The Tall Boy: A Memoir

“Walk tall, man,” the junkie behind him whispered. “Don’t let the bastards see that you care.” They were standing in line at police headquarters in Los Angeles, waiting to be fingerprinted. The twenty-two year old writer had just been arrested on a “vag-lewd” charge. Or, to put it more clearly, he had been busted for being gay. Entrapment, police stings, and unauthorized raids were still the acceptable tactics for catching and imprisoning gays in America in the mid-twentieth century. The ga...