Queer Street: The Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985

James McCourt

ISBN 10: 0393050513 / ISBN 13: 9780393050516

Published by W. W. Norton, 2003

About this Item

First Edition, 1st printing. Pristine, clean & tight copy, unread in AS NEW condition. "A seminal work that may prove unrivaled in its ability to capture the voices of a mad, bygone era, QUEER STREET is a voluptuous, anecdotal history of New York's gay life in the 20th century---a literary ode, a swan song---that barrels through four decades of crisis and triumph up to the era of the floodtide of AIDS."[]"James McCourt has written an astonishing book, at once hilarious and touching. Part screenplay, part scrapbook, part breviary, QUEER STREET is a diorama of the crucial decades of gay culture. McCourt is a divine ventriloquist of the era's voices, whether lowbrow, midtown, or high camp. Demigods in the recesses of opera house or bathhouse, screen idols and street life, barflies and brainiacs, gnomes and generalissimos---he's captured the whole ragged and voluptuous, vulnerable and exultant spectacle. Here is the gay soul's encyclopedia."---J.D. McClatchy. "QUEER STREET is an extravagant edifice altogether worthy of McCourt. Admirers of his published fictions will find a wealth here, almost cosmological, to supplement their previous impressions of him. But this should bring him a new readership, for this is a mode of self-revelation almost universally available. The gifts of this remarkably original writer are everywhere apparent."---Harold Bloom. Bright AS NEW copy w/sharp corners, crisp edges, square & tight binding; quite presentable & collectible. See my listings RUB436, 913 & 914 for other McCourt fiction.

Seller Inventory # RUB912

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Queer Street: The Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985
• Publisher: W. W. Norton
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393050513
• ISBN 13: 9780393050516
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

Beginning with the influx of liberated veterans into downtown New York in the golden age before McCarthyism, Queer Street tells the explosive story of gay culture in the latter half of the twentieth century. Coming out himself in the "buttoned-up/button-down" 1950s, McCourt positions his own experience against the whirlwind history of the era, summoning a pageant of characters that includes Harry Hay, Judy Garland, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, and Truman Capote. In a learned but lively voice, McCourt highlights the major events of the period: the landmark eruption at the Stonewall Inn, the AIDS crisis that brought an end to a century of bathhouse culture, the ascendancy of the Christian right, and finally the social acceptance of gays that paradoxically marked the demise of queer culture. "Not since Truman Capote's Black and White Ball has there been such a gala collection of sacred monsters, feathered masks, icy pearls, chiseled remarks and bitchy mots all in one glamorous setting....An astonishing book, at once hilarious and touching."J. D. McClatchy

About the Author

James McCourt is the author of three novels and two short story collections. He has contributed to the Yale Review, The New Yorker, and The Paris Review. He lives in Washington, DC.