It depicts the adventures of Malone, a beautiful young man searching for love amid New York's emerging gay scene. From Manhattan's Everard Baths and after-hours discos to Fire Island's deserted parks and lavish orgies, Malone looks high and low for meaningful companionship. The person he finds is Sutherland, a campy quintessential queen -- and one of the most memorable literary creations of contemporary fiction. Hilarious, witty, and ultimately heartbreaking, Dancer from the Dance is truthful, provocative, outrageous fiction told in a voice as close to laughter as to tears.

    . . . No one is writing better or more needed verse than this."--Boston Evening Globe

    As heir apparent to Love Hall, he must produce an heir of his own; but his obsessive love for his long-dead sister has rendered him a paralytic in matters of the heart. Adding to Geoffroy's troubles is his difficult mother, Lady Loveall, who mercilessly castigates her effeminate son, and a circling mob of greedy relatives anxious to wrest Love Hall from his grasp.Then, a miracle occurs. As his carriage passes a trash dump, Geoffroy spies an abandoned baby in the jaws of a cur. He saves the child, names her Rose, and declares her his rightful heir. The shock fells Lady Loveall on the spot, and Rose becomes the pampered daughter of Lord Loveall and his bride of convenience, the resident librarian Anonyma. This joyful period lasts until Rose's adolescence, when it becomes increasingly difficult to hide the one great secret of Love Hall: namely, that Rose, now in the position of fending off suitors for her titled hand, is in fact a boy. Rose's whiskers, deepening voice, and affection for the daughter of a courtier have not gone unnoticed. Armed with the new revelation, the Loveall's unscrupulous relatives launch a coup, and a desperately confused Rose is cast adrift -- until he finds the renewed vitality that comes from the love of true family and realizes that he can and must go home.

    Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, these superb stories share Vonnegut’s audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision.Alternative cover edition here

    Most importantly, Joanna Russ's THE FEMALE MAN is a suspenseful, surprising and darkly witty chronicle of what happens when Jeannine, Janet, Joanna, and Jael—four alternative selves from drastically different realities—meet.