Books

Hoover is a conflicted, flawed human in new biography

‘G-Man’ explores how he created an unrivaled personal fiefdom

Published

2 years ago

January 22, 2023

Kathi Wolfe

(Book cover image courtesy of Viking)

‘G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century’
By Beverly Gage
c.2022, Viking
$45/837 pages

“We’re sorry we can’t be in the front row to hiss — no kiss you,” two fans wrote in a telegram to Ethel Merman in the 1930s when they couldn’t make the opening of one of her shows.

The Merman friends were J. Edgar Hoover and his “right-hand man” Clyde Tolson.

“G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century” by Yale historian Beverly Gage is the first biography of Hoover to appear in 30 years. Gage has done the unimaginable. She makes you want to read about J. Edgar Hoover. “G-Man” won’t make you wish you were one of Hoover’s BFFs. It’ll compel you to see Hoover, not as a villainous caricature, but as a conflicted, flawed human being.

“G-Man” is not only a fascinating bio of Hoover, who directed the FBI from 1924 until the day he died on May 2, 1972 at age 77. It’s a page-turning history of the United States in the 20^th century.

Hoover, who played a key role in the “lavender scare” of the 1950s, hated and harassed Martin Luther King, Jr. and engaged in an anti-Communist crusade, has “emerged,” Gage writes, “as one of history’s great villains, perhaps the most universally reviled American political figure of the twentieth century.”

In “G-Man,” Gates, drawing on recently released files, tells the story of how Hoover came to power and used the tools of the “administrative state,” to, as Gage writes, “create a personal fiefdom unrivaled in U.S. history.”

But, Gage makes clear, it’s a misreading of American history to think that Hoover was a lone, evil rouge.

During his time as FBI director, Hoover had the support of eight presidents (four Democrats and four Republicans) and of Congress. Gage documents how much of the American public, for most of Hoover’s 48 years as FBI director, shared his racist, homophobic and rabidly anti-Communist views.

Hoover, a life-long D.C. resident, “embodied conservative values ranging from anti-Communism to white supremacy to a crusading and politicized interpretation of Christianity,” Gage writes.

“Far from making him a public scourge,” she adds, “these two aspects of his life garnered him the admiration of millions of Americans, including many of the country’s leading politicians, for most of his career.”

Hoover never openly identified as gay. He sent FBI agents out to warn anyone gossiping that he was gay to stop spreading rumors. Once, Hoover learned a D.C. bakery employee had said he’d “heard the director is a queer,’” Gage reports. Hoover dispatched FBI agents, Gage writes, “to threaten and intimidate him into silence.”

There’s no evidence of Hoover having sex with another man. A story (told in an earlier bio) of Hoover wearing a dress at a gathering lacks credibility, Gage says. Because the woman who told the anecdote had been arrested for perjury.

But, using sources that weren’t available to previous biographers, Gage argues persuasively that Hoover and Tolson were for decades what we would call, today, a same-sex couple.

Beginning in 1935, Hoover and Tolson plunged into a whirl of nightlife – going to nightclubs and hanging with celebrities, Gage reports.

Hoover kept some things about his relationship with Tolson private, Gage writes, “yet what is most striking about their budding relationship is not its furtive quality but its openness, vitality, and broad social acceptance.”

Hoover and Tolson vacationed together yearly in Florida and California.

Officially, their friends and colleagues, said the couple was “too masculine” to be queer, Gage writes, “reflecting a mid-century view of male homosexuality as something for ‘sissies’ and outliers.”

But, “Everybody knew about J. Edgar Hoover,” Gage reports Ethel Merman recalled decades later of Hoover in the 1930s. “A lot of people have always been homosexual. To each his own.”

Neither Tolson or Hoover married or thought about marrying a woman. When Hoover died, he left most of his estate to Tolson. We don’t know what they did in the bedroom, Gage says, but Hoover and Tolson behaved like spouses.

Unfortunately, Hoover’s feelings for Tolson didn’t stop him from playing a crucial part in the “lavender scare” or from having the FBI monitor the D.C. chapter of the Mattachine Society.

“G-Man” documents Hoover’s racism in sobering detail. Gates doesn’t downplay Hoover’s racism, role in the 1919 or 1950s red scare; lavender scare; or harassment of Vietnam war protesters.

In “G-Man,” Gage helps us understand how Hoover’s views were formed: from his shame at having a mentally ill father to the “muscular, masculine” Christianity of his childhood to his life-long connection to Kappa Alpha, a racist George Washington University fraternity that believed in the “Lost Cause” of the South.

