Best of
Queer

1990

Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black


Cookie Mueller - 1990
    The echoes of her passionate commitments will ring in your ears. It is a tragedy to have lost her. Fortunately, along with the memories, she left us this marvellous testament to her intrepid zest for living.

Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color


Gloria E. Anzaldúa - 1990
    New thought and new dialogue: a book that will teach in the most multiple sense of that word: a book that will be of lasting value to many diverse communities of women as well as to students from those communities. The authors explore a full spectrum of present concerns in over seventy pieces that vary from writing by new talents to published pieces by Audre Lorde, Joy Harjo, Norma Alarcón and Trinh T. Minh-ha."At one level or another, all the work in the collection seeks to find ways to understand and articulate our multiple identities and senses of place….Making Face/Making Soul is an exciting collection of dynamic, important writings that all women of color and white feminists will learn from, enjoy, and return to again and again and again."—Sojourner"...the pieces are stunning in what they risk and reveal..."—The San Francisco Chronicle

Back to Barbary Lane: The Tales of the City Omnibus


Armistead Maupin - 1990
    No matter what Maupin writes next, he can look back on the rare achievement of having built a little world and made it run.”—Walter Kendrick, Village Voice Literary Supplement Armistead Maupin's uproarious and moving Tales of the City novels have earned a unique niche in American literature and are considered indelible documents of cultural change from the seventies through the first two decades of the new millennium.  The nine classic comedies, some of which originally appeared as serials in San Francisco newspapers, have won Maupin critical acclaim around the world and enthralled legions of devoted fans.Back to Barbary Lane comprises the second omnibus of the series—Babycakes (1984), Significant Others (1987), and Sure of You (1989)—continuing the saga of the tenants, past and present, of Mrs. Madrigal's beloved apartment house on Russian Hill. While the first trilogy celebrated the carefree excesses of the seventies, this volume tracks its hapless, all-too-human cast across the eighties—a decade troubled by plague, deceit, and overweening ambition.Like its companion volumes, 28 Barbary Lane and Goodbye, Barbary Lane, Back to Barbary Lane is distinguished by what The Guardian of London has called "some of the sharpest and most speakable dialogue you are ever likely to read."

Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two


Allan Bérubé - 1990
    Here is a dramatic story of these people, revealing the history of the anti-gay policy pursued by the U.S. military authorities in World War II. Two 8-page photo inserts.

Death by the Riverside


J.M. Redmann - 1990
    The trail leads to the Hundred Oaks Plantation, a transvestite named Eddie, a beautiful doctor named Cordelia, and memories Micky thought she had buried twenty years ago.Hard-hitting prose in the style of Sam Spade and Mike Hammer with a lesbian twist.The First Micky Knight Mystery

Epistemology of the Closet


Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick - 1990
    What is at stake in male homo/heterosexual definition? Through readings of Melville, Nietzsche, Wilde, James and Proust, the author argues that the vexed imperatives to specify straight and gay identities have become central to every important form of knowledge of the 20th century.

In the Western Night: Collected Poems, 1965-1990


Frank Bidart - 1990
    In the Western Night brings together in one volume all of the poems to date, including many previously unpublished poems, of one of the most exciting and gifted poets writing today.

The Art Lover


Carole Maso - 1990
    Caroline, the novel's protagonist, returns to New York after the death of her father ostensibly to wrap things up and take care of necessary "business" where her memory and imagination conspire to lay before her all her griefs and joys in a rebellious progression. In different voices, employing a collage-like fragmentation, Maso gently unfolds The Art Lover in much the same way the fragile and prehistoric fiddlehead fern unfolds throughout the novel, bringing with subtle grace the ever-entangled feelings of grief and love into full and tender view. Various illustrations throughout.

No Language Is Neutral


Dionne Brand - 1990
    As a woman, a black, and a lesbian, Brand arrives at a rigorous and nakedly ruthless reclamation of the poetic.

Collected Poems


Edwin Morgan - 1990
    The poet's transforming imagination is democratic, generous, and inclusive. Even the sonnet form becomes a new experiment for a poet of questing and anarchic vision, unwilling to rest on rules. This volume includes "Poems of Thirty Years," "Themes on a Variation," and some 50 uncollected poems from 1939 to 1982.

Crime Against Nature: Poetry


Minnie Bruce Pratt - 1990
    Stunning work designated prestigious 1989 Inmont Poetry Selection by the Academy of American Poets.

