LGBTQIA+ Studies / topics Books

Book SynopsisDuring a few months in 1980, 125,000 Cubans entered the U.S. as part of a massive migration known as the Mariel boatlift. Drawing from first-person stories of Cuban Americans as well as government documents and cultural texts from both the U.S. and Cuba, Susana Peña reveals how a historical event shaped the formation of an entire ethnic and sexual landscape.Trade ReviewThis wonderful work unravels the complex and messy strands of emergences, disappearances, visibilities, and erasures of the loca, the gender, and sexually transgressive Cuban male homosexual figure who arrived in America via the Mariel boatlift. Susana Peña carefully and sensitively excavates through layers of historical and cultural abjection in order to persuasively demonstrate how the loca’s stigmatized exilic trajectory is intimately connected to the advent of a Cuban American gay culture in Miami.—Martin F. Manalansan IV, University of Illinois, Urbana-ChampaignTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction1. From UMAPs to Save Our Children: Policing Homosexuality in Cuba and Miami before 19802. Obvious Gays and the State Gaze: Gay Visibility and Immigration Policy during the Mariel Boatlift3. Cultures of Gay Visibility and Renarrating Mariel4. Pájaration and Transculturation: Language and Meaning in Gay Cuban Miami5. Narratives of Nation and Sexual Identity: Remembering Cuba6. Families, Disclosure, and Visibility7. Locas, Papis, and Muscle Queens: Racialized Discourses of Masculinity and Desire8. ¡Oye Loca! Gay Cuba in DragConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisThe memoirs of a prominent Minnesota politician and one of the country's first openly gay elected officials.Trade Review"Crossing the Barriers reveals in intimate detail the social, political, and personal evolution of an exceptional man in transformative times. Allan Spear’s autobiography paints a vivid picture of the history he lived…and the history he made. Allan was a devoted son and partner, a gifted teacher, astute politician, skillful legislator, cherished friend and mentor, and a role model for all of us who wish to pursue the career of our dreams and be honest about who we are." —U.S. RepresentativeTammy Baldwin"I join with all Minnesotans who mourn the loss of Allan Spear. His evenhandedness, command of the issues, and ability to reach across the aisle and work with colleagues of both parties were legendary and should inspire us all. He was a man of great courage who served as one of this nation’s first openly gay legislators." —Senator Barack Obama, October 2008"Spear’s autobiography is a must-read for anyone interested in Minnesota politics, civil rights, and the gay rights movement. Vivid imagery and remarkable detail bring the story of this iconic man and his times alive. The book also holds a few surprises, especially for those who remember Spear primarily as a politically savvy state senator and gay rights icon. The reader is left wanting to hear more." —Minnesota MagazineTable of ContentsContents Foreword Barney Frank 1. A Difficult Child, 1937-1954 2. Bright College Years, 1954-1958 3. Discovering the African American Past-and Present, 1958-1964 4. Becoming a Minnesotan, 1964-1967 5. Love, War, and Politics, 1967-1969 6. Campus and Community, 1969-1972 7. The Turning Point: Coming Out and Getting In, 1972 8. Entering the Senate and Leaving the Closet, 1973-1974 9. The First Struggle for Gay Rights, 1975-1978 10. Settling into a Legislative Career, 1978-1982 11. A New District, a New Partnership, and New Responsibilities, 1982-1988 Afterword John Milton Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Jaime Harker’s approach to Isherwood’s American work—his Cold War novels, as she calls them—is a welcome fresh perspective on a neglected topic. In situating Isherwood’s ‘50s and ‘60s writing in the context of the rise of the paperback book, its distribution system, and readership, Harker recuperates a period of active gay and lesbian publishing. The history she uncovers of queer publishing in the Cold War years complicates the common history of homophobia and persecution associated with the era." —James J. Berg, editor of Isherwood on WritingTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Christopher and His Readers1. Isherwood’s American Incarnation and the Gay Protest Novel2. “Too Queer to Be Quaker”: Gay Protest and Camp 3. “Fagtrash”: Pulp Paperbacks and Cold War Queer Readers4. Sixties’ Literature and the Ascension of Camp Middlebrow5. “A Delicious Purgatory”: Sex and “Salvation”6. Secret Agents and Gay Identity: Cold War Queerness 7. Spiritual Trash: Hindus, Homos, and Gay Pulp8. Christopher Isherwood, Gay Liberation, and the Question of StyleNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsContentsForeword: Outside the FrameStephen McCauleyIntroduction: An American OutsiderJames J. Berg and Chris FreemanPart I. A Single Man and Los Angeles Culture in the 1960s1. A Single Man and the American MauriceLois Cucullu2. Labor of Love: Making Chris & DonTina Mascara and Guido Santi3. Working through Grief in the Drafts of A Single ManCarola M. Kaplan4. Writing the Unspeakable in A Single Man and Mrs. DallowayJamie Carr5. A Whole without Transcendence: Isherwood, Woolf, and the Aesthetics of ConnectionWilliam R. Handley6. Ford