare you away. No, the subtitle of this book is likely why you’d pick the book up so because that’s what you really wanted, indulge before backtracking.
You won’t be sorry; the first stories are bracing and they’ll steel you for the rest, for the emotion and the tears, the horror and the unexpected humor.
Be aware that there are triggers all over this book, especially if you’ve been subjected to anything like conversion therapy yourself. Remember, though, that the survivors are just that: survivors, and their strength is what makes this book worthwhile. Even so, though “Shame-Sex Attraction” is an essential read, that doesn’t make it any easier.
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Books
How one gay Catholic helped change the world
‘A Prince of a Boy,’ falls short of author’s previous work

Brian McNaught, the pioneering gay activist and author of 1986’s “On Being Gay” and 1993’s “Gay Issues in the Workplace,” has written a personal account about his Catholic faith and homosexuality. It is a memoir without much substance.
“A Prince of a Boy: How One Gay Catholic Helped Change the World” (Cascade Books) is a strong personal statement by McNaught. He helped change family relationships. He helped change attitudes about homosexuality. He helped change workplaces, but the world?

In January 2023, the Catholic News Service reported that Pope Francis announced that, “being homosexual is not a crime.” In December 2023, NPR reported that Pope Francis approved “Catholic blessings for same-sex couples, but not for marriage.” Francis died Monday at age 88. Although Catholics may not see homosexuality as a crime, they see sex outside of marriage as a sin. They see same-sex marriage as a sin.
In 2021, Gallup reported that membership in the Catholic Church had declined 20 percent since 2000. In 2025, the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study found that nearly 40 percent of Americans identified as Protestant, while the same study found that only 19 percent identified as Catholic.
McNaught devotes much of his book to his life as a gay Catholic. It is challenging to read about his personal struggle. Some readers may find it interesting. Others might find it boring. Catholic readers may find it more compelling than Protestant readers.
As the above statistics prove, McNaught has much more work to do to change the Catholic Church’s views about homosexuality. We should be glad for his contribution to the debate within the Catholic Church. We should pray for full acceptance of gays in the Catholic Church.
“A Prince of a Boy” becomes more interesting when McNaught describes his work as an educator on LGBTQ issues. He has had an impact on workplace policies, academic programs, and public education, and his lectures, books, and other materials are widely used.
Based on my experience in the federal government and volunteering with LGBTQ organizations from the Bay Area to Washington, D.C., I believe McNaught’s work as an educator has improved LGBTQ lives, careers, and families. During the Clinton administration, I gave many copies of “Gay Issues in the Workplace” to personnel directors. I felt their staff could benefit from reading it. I thought it would help the lives and careers of my federal LGBTQ colleagues.
McNaught’s “A Prince of a Boy” was released in December 2024. Anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant died the same month. Bryant campaigned against a gay rights law in Florida. She began a national campaign against gays.
When Bryant successfully reversed a gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida, McNaught wrote the important essay “Dear Anita, Late Night Thoughts of an Irish Catholic Homosexual.” The essay is not in “A Prince of a Boy”; however, McNaught mentions Bryant.
In his training programs, McNaught describes homosexuals as journeying from confusion to denial to acceptance to pride. “Anita Bryant and AIDS brought Gay people to identity pride very quickly,” McNaught writes. San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk (1930-1978) and other activists reached similar conclusions about Bryant’s vicious anti-gay campaign.
McNaught helped change the LGBTQ world and brought pride to many people’s lives. McNaught walks in pride, works in pride, and educates others in pride.
“A Prince of a Boy” is a disappointing book. It provides small details about Brian McNaught’s large, proud life. A meaningful biography about this great gay leader is long overdue.
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Books
‘Pronoun Trouble’ reminds us that punctuation matters
‘They’ has been a shape-shifter for more than 700 years

‘Pronoun Trouble’
By John McWhorter
c.2025, Avery
$28/240 pages
Punctuation matters.
It’s tempting to skip a period at the end of a sentence Tempting to overuse exclamation points!!! very tempting to MeSs with capital letters. Dont use apostrophes. Ask a question and ignore the proper punctuation commas or question marks because seriously who cares. So guess what? Someone does, punctuation really matters, and as you’ll see in “Pronoun Trouble” by John McWhorter, so do other parts of our language.

Conversation is an odd thing. It’s spontaneous, it ebbs and flows, and it’s often inferred. Take, for instance, if you talk about him. Chances are, everyone in the conversation knows who him is. Or he. That guy there.
That’s the handy part about pronouns. Says McWhorter, pronouns “function as shorthand” for whomever we’re discussing or referring to. They’re “part of our hardwiring,” they’re found in all languages, and they’ve been around for centuries.
And, yes, pronouns are fluid.
For example, there’s the first-person pronoun, I as in me and there we go again. The singular I solely affects what comes afterward. You say “he-she IS,” and “they-you ARE” but I am. From “Black English,” I has also morphed into the perfectly acceptable Ima, shorthand for “I am going to.” Mind blown.
If you love Shakespeare, you may’ve noticed that he uses both thou and you in his plays. The former was once left to commoners and lower classes, while the latter was for people of high status or less formal situations. From you, we get y’all, yeet, ya, you-uns, and yinz. We also get “you guys,” which may have nothing to do with guys.
We and us are warmer in tone because of the inclusion implied. She is often casually used to imply cars, boats, and – warmly or not – gay men, in certain settings. It “lacks personhood,” and to use it in reference to a human is “barbarity.”
And yes, though it can sometimes be confusing to modern speakers, the singular word “they” has been a “shape-shifter” for more than 700 years.
Your high school English teacher would be proud of you, if you pick up “Pronoun Trouble.” Sadly, though, you might need her again to make sense of big parts of this book: What you’ll find here is a delightful romp through language, but it’s also very erudite.
Author John McWhorter invites readers along to conjugate verbs, and doing so will take you back to ancient literature, on a fascinating journey that’s perfect for word nerds and anyone who loves language. You’ll likely find a bit of controversy here or there on various entries, but you’ll also find humor and pop culture, an explanation for why zie never took off, and assurance that the whole flap over strictly-gendered pronouns is nothing but overblown protestation. Readers who have opinions will like that.
Still, if you just want the pronoun you want, a little between-the-lines looking is necessary here, so beware. “Pronoun Trouble” is perfect for linguists, writers, and those who love to play with words but for most readers, it’s a different kind of book, period.
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