5 Giftable Books for the Holidays

Here are Five Giftable Books (In no particular order):

1. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel. Mariner Books. (Paperback.) Ideal stocking-stuffer. What's not to love? Alison Bechdel, creator of Dykes to Watch Out For, pens a memoir about her life with a father who was probably queer and maybe a child molester, but he never quite talked about it. The backdrop is a funeral home. And it's written as a graphic novel. This is an exceptional work. It is a sincere attempt by Alison Bechdel to understand her father. I strongly recommend this book.
2. Hollywood at Home by Architectural Digest, Gerald Clarke, Paige Rense. Abrams. (Hardcover.) Ignore the tacky John Travolta Florida home on the cover. This is the ideal coffee table book for the queer on your list. Probably worth the price for the Cary Grant/Randolph Scott photos alone. (Only Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon photos do more to reinforce the queer Cary Grant theory.) Also: Gorgeous photos of queer icon/reactionary Katharine (Or is it Kate?) Hepburn's house. Add in one of Judy Garland's houses and some fabulously campy photos of Jayne Mansfield's fantasy bedroom--red leather walls and all. Trust me on this.
3. Cary Grant: The Biography by Marc Eliot. Aurum Press. (Paperback.) Some biographies seem to inhabit their subject--such as William Mann's almost-miraculous Kate. Other biographies are written more like legal arguments. Mr. Eliot's Cary Grant is a biography of the latter variety. It is also very good. At times Mr. Eliot plays the attorney for the prosecution--carefully dissecting Cary Grant's complex relationship with J. Edgar Hoover, but just as often he steps in as the lawyer for the defense. For whatever faults he might have had, Cary Grant is presented as a sympathetic figure. A man who literally started out with nothing and ended up leaving roughly seventy million dollars to his survivors. A man haunted by a horrible childhood. A man who explored his own identity through many therapeutic sessions with LSD. In the end, Mr. Grant comes across as something that is now so rare in our society it has become hard to define: a gentleman.
4. The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Wilson by Robert Hofler. Carrol and Graf. (Paperback.) Mr. Hofler accurately portrays the slightly sleazy life of the agent who brought us not only Rock Hudson, but also Tab Hunter, Troy Donahue and Robert Wagner. And Henry Wilson didn't just represent these icons; he created them--giving them new personaes and (usually) new names. (Of all these clients, only Robert Wagner kept his original name.) It's a dirty world that Mr. Hofler re-creates. He also puts it all in context--illustrating how heterosexual agents and studio heads continously used their positions to sexually harass women. For example, he points out that Daryl Zanuck had a room off his office for "auditioning" the female talent. If Henry Wilson was sleazy, his sleaziness paled in comparison with the boys who really ran Hollywood. In the end, Henry Wilson represents a parenthesis in film history. But this parenthesis is juicy.
5. Ridiculous! The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam by David Kaufman. Applause Books. (Paperback.) Probably the most difficult biography in the world to write is the biography of a stage personality. Without a film record, the reader must enter into the subject's world cold. How can we, for example, know the magic of Sarah Bernhardt or Nell Gwynn? Whose account can we turn to? And how accurate will that account be? The theatre is perhaps the most subjective of all the arts (ironic because the experience is collective). So how do you show (not just tell) the story of Charles Ludlam: the theatrical phenomenon of the Ridiculous Theatre Company in Sheridan Square? A man who died of AIDS at the age of forty-four just a few months before he was scheduled to make his debut on Broadway? David Kaufman does not appear to possess a magic wand. Nor does he demonstrate any supernatural powers. Instead, he just works hard--interviewing seemingly everyone involved in the, at times, rag tag productions Charles Ludlam pushed through. The effect is an incomplete mosaic. Incomplete because Mr. Ludlam's life was arbitrarily ended by AIDS. No, Mr. Kaufman's book does not have a happy ending. But it it is story that needed to be told.

Sad News: Alan Berube 1946-2007

In this week's Gay City News Paul Schindler reports that the great queer historian Alan Berube died on Tuesday. Mr. Berube was a fine writer and a brave man. He wrote about about bravery in his classic book, Coming out Under Fire. And he himself was a courageous activist--against the Vietnam War and for LGBT rights. How sad.

Today is World AIDS Day. (Don't say: Happy World AIDS Day.) 7,000 Africans will die of AIDS today. Read this book:

When did you stop caring about AIDS? I mean, really caring about AIDS? Was it around the time the "cocktail" started saving lives? Or maybe shortly after you tested negative for the virus? Are you old enough to remember a time when ACT-UP meetings were literally filled to capacity--standing room only? Remember how people said they wouldn't stop fighting until a cure was found? And until everyone had access to this cure? Do you remember chanting that slogan: "Health care is a right"? Let's face it, the gay community has stopped caring about AIDS. It's almost as though we don't want to be associated with it. Because AIDS turns sex upside down--making sex a potentially deadly act. For thousands of years gay sex has been labelled "sinful" partially because it is a non-reproductive act--the only reason to do it is to have fun. The popularity of birth control rendered this argument moot. It is a bitter irony that at this point in history AIDS arrived on the scene. Thus a new argument was formed: Gay = AIDS; AIDS= Death. Then came the "cocktail" and gradually the condoms disappeared from the bars, information about safe sex became much harder to find. Gays stopped talking about AIDS. Politicians stopped talking about AIDS. Will and Grace never once mentioned AIDS. Admit it. You are just a bit bummed that a heterosexual geek like Bill Gates is doing a lot more about AIDS now than you are. Or anyone you know. Or anyone who knows anyone you know. You probably have been following the cast changes for The Color Purple a lot closer than you've been following the AIDS crisis in Africa. It's time to smarten up. And the woman who will help you is named Nicole Itano. She spent five years in Southern Africa so you could better understand what is going on there. Ms. Itano's writing style is flawless. I don't know when I have read a more technically correct manuscript. She writes from her heart and she isn't afraid of getting too involved. She occassionally finds herself giving people food and even money. She's passionate. And in her own quiet way an activist. The Africa she projects isn't Born Free. This part of Southern Africa--Lesotho--is literally dirt poor. Food is cooked on a fire lit against a wall on the outside of the house. More affluent families have propane cookers inside. Luxury is Kentucky Fried Chicken. It is shockingly sad that this deprived area--an apartheid era creation--should be so badly hit by the AIDS crisis. Ms. Itano describes in detail the one sector of the economy that by the year 2004 was booming: the funeral industry. And yet for all the despair, this is a surprisingly hopeful book. The Gates Foundation and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are making visible progress. No one can deny that people with AIDS in Lesotho have far more treatment options than they did--say--four years ago. But the crisis that Ms. Itano describes won't be entirely over until health care is a right. Remember that slogan?

Nicole Itano's

No Place Left to Bury the Dead

is published by Atria Books.