Does IsherwoodKyle Stevens7. A Real Diamond: The Multicultural World of A Single ManJames J. Berg and Chris FreemanPart II. The Religious Writer8. Isherwood and the Psycho-geography of HomeVictor Marsh9. Isherwood and Huxley: The Novel as Mystic FableRobert L. Caserio10. Down Where on a Visit?: Isherwood’s Mythology of SelfRebecca Gordon Stewart11. A Phone Call by the RiverPaul M. McNeil12. “Give me devotion . . . even against my will”: Christopher Isherwood and IndiaNiladri R. Chatterjee13. Spiritual Searching in Isherwood’s Artistic ProductionMario FaraonePart III. A Writer at Odds with Himself in Cold War America14. Christopher Isherwood and Edward UpwardBenjamin Kohlmann15. Huxley and Isherwood: The California YearsPeter Edgerly Firchow16. The Celebrity Effect: Isherwood, Hollywood, and the Performance of SelfLisa Colletta17. A Writer at Work: The Isherwood ArchiveSara S. Hodson18. Pulp Isherwood: Cheap Paperbacks and Queer Cold War ReadersJaime Harker19. Not Satisfied with the Ending: Connecting The World in the Evening to MauriceJoshua AdairAcknowledgmentsContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"To have a volume about lesbian activism that focuses on the most effective, most publicized and controversial group, the Lesbian Avengers, is almost too good to be true. Eating Fire is an intimate activist handbook that offers a generous ‘us’ and we can happily enter the space of it from so many angles." —Eileen Myles, author of Inferno (A Poet's Novel)"Activist histories of social movements are rare yet essential to understanding how social change actually happens. Stories of lesbian activism are even harder to find. This unique, evocative, and fascinating memoir tells both a personal and a community story of creativity, political commitment, grief, and the love that motivates it all." —Urvashi Vaid, author of Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics"This free wheeling memoir of lesbian activism —alternately funny and raucous, meditative and reflective—is a document of a specific time and place. But it is also a marvelous, timeless tale of wit, survival, determination, and ultimately facing history. Veering between Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dyke and Rebel Without a Pause, Cogswell’s memoir of the Lesbian Avengers is incisive, politically astute, and a much needed addition to LGBT history." —Michael Bronski, Harvard University"Although the Lesbian Avengers have been defunct since 1995, Cogswell’s idealistic objective in the fight for civil rights is still relevant: to make lesbians visible, change society, and most importantly, change lesbians, who will come to see the public space as theirs." —Kirkus Reviews"Gay City News columnist Cogswell’s memoir (as much a cultural as personal history) is a needed addition to this focus [on queer activism from the early 1990s], highlighting the understudied path of the international force, the Lesbian Avengers. Fast-paced and reminiscent of New Narrative, there’s a lot of instructive joy to be found with a mixture of performance and protest fueling the prose. . . this memoir shines as surely as its history needs telling." —Publishers Weekly"Eating Fire is a sometimes entertaining, sometimes painful read. It recounts an important chapter in queer history along with some useful principles of direct action." —Gay City News"Eating Fire is a reminder, an homage, a call to rally, and a plea to this generation of queer women. While this story is tenacious in some moments and vulnerable in others, it is always triumphant. Inspiring and absolutely heroic. This story belongs to us all." —Lambda Literary"Reading Cogswell’s account is also to read an object study in not only the exciting birth and life of such groups, but also the flipside, which is their painful decline and fall. [Her] book most powerfully reminds you of the necessary mess of activism." —The Daily Beast"An energetic and outspoken memoir." —Booklist"She waxes nostalgic for the radicalism of the era, and like many of her contemporaries, laments the gay rights movement’s embrace of conservative mainstream ideals. Cogswell says she’s ‘burned out’ on activism, but her book is filled with longing for the sound of protest and the taste of fire." —Huffington Post"Cogswell’s nonlinear, adrenaline-fueled narrative captures the energy behind the Avengers’ creative and media-savvy actions." —BitchTable of ContentsContentsI. Activist HoneymoonII. Enemies WithinIII. A Laboratory of IdentityIV. Vivas to Those Who Have FailedAcknowledgments