Touchwood


Karin Kallmaker - 1990
    She meets book store owner Louisa Thatcher, a woman many years her senior, who offers shelter and work... and soon, passion, and a loving place in her life.But Rayann encounters challenges to this new love—from friends who question its wisdom, from her mother who disapproves of this liaison with a woman her own contemporary, from Louisa's son who learns for the first time his mother's true sexuality.And there are profound differences between Rayann and Louisa themselves, two women who come from dramatically different places in the spectrum of age and life experience. Their only common ground seems to be the searing attraction that they both try to deny...Originally published by Naiad Press 1991. Second Bella Books edition 2012.

Queers Read This


Anonymous - 1990
    A leaflet distributed at pride march in NYPublished anonymously by QueersJune, 1990

The Spring Flowers Own & The Manifestations Of The Voyage


Etel Adnan - 1990
    "With this book of poems Etel Adnan establishes herself as a major poet who belongs beside internationally acclaimed poets like Transtromer, Bly, Neruda, Vallejo, and Pessoa." Eric Sellin"

Bedrooms Have Windows


Kevin Killian - 1990
    

The Fire's Stone


Tanya Huff - 1990
    Clan Heir, he has fled his people when his beloved was slain by his own father's command, abandoning his training, duty and beliefs to become a thief. A master of his trade, he now dared the odds in Ischia, city of the volcano, where the price of being caught was death.DARVISH. Prince of Ischia, third son of a king who had no intention of giving up his throne. The prince was a drunkard, a lover, and a wastrel, yet was gifted with sword skills and with the ability to charm all around him. But not even his charm could free him from the political marriage now being planned.CHANDRA. Born a princess, she had chosen to become a Wizard of the Nine, that rarest of beings, able to master all the forms that sorcery could take. Now, promised as Darvish's bride, she undertook a desperate journey to Ischia to convince him they must not wed.Aaron, Darvish, Chandra—three strangers whose fates were about to become interwined. For someone had stolen The Stone, the magical talisman which stood between Ischia and the volcano's wrath. And unless the three could learn to work together on a quest to find the Stone, Ischia would drown in a sea of lava.

Bear Pond


Bruce Weber - 1990
    Cream linen cloth boards with titles embossed on cover and spine in white. 9 page poem by Reynolds Price. Over 100 rich gravure photographic plates. Widely regarded as the photographer’s finest work, and surely his most celebrated book. A “must-have” title for Bruce Weber collectors.

Inside Memory: Pages from a Writer's Workbook


Timothy Findley - 1990
    Pilgrim, hisnewest and most ambitious novel yet, has gone like a bullet to the upperechelons of all the Canadian lists. Findley fans are out in full force, and manywill be looking for another Findley fix. Inside Memory: Pages from a Writer’sNotebook will satisfy the craving with equally wonderful doses of memories,love and laughter.Now repackaged in the popular new PerennialCanada imprint, InsideMemory invites the reader to share Findley’s life and work. Drawing fromhis personal journal entries and eclectic reflections, recollections and even anout-take from one of his early novels, the award-winning author shares hisextraordinary life with his readers.From his early days as an actor in London’s West End, through to histransition to a writer, Findley entertains with the fascinating people and reallife settings that have shaped his life. At the same time, he reveals thecreative landscape of his mind and his work, a journey that shows how memoryinforms and infuses every aspect of his books. Above all, Findley tells greatstories, showing once again that he is a true master of his craft.

Don't Be Afraid Anymore: The Story of Reverend Troy D. Perry and the Metropolitan Community Churches


Troy D. Perry - 1990
    But, for Troy Perry, excommunicated from the Church of God because of his homosexuality, this achievement has been marked by a struggle against adversity. Here is his inspiring story. Photographs.

Dancing on Tisha B'Av


Lev Raphael - 1990
    Whether bearing witness to the Holocaust and its aftermath, dealing with conflicts between being gay and traditional Judaism, or confronting anti-Semitism and homophobia, these passionate stories by a prize-winning author break new ground in contemporary fiction.

Between the Acts: Lives of Homosexual Men 1885-1967


Jeffrey Weeks - 1990
    They can also be rich and passionate, at times lonely, at times exciting. Between the Acts reflects this in the life stories of fifteen gay men in the years when homosexual acts were illegal in the United Kingdom.The interviews give a vivid impression of gay male life when documentary evidence is limited. These memories and experiences allow us exceptional insights into how gay men made sense of their needs and desires, and fashioned for themselves manageable personal and social identities. These moving accounts of individual quests for identity and community will appeal to gay readers and to those with an interest in life during the earlier part of this century.

