Gay life in America

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Charles Kaiser's The Gay Metropolis: 1940-1996, a history of gay life centered in New York, is packed with tales of writers and literature. Kaiser provides a kaleidoscope of details and stories that create a vision of how gay people lived, and illuminates a culture that had enormous influence on both New York and American society. Kaiser writes about such luminaries as Gore Vidal, Edward Albee, Truman Capote, and James Baldwin, but the real drive of The Gay Metropolis is how gay art and writings transformed the lives of everyday gay people. By the end of the book it is clear that gay artistic influence has transformed the American metropolis for both heterosexuals and homosexuals. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Journalist Kaiser (1968 in America, LJ 10/15/88) explores how postwar New York City "became the literal gay metropolis for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from within and without the United States" and the city's role in this panorama of American gay social history. Beginning on the eve of World War II, the book depicts each decade via a series of oral histories that present a penetrating portrait of gay life in New York and provide context to the historical events that shaped that life. Kaiser's focus omits some crucial events: the murder of Harvey Milk in San Francisco is barely mentioned; and although a few women are interviewed, lesbians get short shrift. But these are minor caveats to an otherwise superb chronicle of the forces that have molded queer lives, and American society in general, for six decades. Kaiser achieves remarkable coherence and comprehensiveness; highly recommended for all gay/lesbian studies and American history collections.
-?Richard Violette, Social Law Lib., Boston