“G-Man”is an illuminating and engrossing read – with movie stars, history, gangsters and a humanized villain.

The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.

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Books

Fall books offer something for every taste

Hollinghurst’s latest plus a look at Queer Harlem Renaissance

Published

2 days ago

September 12, 2024

Terri Schlichenmeyer

('Flamboyants' book cover image courtesy Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Welcome to the fall book season, where you’ll find gifts for your friends, family and (most importantly?) the best reads for yourself. This is when you’ll find the blockbuster novels you’ve been waiting for, the surprise memoirs and nonfiction that you’ve wanted, and gorgeous gift books your coffee table. This fall, keep your eyes open for all kinds of literary goodness.

NOVELS

Lovers of a good novel will want to curl up with a huge TBR pile.

Romance novels will fill the shelves this fall, and if love is what you want for the holidays, you’re in luck. Look for “The Rules of Royalty” by Cale Dietrich (Wednesday Books, December), a modern tale of a prince and a “commoner”; or “Feast While You Can” by Mikealla Clements and Onjuli Datta (Grand Central Publishing), a scary-romance-erotica novel of small-town life and monsters.

Reach for “Our Evenings: A Novel” by Alan Hollinghurst (Random House, October), a novel of a young man who happily accepts a scholarship to a boarding school filled with classmates who are much, much wealthier than he is. “The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts” by Louis Bayard (Algonquin Books, September) is a historical novel about Oscar Wilde’s family.

For lovers of Gothic tales, look for “The Resurrectionist” by A. Rae Dunlap (Kensington, December), a tale of bodysnatching. Classics lovers will want to read “Private Rites: A Novel” by Julia Armfield (Flatiron Books, December), a queer reimagining of King Lear. Or find “Women’s Hotel” by Daniel M. Lavery (HarperVia, October), a book about a second-rate women-only hotel in New York City.

If your taste runs more to rom-coms, there are dozens of those available this fall, too, as well as Christmas novels with gay, lesbian, and trans characters inside.

NONFICTION

Even nonfiction readers will have reason to read this fall and winter.

Look for “Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I’d Known” by George M. Johnson and Charly Palmer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September), a book about 1920s Harlem and the influential queer folks who left their marks on entertainment.

“Something, Not Nothing” by Sarah Leavitt (Arsenal Pulp Press, September) chronicles, in comic form, the death of Leavitt’s partner and the paths grief takes to healing. Learn more about LGBTQ history with “The Book of Awesome Queer Heroes: How the LGBTQ+ Community Changed the World for the Better” by Eric Rosswood and Kathleen Archambeau (Mango, December); check out Mary L. Trump’s heartbreaking memoir, “Who Could Ever Love You?” (St. Martin’s Press, September); or check out a collection of essays in “Songs On Endless Repeat: Essays and Outtakes” by Anthony Veasna So (Ecco, December). Look for “Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous,” an anthology of secret confessions from women around the country, by Gillian Anderson (Abrams Press, September), or find “Queer Disability through History: The Queer and Disabled Movements Through Their Personalities” by Daisy Holder (Pen and Sword History, November). Also: Cher has a new biography out this fall, “The Memoir, Part One” (Dey Street Books, November).

Not quite what you’re looking for? Check with your favorite bookseller or librarian for more ideas because, this fall, they’ll have lots of them. Or give a gift certificate and hold on for spring. Season’s readings!

Books

Two books to read when your child comes out as trans

Explaining what science knows about genetics and sexuality

Published

3 weeks ago

August 22, 2024

Terri Schlichenmeyer

‘Free to Be: Understanding Kids & Gender Identity’
By Jack Turban, MD
c.2024, Atria
$29.99/304 pages

‘My Child is Trans, Now What?’
By Ben V. Greene
c.2024, Rowman & Littlefield
$26.95/203 pages

Your child has recently told you a secret that they can’t hold tight anymore.

You’ve suspected what they’re about to say for a long time. When they were small, they weren’t like other children. They may have even told you what they were thinking, even before they knew it themselves. But now you know, for sure, and so, going forward, you’re the loving parent of a child who’s trans, and there’s a learning curve.

These two books might help.

Surely, you must think that there has to be some science behind gender and identity, right? In “Free to Be: Understanding Kids & Gender Identity” by Jack Turban, MD (Atria, $29.99), you’ll follow the lives and struggles of three trans and gender diverse kids, Kyle, Sam, and Meredith, as Turban explains what science knows about genetics and sexuality.

