Long Road to Freedom

An oversized retrospective of news items, essays, interviews, and more than one thousand photographs and illustrations reflects a quarter-century of rebellion and reform in the gay and lesbian movement. $50,000 ad/promo.

The Advocate , which was to become the country's most prominent gay and lesbian news-magazine, was a two-year-old Los Angeles newsletter when the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village initiated the gay rights movement in 1969. This engrossing and profusely illustrated book documents the increasingly prominent and embattled place of gays and lesbians in American culture. Each year is introduced by a prominent gay or lesbian figure and headed with an annotated timeline, excerpts of articles from the Advocate , photographs and profiles of such prominent figures as author Edmund White; San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1977; AIDS activist and playwright Larry Kramer; and performers like k. d. lang, Sylvester and Madonna. From Stonewall's galvanizing effect on the movement to assaults on the gay community by the religious right and AIDS; from celebrations of disco, Fire Island and the quiet bravery of openly gay citizens everywhere, this chronicle is a stirring scrapbook of a movement whose greatest victories may yet be to come. $50,000 ad/ promo.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This handsomely produced large-format volume traces over 25 years of the gay and lesbian movement's history through the pages of its foremost newsmagazine, the Advocate. (Thompson is senior editor). This is an appropriate choice for the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, generally considered the birth of the modern gay and lesbian movement in the US. Going year by year, this volume offers a survey of major political, cultural, social, and medical events in the history of the gay and lesbian movement, as reported in the Advocate since its inception in September 1967. Each year receives a single chapter, with an opening essay by a prominent gay or lesbian journalist or author, a chronology of key events of the year, and a selection of articles drawn from the magazine. The book takes readers from a time when homosexuality was treated as a pathology, and when gays and lesbians were for the most part unorganized and deep in the closet, to 1992, when a vocal gay and lesbian movement helped elect Bill Clinton president. The book is relentlessly honest about the divisions within the gay and lesbian communities (particularly concerning the growing AIDS crisis as it broke in the mid-1980s) and earnestly self-critical in its evaluation of the magazine's coverage of many issues (shortchanging lesbians and people of color in its earlier days). Many interviews are excerpted, with subjects as diverse as Jesse Jackson, Christopher Isherwood, Milton Berle, and Michel Foucault. Readers can also see the Advocate itself evolve from a spirited amateurism into a magazine of exceptionally high journalistic standards. A useful and relatively comprehensive guide to nearly 30 years of gay and lesbian history, but one wishes for fewer and longer excerpts. Also, the magazine's excellent cartoonists get somewhat short shrift. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Neither a chronological history nor a comprehensive encyclopedia, this compendium of features, interviews, and newsbites from the first 25 years (1967-92) of the Advocate magazine is suitable for both casual browsing and serious research. The book is divided into yearly chapters, each introduced by an essay and a two-page summary of the year's news. Comprising the bulk of each chapter, seven to ten archival articles cover both events and personalities, with scattered marginalia (e.g., outrageous quotes, political cartoons, letters to the editor) illuminating these longer stories. Some of the best writing is found in the often very personal introductory essays, authored by prominent lesbians and gay men from the worlds of academia (Martin Duberman), literature (John Preston), politics (Urvashi Vaid) and journalism (Richard Rouilard). However, this sum is greater than its parts; the reader closes the book with interlaced memories of dozens of sometimes contradictory, always provacative individuals sharing a common goal. This unique resource is highly recommended for public libraries and is also appropriate for academic collections supporting gay studies and journalism programs. --Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This exhaustive history shows us the now quarter-century-old gay civil rights movement as seen through the eyes of The Advocate, the self-proclaimed gay publication of record. It contains news articles, photographs, essays, cartoons, and interviews from the pages of the newspaper turned magazine. They appear in year-by-year chapters, from "1967/68: We Are Born" to "1992: Coming Out All Over," and each chapter begins with a time line of the year's notable events. Side by side are encapsulations of reforms, triumphs, losses, and joys and pieces on police brutality; Ronald Reagan as governor and president; the famous play, The Boys in the Band; the early organization, the Gay Liberation Front; best-selling lesbian novelist Rita Mae Brown; Olivia Records and the beginnings of women's music; the tragedy of AIDS and the birth of ACT-UP; and much more. It is all here to remind us of the long distance gays have traveled in American society and culture and of their perception that an arduous journey yet lies ahead until their basic civil rights are a daily reality. Whitney Scott