The Coward Does it with a Kiss


Rohase Piercy - 1990
    She and her husband are never to meet again. Reading through the diaries in which she recorded her thoughts, feelings and reactions throughout their marriage, she writes an extended letter to Oscar in which she tries to make sense of their shared past, examines the truths and deceptions of their relationship, and searches desperately for insight into her own motivations and identity.Drawing on the recorded facts of the Wildes' time together and their final years of separate self-imposed exile, Rohase Piercy has recreated the story of their relationship from Constance's viewpoint. This is the memoir Constance Wilde might have written, a moving testimony to a love that was inevitably doomed.

The Safe Sea of Women: Lesbian Fiction 1969-1989


Bonnie Zimmerman - 1990
    A collection of essays about lesbian literature since the emergence of the gay rights movement in 1969.

Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions


Karla Jay - 1990
    This book is the first anthology to discuss the subject of lesbianism as it relates to the critical interaction among readers, writers, and literary critics. It explores lesbian texts in terms of identification, meaning, and interpretation, and examines the complex entanglements of identity, voice, intersubjectivity, textualities, and sexualities. A wonderful exploration of the varieties of life choices lesbians can and do make. This book once again proves that telling the truth aboutyourself is a revolutionary act.--Rita Mae Brown They will probably drum Karla Jay and Joanne Glasgow out of the academy for this one...A college text that is witty, literate, interesting, and can be read for fun. What's the world coming to? Lesbian Texts and Contexts: dry title, wonderful book.--Barbara Grier, Editor Naiad Press To call this collection much-needed or eagerly awaited would be the understatement of the year. It's thrilling ot think of the new readings of classic texts, the new directions for theory, and--maybe best of all--the new range of literary encounters in the classroom, that will be enabled by this radical intervention on the critical scene.--Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Duke University Excellent, ...challenging, sexy, ...never boring.--Outweek.

Telling It: Women and Language Across Cultures


Lee Maracle - 1990
    Racism, cultural appropriation, and homophobia are addressed by prominent Asian-Canadian, Native and lesbian writers, including Joy Kogawa, Lee Maracle, Betsy Warland, Sky Lee, Jeanette Armstrong, Barbara Herringer, and Louise Profeit-LeBlanc.

Gossamer Axe


Gael Baudino - 1990
    Chairiste alone managed to escape, and now, living in the modern world as Christa Cruitaire, a quiet harp teacher, she is all but resigned to her inability to win her beloved’s freedom . . . until she discovers that the volume and violence of the electric guitar and heavy metal might prove brutal enough to forcibly breach the barriers between the human and fairy worlds. With the aid of her bandmates—who must themselves overcome inner demons of abuse, addiction, and prejudice—Christa is determined to use her newfound musical power to rescue the woman she loves.Audacious and heartfelt, Gossamer Axe is an entirely original hero’s journey, an ode to the power of music and the human spirit alike, charged with rapier-sharp social commentary.

Inventing AIDS


Cindy Patton - 1990
    She shows how rigid scientific beliefs foster inadequate and discriminatory educational practices, and considers the effects of scientific information on the formulation of public health policies and political strategies.

The Way We Live Now: American Plays and the AIDS Crisis


M. Elizabeth OsbornPaula Vogel - 1990
    Full of grief and love, the plays included in this anthology confront this emotional issue personally and passionately. Alive on the page as well as the theatre, they show us this tragedy of our times.

Men's Dreams, Men's Healing


Robert H. Hopcke - 1990
    In "Men's Dreams, Men's Healing", Robert Hopcke has framed masculine psychology within the dreams of two men, one homosexual one hetrosexual. In sharing his encounters with these men over years of dreamwork and therapy, Hopcke spotlights several recurrent themes in the suffering and redemption of modern man's inner masculinity which includes the lack of even minimal feeling awareness and the fear of intimacy among modern men, issues of authority, the heterosexual male's "inner feminine" and the homosexual male's "inner masculine" as well as the experience of fatherhood. Drawing on the work of Jung, Greek myths and Christian symbolism Hopcke uses the inner journeys of these two men to move the reader toward a new understanding of what it means to be a man in contemporary society.