Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps

by Michael Bronski (Editor)

Overview

A collection of gay erotic writings tracing the development of a gay identity from the late 19th century to just before the Stonewall Inn riots

Long before the rise of the modern gay movement, an unnoticed literary revolution was occurring, mostly between the covers of the cheaply produced pulp paperbacks of the post-World War II era. Cultural critic Michael Bronski collects a sampling of these now little-known gay erotic writings—some by writers long forgotten, some never known and a few now famous. Through them, Bronski challenges many long-held views of American postwar fiction and the rise of gay literature, as well as of the culture at large.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312252670
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/14/2003
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Michael Bronksi is Professor of Practice in Media and Activism in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University, USA. His last book, You Can Tell Just by Looking and 20 Other Myths about LGBT Life and People (2013; co-authored with Ann Pelligrini and Michael Amico) was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for Best Non-Fiction. He is also the author of A Queer History of the United States (2011), which was awarded the Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award for best LGBT book of 2010 by the American Library Association, as well as the Lambda Literary Award for the Best Non-Fiction Book of 2012. His other works include Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility (1984),The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash and the Making of Gay Freedom (1998), and Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps (2003), which won a Lambda Literary Award for Best Anthology in 2004. Professor Bronski's 1996 anthology, Taking Liberties: Gay Men's Essays on Politics, Culture and Sex, won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Anthology in 1997. His work is included in over fifty anthologies and he currently edits the Queer Action / Queer Ideas series for Beacon Press.

Bronski has been awarded the 1995 AIDS Action Committee Community Recognition Award for 20 years of journalism on gay and AIDS-related topics; the 1996 Cambridge Lavender Alliance Lifetime Achievement Award for journalism and political organizing; the 1999 The Martin Duberman Fellowship for scholarly research in LGBT studies, awarded by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, City University of New York, USA; the 1999 Stonewall Award, in recognition for 'helping improve the lives and LGBT people in the United States' granted by the Anderson Prize Foundation; the 2004 Leadership Award from the D-GALA (Dartmouth Gay and Lesbian Alumni Association); and the 2008 Distinguished Lecturer Award granted by Dean of Faculty of Dartmouth College, USA.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One

Mainstream Fiction: Not Particularly Hiding in the Shadows

Harrison Dowd

The Night Air

Dial Press, 1950

Lonnie Coleman

Sam

David McKay, 1959

Part Two

The New Gay Novel: Happier Homos and Happier Endings

James Barr

"Spurr Piece" from Derricks

Greenberg, 1951

Jay Little

Maybe—Tomorrow

Pageant Press, 1952

Part Three

Truly Pulp: "Gay" Life in the Shadows

Michael De Forrest

The Gay Year

Woodford Press, 1949

Vin Packer (Marijane Meaker)

Whisper His Sin

Fawcett Gold Medal Books, 1954

Ben Travis

The Strange Ones

Beacon Book, 1959

James Colton (Joseph Hansen)

Lost on Twilight Road

National Library, 1964

Jeff X

The Memoirs of Jeff X

Zil, 1968

Part Four

Out of the Twilight World: The Sexual Revolution Goes Lavender

The Boys of Muscle Beach

qlGuild Press, 1969 (reprint from the 1950s)

Richard Amory

Song of the Loon

Greenleaf Classics, 1966

Carl Corley

My Purple Winter

PEC French Line, 1966

Jack Love

Gay Whore

PEC French Line, 1967

Chris Davidson

A Different Drum

Ember Library/Greenleaf Classics, 1967

Part Five

The World Split Open: Life and Literature After Stonewall

Marcus Miller

Gay Revolution

Pleasure Reader, 1969

Bruce Benderson

Kyle

Crusier Classics, 1975

Victor Jay

The Gay Haunt

Traveller's Companion, 1970

John Ironstone

Gay Rights

El Dorado Editions, 1978

Appendix: Gay Novels, 1940-1969

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

I read through this book saying again and again, 'How did I miss this?' 'How did I manage not to know about this?'—a sign that Michael Bronski has done a necessary job and done it well. Rarely is a book so educational also such a delight. By leaving the hallowed precincts of the 'literary,' Bronski lends a continuity heretofore lacking in many of our pictures of the development of gay fiction from World War II on.” —Samuel R. Delany, author of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and The Motion of Light in Water

“Out of the shadows, into the sheets! Between the covers of gay pulp fiction, Michael Bronski finds forgotten treasures, presenting juicy excerpts and his own wise insights into this neglected bit of literary history.” —Jonathan Ned Katz, author of Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality and Gay American History

“A wonderful book, a sexy, funny, looney-tune work of social history that rewrites the recent past. It's a celebration of the poetry of pulp as well as the truth of pulp. I cannot remember the last time I learned so much while having so much fun.” —Christopher Bram, author of Father of Frankenstein and The Notorious Dr. August

"Prefacing each section with thoughtful background on the period, Bronski then steps back to let the generous novel excerpts speak for themselves. Bronski has searched thoroughly and thought-provokingly, and this book should pop up on required reading lists for gay studies courses (the extensive appendix is invaluable). This is obviously a labor of love, and an absolute must for gay historians and those interested in stimulating gay fiction from years gone by.” —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

A wonderful book, a sexy, funny, looney-tune work of social history that rewrites the recent past. It's a celebration of the poetry of pulp as well as the truth of pulp. I cannot remember the last time I learned so much while having so much fun.

author of Father of Frankenstein and The Notorious Christopher Bram

Out of the shadows, into the sheets! Between the covers of gay pulp fiction, Michael Bronski finds forgotten treasures, presenting juicy excerpts and his own wise insights into this neglected bit of literary history.

author of Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Jonathan Ned Katz

Noting research that included reading "just over 225 novels," cultural critic Bronski (The Pleasure Principle) delightfully chronicles gay pulp novels from their emergence in the late 1940s through the post-Stonewall era in this expansive, exhaustively researched amalgam of fiction and gay history. In the earliest novels, homosexual characters were often drawn as angst-ridden men living hideaway lives. These mild tales gave way to the more outrageous and sexually intrepid plot lines of the 1950s and early '60s as gay male pulps gained momentum-typical is a locker-room fantasy scene from Jay Little's Maybe-Tomorrow. As the 1960s progressed, fiction grew bolder in form and content. Richard Amory's lush The Song of the Loon was a landmark title, its literary aspirations plain, while other titles of the era-racy fictions like Jack Love's Gay Whore, a melodrama set on Fire Island, and the pseudonymous Memoirs of Jeff X-were willing to settle for being "extraordinarily profitable." The gay revolution unleashed by the Stonewall riots is boldly evident in excerpts by Marcus Miller (from Gay Revolution), and a selection from Bruce Benderson's 1975 erotic potboiler, Kyle. Prefacing each section with thoughtful background on the period, Bronski then steps back to let the generous novel excerpts speak for themselves. Bronski has searched thoroughly and thought-provokingly, and this book should pop up on required reading lists for gay studies courses (the extensive appendix is invaluable). This is obviously a labor of love, and an absolute must for gay historians and those interested in stimulating gay fiction from years gone by. (Jan.) Forecast: Dual marketing to history buffs and fiction readers should double this title's chances. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly