“I’ll never forget it. I was 6. My mother and I went to the movies to see The Amphibian Man. In the middle of the movie, my mother bends down to me and whispers: ‘Look how beautiful Guttiere [the female protagonist] is!’ I nodded weakly, while not taking my eyes off Ichtiandr [the male protagonist]. I fell in love with him and asked to be taken to this movie a number of times. This goes to the question of why the very idea of ‘gay propaganda’ is absurd. As a biologist, I know that sexual orientation is formed in the womb and is impossible to influence in any direction. It’s not a matter of choice. When I was a child, I didn’t know any of this, of course, and didn’t understand why I was attracted to the beautiful Ichtiandr.”
—Vitaly, from Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories, edited by Masha Gessen and Joseph Huff-Hannon.
Celebrates LGBTQ voices and National Coming Out Day
Gay Propaganda
Russian Love Stories
Gay Propaganda offers an intimate window into the hardships faced by Russians on the receiving end of state-sanctioned homophobia. Here are tales of men and women in long-term committed relationships as well as those still looking for love; of those living in Russia or joining an exodus that is rapidly becoming a flood. More |
NIGHTS AT RIZZOLI
Glamour and books don’t often converge, but they did at Rizzoli, one of New York City’s greatest bookstores: a memoir by a writer (and Rizzoli manager) who lived the unchecked, wild life of a young gay man in pre-AIDS, post-Stonewall 1970s New York. More |
THE DREAM OF DOCTOR BANTAM
A Novel
“… Thornton’s Dr. Bantam is pure Americana, cinematic and idly mean. It’s lush and trashy. I guess it’s the most graphic-novelly feeling book about loss I can think of. It’s all punk heart, messily thudding.” —Eileen Myles More |
Inferno (a poet’s novel)
“I was completely stupefied by Inferno in the best of ways. In fact, I think I must feel kind of like Dante felt after seeing the face of God… I can tell you that Eileen Myles made me understand something I didn’t before. And really, what more can you ask of a novel, or a poet’s novel, or a poem, or a memoir, or whatever the hell this shimmering document is? Just read it.” —Alison Bechdel More |
LEAN OUT
The Struggle for Gender Equality in Tech and Start-Up Culture
Why aren’t the great, qualified women already in tech being hired or promoted? Should women seek to join an institution that is actively hostile to them? Edited by tech veteran Elissa Shevinsky, Lean Out sees a possible way forward that uses tech and creative disengagement to jettison 20th century corporate culture. More |
I TOLD YOU SO
Gore Vidal Talks Politics
In this series of interviews with writer and radio host Jon Wiener, Vidal grapples with matters evidently close to his heart: the history of the American Empire, the rise of the National Security State, and his own life in politics, both as a commentator and candidate. More |