To gain a basic understanding of the subject, says Turban, we need to look back in history to see how gender identity was perceived in the past and the attitudes that our ancestors held. He then touches upon language and “misnaming,” how social constructs attempt to set a child’s gender identity before it’s fully known, and why mothers often catch “blame” for something that’s never anyone’s “fault.” Further information on biology, puberty blockers, gender reassignment surgery for young trans people, and the “politics” of gender diversity round out this book nicely.

For the parent who wants a deeper dive into what makes their child tick and what they can do to make that kid’s life easier, this compassionate book is the one to read.

If you’re just finding out that your child is trans, then “My Child is Trans, Now What?” by Ben V. Greene (Rowman & Littlefield, $26.95) is a book to reach for now.

Beginning with the things you’ll want to know and understand immediately, this book is assuring and soothing – look, and you’ll see the word “joy” in its subtitle. Greene calls trans kids “VIPs,” and he means it, which sets a relaxing tone for what’s to come here.

In sharing his own experiences, Greene stresses that every trans experience is different, and he touches often upon his coming out. This launches discussions on topics like bathrooms, therapy (if you or your VIP want it), finding support, the politics of being trans, the stressors of medical treatment, and what it might be like to have even brief regrets. Greene finishes his book with advice on getting an education and living as a trans person.

“My Child is Trans, Now What?” is truly more of a book for parents and loved ones of trans teens or young adults. What’s in here goes well beyond childhood, so be aware before you reach for it on the shelf. And if these books aren’t enough, or don’t quite fit what you need, be sure to ask your favorite bookseller or librarian for more. In recent years, more and more authors have been willing to share their own journeys, making the transition one that doesn’t have to be so secret anymore.

Books

New book looks at life inside Nigerian seminary

Navigating a tough life amid abusive clergy

Published

1 month ago

August 9, 2024

Terri Schlichenmeyer

(Book cover image courtesy of Doubleday)

‘Blessings’
By Chukwuebuka Ibeh
c.2024, Doubleday
$28/288 pages

Sometimes you just need to step back a minute.

You need time to regroup, to think things through, and a scenery change is the place to do it. Get past your current position, and situations can become clearer somehow. Thoughts can be reorganized. Problems pivot. As in the new novel “Blessings” by Chukwuebuka Ibeh, you’ll have a different perspective.

Obiefuna didn’t say much on the road to the seminary.

What was there to say? His father had caught him in a too-cozy situation with a young man who’d been taken in as an apprentice and for that, Obiefuna was being sent away. Away from his mother, his younger brother, Ekene, and from the young man that 15-year-old Obiefuna was in love with.

Life in seminary was bad – Obiefuna was always on alert for Seniors, who were said to be abusive because abuse was allowed, even encouraged – but things weren’t as bad as he thought they might be. He made friends and good grades but he missed his mother. Did she suspect he was gay? Obiefuna wanted to tell her, but he hid who he was.

Mostly, he kept to himself until he caught the eye of Senior Papilo, who was said to be the cruelest of the cruel. Amazingly, though, Senior Papilo became Obiefuna’s protector, letting Obiefuna stay in his bed, paying for Obi’s first experience with a woman, making sure Obiefuna had better food. Maybe Obiefuna loved Senior Papilo but Senior had other boys, which made Obi work twice as hard to be his favorite. Still, he hid.

And then Senior Papilo passed his final exams and moved on.

So, eventually, did Obiefuna. Sure, there were other boys – one who almost got him expelled, a chaplain who begged forgiveness, and there was even a girl once – but Obi grew up and fully embraced his truth: All he wanted was to be accepted for himself, to be loved.

As Nigeria moved toward making same-sex marriage illegal, though, neither one looked likely.

So here’s the puzzle: the story inside “Blessings” is interesting. Obiefuna is a great character who takes what happens with quiet compliance, as if he long ago relinquished hope that he could ever control his own life. Instead, he passively lets those who surround him take the reins and though reasons for this are not clearly stated and it’s uncomfortable, it’s easy to grasp and accept why. This goes, too, for the Seniors whose actions readers will tacitly understand.

What’s not easy to accept is that author Chukwuebuka Ibeh’s story often slows to a glacial pace, with great chunks of the book’s multi-year timeline crunched into basically only highlights. You’ll be left loving this story but hating its stride.

The best advice is to embrace this moving novel’s message and accept the slowness, love the excellent characters, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself checking to see how many pages you have left to crawl through. Yes, you’ll enjoy the soul-touching cast in “Blessings” but if speed in a plot supersedes good characters, then step back.