Men on Men 7: Best New Gay Fiction - Softcover

Various

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452277345 ISBN 13: 9780452277342

Publisher: Plume, 1998

Synopsis

This extraordinary collection of gay fiction builds on the six previous volumes in the series, which is firmly established throughout the literary world as the cornerstone of America's gay literary tradition. The stories in this seventh edition are diverse, culled from the talents of established authors such as Andrew Holleran, Felice Picano, and Allen Ellenzwaig, as well as from the work of new young writers.

There are new themes in this seventh edition: more stories deal with the working class milieu and address class issues and insecurities; relationships between gay men and lesbian women are portrayed, as is the impact of the media on gay life; and more of these stories are unabashedly sexually explicit than in previous collections. Bergman's collection once again reflects the continuing vitality of gay literature and attests to its ability to confront the challenges of our times.

About this title

About the Author

David Bergman is a Professor of English at Towson State University, and is the author of Gaiety Transfigured: Gay Representation in American Literature and the editor of Camp Grounds: Style and Homosexuality. Bergman has published poetry in The Paris Review, The New Criterion, and The New Republic. He has edited a collection of Edmund White's essays entitled The Burning Library, and is presently working on a history of the Violet Quill group. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

From Publishers Weekly

Rarely has a subtitle been so apt, or a series so consistently strong. Against the recent deluge of sloppy, would-be postmodern subcultural stories, Men on Men has regularly yielded a trove of well-wrought gay-themed short fiction. Gay critic, poet and anthologist Bergman includes among these 20 stories several by well-known authors. There's an engagingly sad piece by Andrew Holleran called "The Married Man," which traces an aging janitor's "years of celibacy" ; Felice Picano's "The Geology of Southern California at Black's Beach" is also notable. The collection's real rewards, however, are excellent stories by such new writers as Keith Banner, Shawn Behlen, C. Bard Cole, Alex Jeffers, Brian Sloan and Emanuel Xavier in which stereotypes familiar from older gay-themed fiction are overturned. There are gay men who love women, gay men who are poor and rough around the edges, even gay men who kill without being Cruising-style psychos. Some stories succeed on their own terms but gain little from a gay context. But for the most part this volume boasts maturely conceived and executed images and ideas. David Newman's "Calendar Boy" is a funny, compact take on the collegiate closet, and Greg Johnson's "The Death of Jackie Kennedy" crosscuts sensitively among the narrator's father, who's dying of cancer, the narrator's lover, who's fighting a "final bout with AIDS," and its eponymous celebrity demise. Agent, Irene Skolnick.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0452277345
• ISBN 13: 9780452277342
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 384
• Editor: Bergman David