I recall, years back, when reading John Malcolm Brinnan's book on Gertrude Stein, THE THIRD ROSE, he came to the years when Gertrude and Alice were stuck, for the years of WWII, in Nazi-dominated Vichy France. Brinnan glided over the years with the comment, and I paraphrase, very little is known about what happened to the ladies during this episode.

The question is: how did two ex-pat American Jewish lesbians survive when Vichy and the occupiers were shipping people off to the concentration camps? This is the primary question--but there are many others--that JANET MALCOLM sets out to answer in her new book, TWO LIVES: GERTRUDE AND ALICE.

The Stein field has been pretty well mined. Malcolm finds new gems. Stein and Toklas were a couple for forty years. They were in France for both World Wars. Theirs was not a marriage without rough patches. Gertrude was lordly; Alice was the gate-keeper and the worker bee. Some of their fights were spectacular. Malcolm is good on Gertrude's early years in Paris, her diary wherein she makes catty remarks about other women in her circle--even Alice--and then the making of THE MAKING OF AMERICANS, on which Malcolm is probing and perceptive.

This is an attractively designed book and the joy of reading it comes from not just the wealth of new material but Malcolm's sage judgment. TWO LIVES is a hardcover from Yale University Press, $25.00

At any rate, it is assumed that  THE THIRD SEX is his own. This book is a vivid description of the world of European homosexuality in France, Italy and Germany in the late 1920s. Willy follows gay nightlife into music halls, nightclubs, casinos, bars and saunas. He finds lots of drugs and alcohol. He also finds publishers, scientific societies, group rivalries and lots of opinions--both medical and political, that ongoing story--about the state of homosexuals and their future. This is a short book, 138 pages, 38 pages of which are notes (very informative).

THE THIRD SEX is a hardcover from The University of Illinois Press, $35.00

The narrator of this story is a 27-year-old ex-Goth, ex-drummer, ex-straight girl, ex-lesbian separatist vegan graduate of a vocational school in the working class town of Chelsea, Mass. Semiotexte was the original publisher of this novel; their new edition includes critical essays by BRANDON STOSUY and EILEEN MYLES.

THE PASSIONATE MISTAKES is a trade paperback, $14.95

Ross Pretty's former lover and top-level secret agent, Bradford Fairfax, shows up in Provincetown. Fairfax thinks it was a homicide. At first, he's sure the malefactor is Hayden Rosengarten, a well-to-do, if slightly sleazy, businessman. But then Hayden turns up dead. And Hayden's not the last to take the powder. It's a dark time in a gay town. Compounding the intrigue is that Fairfax has to crash the plot to assassinate the Dalai Lama. Round is also author of A CAGE OF BONES.

THE P'TOWN MURDERS is a trade paperback from Harrington Park Press, $14.95

His story begins in 1913. G.H. Hardy, regarded as the greatest British mathematician of his age, receives some correspondence covered with Indian stamps. Inside is a rambling letter from a self-proclaimed math genius who announces that he is on the brink of solving the most important unsolved math problem of all time.

Hardy's friends dismiss it as a hoax, but Hardy takes it seriously. He wants to learn more about his correspondent, Srinivasa Ramanujan. A young don is about to set out for Madras with his wife. Hardy asks him to check out Ramanujan and persuade him to come to Cambridge. This decision profoundly effects Hardy's own life and that of his friends, also the history of mathematics.

Leavitt based this novel on a true story, set in an England where we meet D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and others. A novel of ideas wrapped in emotional and spellbinding storytelling, Leavitt's latest novel is a daring and ambitious work.

THE INDIAN CLERK is a hardcover from Bloomsbury, $24.95

Q-FAQ is a trade paperback from Harrington Park Press, $12.95

Nelson Kunker feels trapped in his job. He is a script supervisor on a low-rated late-night sketch TV show. His life in LA is on hiatus; he can't finish his novel. He is sans boyfriend at the age of 34 and wonders if he really has any talent.

Enter Roy Briggs, who is visiting from Alaska. Roy's a part-time salmon fisherman and a full-time archaeology student. Nelson tries to engage Roy in small talk about stories of bowhead whales. Turns out they both groove on this jive and suspect they might be soul mates. But it's not really his soul Nelson is worried about. When he meets the guest host of the TV show, it's more flesh than spirit. The temp host is Dylan Fabizak, a bookish movie star, just paroled after a media-drenched drug bust.

Cut to Roy's place in Alaska where we find all three men. Nelson goes salmon fishing and comes to identify with a species that overcomes just about all hurdles to find love. Smith has written a smart and funny novel.

Signed copies are available

SELFISH & PERVERSE is a hardcover from Carroll & Graf, $26.00

This book explores that North Star of so many gay men's lives--what it is that gay men find attractive in other men and why? What's the mix between nature and nurture? How much is fashion; how much is hard-wired? Bergling examines steroid use, body image disorders, gym culture, Internet hookups, obsession, stalking, porn and other areas of activity that can makes guys a little crazy when they meet someone who captures their fancy. This is a meditation on how gay society objectifies the male body.

Bergling is also the author of SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR as well as REELING IN THE YEARS: GAY MEN'S PERSPECTIVES ON AGE AND AGEISM.

CHASING ADONIS is a trade paperback from Harrington Park Press, $16.95

In SEX AND THE SACRED explores how ease with sexual nature is essential to spiritual sensitivity. He reveals the spiritual dimension of human sexuality in a way that is free of religious affiliation but fully open to traditional religion and belief in God. He offers inspiration to cherish the physical as a gateway to spiritual experience. While specifically addressing issues of the GLBT community, Helminiak treats universal themes such as coming out, sexual self-acceptance, marriage, homophobia and sexual ethics.

SEX AND THE SACRED is a trade paperback from Harrington Park Press, $16.95

Each page has two columns, each separate texts. The left column is, in fact, a meditation of hotels and their meaning, quoting from literary and historical texts. The right column is a "dime novel" titled HOTEL WOMEN, a melodrama featuring characters called Lana Turner and Liberace. Just as Koestenbaum created a dizzying surreal feel in his book about Jackie Kennedy (JACKIE UNDER MY SKIN), he succeeds in HOTEL THEORY with creating a roller coaster effect, swoops and dives, amusement park giddiness--but with brains!

HOTEL THEORY is published in paperback by Soft Skull Press, $16.00

MOVIE NEWS!

HOLLYWOOD COMES TO SOUTH STREET

On Monday, September 17th,  the Hollywood production company filming the latest remake of THE WOMEN took over South Street. Directed by Diane English, and starring Meg Ryan, Candace Bergen, Annette Benning and others, the movie has been shooting around Boston for several weeks. And then, boom, right on my doorstep. The filming killed business on the street but it was fascinating to watch. Dear Meg Ryan did her one scene over and over again--Ms. Ryan looked very thin, even for screen standards. I didn't get to see Candace Bergen, but I did go up to Ms. English, during a break in the filming, and I introduced myself and thanked her for every minute of MURPHY BROWN, which she conceived, produced and, I think, occasionally wrote.