THE LONG CONVERSATION

In 1962, Warhol had a show at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angles; it was his first solo show. It was at this exhibition that he showed his 32 Soup Cans. It turned out to be the event that launched Warhol into the stratosphere of art celebrity, whence he never descended. The reactions to this show were immediate and they ran the gamut from incredulity to outrage. This was something new and, some thought, something dangerous and threatening. The poet Taylor Mead described the exhibition as "a brilliant slap in the face of America." The Warhol show was an early signal event that would mark the cultural transformation of the 1960s. In this bold gesture, Warhol collapsed the distinction between high and low art and culture and created a radically new aesthetic.

Indiana recounts the times--the exhilaration and controversy surrounding the Pop Art Revolution, as well as the character of the brilliant, tormented and profoundly narcissistic figure at its vanguard.

ANDY WARHOL AND THE CAN THAT SOLD THE WORLD is a hardcover from Basic Books, $22.00

DAVID LEDDICK and HERIBERTO SANCHEZ have assembled an intriguing book, ESCORTS: 40 PROFILES WITH PHOTOGRAPHS OF MEN WHO SELL SEX. The photography is by DAVID VANCE. The forty gentlemen interviewed all advertise their services on web sites. Leddick and Sanchez went through web and magazine ads, contacted them, asked them to lunch, did the interview; after the interview, Vance would photograph them. The escorts would receive copies of the photos and all were paid a courtesy fee.

These are men of varying ages, different backgrounds and each with his own take on escorting--some like it and make a living out of it, others are part-time, even others are ambivalent but feel they're stuck with it. This is a very attractive publication and the content of the interviews is informative. And, needless to say, the men are good-looking.

ESCORT is a slightly oversized trade paperback, published by White Lake Press, $29.95

Casement found out that nearly 30,000 Indians had died to produce four thousand tons of rubber. Casement was awarded a knighthood in 1911. In 1912, his 700-page report was published. People were appalled.  Arana's company went into liquidation and those associated with it were shamed.

This is the story of JORDAN GOODMAN's new book, THE DEVIL AND MR. CASEMENT: ONE MAN'S BATTLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN SOUTH AMERICA'S HEART OF DARKNESS. By 1914, Casement, an Irishman, dedicated himself exclusively to the cause of Irish independence. As a result of these activities, Casement was arrested and charged by the British, found guilty of a high crime and executed.

THE DEVIL AND MR. CASEMENT is a hardcover from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It includes photographs, notes, a bibliography and an index, $30.00

Back in print is the TRIAL OF SIR ROGER CASEMENT (1917). Originally published in 1917, after the execution of Casement, this book includes the legal documents related to the trial, edited by GEORGE H. KNOTT. This is a trade paperback from the Kessinger Publishing Legacy Reprint line, $33.95

MOMMY, MAMA, AND ME

It is published in trade paperback by Tricycle Press, $7.99

In their introduction, the editors write: "This anthology is a reminder of poets who didn't write us enough poems. But the book is also, we hope, a heartening tribute. We present it as an appreciation of poets who spoke with arresting power and originality, often in dire circumstances."

The work of forty-five poets is included. Among them are: Steve Abbott, Reinaldo Arenas,  William Barber, Joe Brainard, Sam D'Allesandro, Tory Dent, Melvin Dixon, Chasen Gaver, Essex Hemphill, Leland Hickman,  Paul Mariah, James Merrill, Cookie Mueller, Richard Ronan, Assotto Saint, George Whitmore and others.

PERSISTENT VOICES is a trade paperback from Alyson Books, $15.95

One of the most extraordinary cults of youth and frivolity--after the nightmare of The Great War--London's Bright Young People were a pleasure-seeking band of bohemian party-givers and blue-blooded socialites whose romps were staples of the gossip columns in the 1920s.

Taylor draws on the writings of members of this cohort, tracking some to spectacular success and some to pathetic failure.

BRIGHT YOUNG PEOPLE is a trade paperback from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It includes black and white photographs, an appendix, notes and an index, $17.00

Davies references the extensive commentary about TRASH over these pasty forty years--who knew? The story line is pretty simple: a junkie is trying to score some powder. But that's just the opening plot point. It's a low budget comedy, of course, and of its time and racy and a little bit scary. And being downtown art, it has a sweet Mom-and-Pop quality to it, well, perhaps, more los olvidados than Mom-and-Pop.

There are black and white photos from the film throughout. TRASH is a trade paperback from Arsenal Pulp Press, $15.95

But it is also a summer of rumors and strange occurrences in the surrounding countryside. There are romantic triangles and spurned lovers. Tempers flare, much drama, then all was over. By summer's end, though, one young man was dead and another haunted for life.

Jonathan wants to start anew but he sees the ghost of his friend everywhere he looks.

LOVER'S KNOT is a trade paperback, $13.95

CHARLES CAPPER is Professor of History at Boston University. He has written two comprehensive books about the life of Margaret Fuller. His first volume won the Bancroft Prize.

The second volume is MARGARET FULLER: AN AMERICAN ROMANTIC LIFE: THE PUBLIC YEARS. This covers the last ten years of Fuller's life, from 1840 to 1850. Capper gives a full portrait of the Concord community and Fuller's relationships with all the residents. He covers in depth, her time as editor of THE DIAL. Then Brook Farm. Her lecture series, including the famous one at the bookshop owned by Elizabeth Peabody. In 1845, her book, WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, was published. It is still in print.

