One of These Things First

One of These Things First is a wry and poignant reminiscence of a 15 year old gay Jewish boy in Brooklyn in the early sixties, and his unexpected trajectory from a life behind a rack of dresses in his grandmother’s bra and girdle store, to Manhattan’s fabled Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, a fashionable Charenton for wealthy neurotics and Ivy League alcoholics, whose famous alumni include writers, poets, madmen, Marilyn Monroe, and bestselling author Steven Gaines.

Steven Gaines is the author of Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons; The Sky's the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan; Simply Halston, the biography of the fashion designer; and co-author of The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles, among other books. He's a co-founder of the Hamptons International Film Festival and lives in a small hamlet on the East End of Long Island.