Pink Highways: Tales of Queer Madness on the Open Road - Hardcover

Lane, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1559722630 ISBN 13: 9781559722636

Publisher: Birch Lane Pr, 1995

Synopsis

A travelogue by a noted gay writer takes readers to the April 1993 gay rights march in Washington, D.C. and travels across America, citing the gay experience in Maine, the Southwest, the Ozarks, and other locations

About this title

Reviews

Co-creator of Monk, an underground zine that chronicled his travels throughout America with coauthor Jim Crotty, Lane here describes two memorable journeys he took on his own. After nine years on the road with Crotty, Lane jumped ship in Oregon and struck out across the country to attend the 1993 gay rights march in Washington, D.C. Along the way, he partied with drag queens in San Francisco, helped create "performance art on wheels" on the freeway between New York and Washington and got more enmeshed than he meant to in the troubled life of a young hitchhiker he picked up in Arizona. Sometimes joyous and sometimes profoundly disturbing, Lane's encounters with old friends and total strangers inspire reflections on the endless quirks in the American psyche and on the often startling consequences that ensue when members of different subcultures try?or are forced?to intermingle. Lane's experiences provoke recollections of a coming-of-age journey to Morocco during which he began to come to terms with his sexual and national identities. This is the most memorable section of the book. His vision of America?both strange and engrossing?is worth discovering.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Both the blurb and the CIP say this is a nonfiction travelogue, but if everything gay voyager Lane presents in it actually happened to just one person, that individual would be the queer world's answer to Forrest Gump. Lane, cocreator of the eccentric travel magazine Monk but perhaps better known for his column "Pink Highways" in The Advocate, tells of hitching down highways, riding Greyhound buses, sharing rides across African deserts, and having other travel adventures through the years. Along the way he encounters a man who has cut his penis off, a fashion designer who makes bells out of soft drink can tabs and dresses out of metal and rubber, a Swedish Adonis in Morocco, and older assorted strangers. What's more, on virtually every page, Lane weaves into his reminiscences other first-person anecdotes that provoke yet more laughter. Whether every story is really real or not, many a reader will welcome Lane's literary company in bus, plane, and car alike. Charles Harmon

Although some readers might be offended by Lane's explicit anatomical descriptions (just a small example of what might offend the prudish here), others will warm to his reverie of living on the edge as he travels across America. Though his creation of Monk, one of the most acclaimed zines, has made him famous in the avant-garde, this book will bring him mainstream attention. Not only is his account of life on the highways from the Northwest to California outlandishly funny, it is very well written. He has the unusual ability to make what would ordinarily sound weird seem sympathetic without being condescending. He can also be a fine journalist; his take on the 1993 gay rights March on Washington is perceptive, clever, and classic. Recommended especially for travel collections in large public libraries and academic collections on contemporary gay culture.
David Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Birch Lane Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1559722630
• ISBN 13: 9781559722636
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 247