Then Fuller was off to Europe. England and then the Continent. In Italy in 1848 for the revolution. There she met the man who would be her husband and the father of her only child. Fuller, along with others, covered the revolutions for the New York Tribune. She also wrote a massive book about the events during that revolutionary year. And then, on her ship with her spouse, child and manuscript, as they approached the New York harbor, the storm, the smash up of the craft on the south shore of Fire Island and then gone. Emerson asked Thoreau to go down to Fire Island to see if he could find anything remaing. Thoreau went; found nothing. Think what Fuller would have become if she had lived as long as Elizabeth Peabody!

MARGARET FULLER: THE PUBLIC YEARS is a trade paperback from Oxford University Press.  It includes black and white photos, extensive notes and an index, $29.95

TOM CARDAMONE was the editor for THE LOST LIBRARY: GAY FICTION REDISCOVERED. Cardamone recruited over two dozen male authors to contribute a meditation on a one single work of fiction by a gay male author, defining why each novelist has made a singular contribution.

Cardamone writes in his introduction: "This collection, meant to entice new readers and encourage publishers to bring back a few forgotten classics, is more the start of a conversation than the final word. We have to keep sharing our memories and discoveries and in doing so broaden the definition and diversity of the gay text.

Included are essays by: Paul Russell on SAUL'S BOOK (Paul Rogers); Jerry Rosco on THE APPLE OF THE EYE (Glenway Wescott); Jesse Monteagudo on SOMETHING YOU DO IN THE DARK (Daniel Curzon); Christopher Bram on THE BODY AND ITS DANGERS (Allen Barnett); and others.

THE LOST LIBRARY is a trade paperback from Haiduk Press, $19.00

Spring Pick

JAMES LORD was a noted critic and memoirist. He died in 2009. This spring sees the publication of his last book, MY QUEER WAR.

In 1942, he was 21 and he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was shipped about the USA, then off to England, France and Germany. After the war in Europe is over, he's back in Paris and winds up on the doorstep of Pablo Picasso, where he is warmly welcomed. Gertrude Stein is also on his dance card. Sometime during the war, he comes to understand he is of the same-sex persuasion and he finds his opportunities.

This is a remarkable book, quite unlike anything else from wartime literature. I highly recommend it.

MY QUEER WAR has just been published in hardcover by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. $27.00

Recently seen
at Calamus Bookstore

A visit from David Plante

My dear friend, David Plante, dropped by the other day. He was in town, meeting with his publisher, developing his new project. I have known Plante since 1965. His first novel, THE GHOST OF HENRY JAMES, was published in 1969. He has published many books in the last forty years. He's finished teaching at Columbia and is moving back to London. David, who seems to have met everyone in the world of arts and literature, is very modest with his gossip. Though he did tell me that Claire Bloom, a friend of his, had told him that she and Gore Vidal had seriously thought about getting married. Bloom had marriages to Rod Steiger and Philip Roth--perhaps Gore would have been a refreshing change. Of course, it never came to pass.

David Plante's latest book is THE PURE LOVER: A MEMOIR OF GRIEF, a hardcover from Beacon Press, $23.00

K.M. Soehlein read from
ROBIN AND RUBY

K. M. SOEHNLEIN, author of THE WORLD OF NORMAL BOYS and YOU CAN SAY YOU KNEW ME WHEN, has a new book.

In his previous award winning bestseller THE WORLD OF NORMAL BOYS, K.M. Soehnlein introduced readers to the richly compelling voice of teenager Robin MacKenzie. In ROBIN AND RUBY he visits Robin and his younger sister, masterfully depicting the turbulence of the mid-1980s and that fleeting time between youth and adulthood--when everything we will become can be shaped by one unforgettable weekend.

We have signed copies of ROBIN AND RUBY, $24.00

Meet the Author

Phillip Gambone reads from
TRAVELS IN A GAY NATION
at Calamus Bookstore
Friday, June 25 at 7:00 PM

For two years, Philip Gambone traveled the length and breadth of the United States, talking candidly with LGBTQ people about their lives. In addition to interviews with David Sedaris, George Takei, Barney Frank, and Tammy Baldwin, Travels in a Gay Nation brings us lesser-known voices—a retired Naval officer, a transgender scholar and “drag king,” a Princeton philosopher, two opera sopranos who happen to be lovers, an indie rock musician, the founder of a gay frat house, and a pair of Vermont garden designers.

In this age when contemporary gay America is still coming under attack, Gambone captures the humanity of each individual. For some, their identity as a sexual minority is crucial to their life’s work; for others, it has been less so, perhaps even irrelevant. But, whether splashy or quiet, center-stage or behind the scenes, Gambone’s subjects have managed—despite facing ignorance, fear, hatred, intolerance, injustice, violence, ridicule, or just plain indifference— to construct passionate, inspiring lives.

“By asking good questions and really listening, Philip Gambone opens an illuminating window into the minds, hearts, and guts of a fabulous array of extraordinary Americans. At this critical time in America’s decades-long movement toward LGBTQ equality, you really shouldn’t miss this view.” —Will Fellows, author of Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest

Philip Gambone teaches English at Boston University Academy and at the Harvard Extension School. An award-winning essayist, journalist, and fiction writer, he is author of Something Inside: Conversations with Gay Fiction Writers and Beijing: A Novel, both published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

TRAVELS IN A GAY NATION has just been published in trade paperback, $26.95