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In this extraordinary work of personal and social exploration, David Caron devises a new literary form that enables him to touch the reader with his HIV-positivity as well as a new ethics that explains why that touch is both necessary and desirable. Learned, witty, provocative, moving, edifying, and brilliantly written in a simple, conversational style, The Nearness of Others demonstrates the intellectual advantages of being HIV-positive, which emerges from these pages less as a medical condition than as an epistemic one, a position from which it is possible to know the world and to make us see it differently. This is no longer cultural analysis of HIV, but cultural analysis by HIV. A significant breakthrough." —David Halperin, author of How to Be Gay"Caron’s powerful and painful reflection on being HIV-positive in a postepidemic era is wrapped within layers of philosophical discourse, political reflections on Muslims becoming the social pariahs that people with AIDS once were, academic analysis of pertinent films and literature, and nostalgia for more permissive, more connected moments in gay culture." —Library Journal "Accessible, sophisticated, and convincing... The Nearness of Others is the most important work ever written in this post-epidemic era because it is primarily a book of hope." —Times Literary Supplement"By invoking Barbara Stanwyck, Nazi Germany and our sense of tactfulness, Caron shows us new ways to think about life with HIV." —POZTable of ContentsContentsDiagnosisI Got SlimFootnotesRB on TBAll AIDS, All the Time!It Is Tempting to ForgetNights You Can’t SleepDepression Is CrazyDepression and LifeDepression and MetaphorPassingDepression and IncongruityDepressed ThinkingMaking SensePolitical DiscomfortThinking of BleedingKids Say the Darndest ThingsNegative Logic and a Positive Point of View“How Can Plain Curiosity Be Unkind?”Towel Stories (I)Diabetes? Cholesterol? Something Else?The AIDS Crisis Is Not OverSpeaking of HIVOld Friends, New FriendsFamous Last WordsTough as Nail PolishNo TherapyUnspoken KnowledgeFrom Hervé Guibert’s Hospital Diary (I)Hospital VisitsFrom Hervé Guibert’s Hospital Diary (II)Star EntranceStar ExitThe Dream SequenceI Died a Thousand Deaths (All of Them Gorgeous)OthersThe New WorldThree Thousand Deaths in One DayWaitingNearness and NeighborlinessBeckoning and AppealingIncomplete StrangersGround Zero“I’m Going to Die, Aren’t I?”Happy Hour at the CoxNaked Arab BodiesS-21Shaming the TorturersThe Modernity of TortureThe E.R. EpisodeTruth and TortureDining with French PeopleEncountering the StrangeTimes Square LostIn the City and OutFrom Public Schools to Public PoolsParticular BodiesThe Falling ManTowel Stories (II)One Drop of BloodDisclosureShame and ExperienceThe Doorstep of ShameForget Your HealthDisclosures and SurfacesObama’s Disclosures, Forever DeferredChat (I)Chat (II)Adventures in Online CruisingOn the Question of Barebacking, Very BrieflyCoda to the Story of K***TouchinessReason to ExcludeThe Stories of AIDSAcademic TalkA Brief History of HIV/AIDS DisclosureFounding MothersLook Back in Anger (When AIDS Was All the Rage)Uttering AIDSWhere’s the Police When You Need ’Em?What I Said and How I Said ItThe Purloined LetterSo Am ISmall TalkI Know, It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll, But . . .Compatible DiscordanceThe Battlefield of the BodyDysclosureTowel Stories (III)TasteIntimacy in PublicAccounting for TasteReembodiment and DiscomfortReentering the Movie TheaterMoving in Queer CirclesSpaces, People, and Actions (I)The Return of Tosca (Entr’acte)Spaces, People, and Actions (II)Again, Where’s the Police?TactMy Contact in the UndergroundHostile Bodies (and the People Who Love Them)Sharing: From Disclosure to TactTact and Delicacy (I)TactlessnessTactful EncountersTact and Delicacy (II)The Shower SceneTact and Delicacy (III)Tact, Power, and the Police (I)Tact, Power, and the Police (II)Tact and ContaminationTact and SilenceTact and FailureTact and UnreasonThe Kindness of StrangersSunday in the Park with . . . ?The Yellow StarTact as Social MusicmakingA Fart Joke from ProustTouch and Other SensesImmodestyReentering the Movie Theater’s RestroomTact and IntimationFound Objects (I): Tact and Bearing Witness as Forms of BricolageTactfulness to the DeadFound Objects (II): Some BeautyContactLeaving the Door OpenThe Unexpected Coda: May 24, 2011AcknowledgmentsNotesBibli

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Book SynopsisHow and why, in a time of homophobia and closeted homosexuality, did two openly gay writers become mass-market celebrities?Trade Review"Balancing biographical accounts with highly salient readings of a number of their works, So Famous and So Gay offers smart, surprising insights into the ways in which Truman Capote and Gertrude Stein achieved cultural prominence in spite of the homophobia that kept other openly gay writers of the period out of mainstream literary culture. A daring, suggestive, and intensely interesting book."—Lisa Ruddick, University of Chicago"In So Famous and So Gay, Jeff Solomon amasses a treasure trove archive—literature, reviews, biographies, photographs, interviews—from which he examines the gayness, strangeness, and celebrity that combusted to create the queer precocity of Truman Capote and Gertrude Stein. At once critically expansive and insightful, this book is also a good story. Like Stein and Capote, Solomon is an engaging stylist in his own right. Read to learn, read to enjoy (imagine that!)."—Ken Corbett, author of A Murder Over a Girl"Every bit as ‘fabulous’ as the subtitle promises, So Famous and So Gay focuses on two writers—Truman Capote and Gertrude Stein—whose strategies for politicizing questions of sexual identity included the manufacture of public personae as queerly flamboyant ‘geniuses’ and the exploitation of their author photos. Brilliantly exposing of the commodification of authorial identity, Solomon also offers a welcome corrective to strands of queer theory that neglect the specificities of same-sex desire."—Joseph Allen Boone, University of Southern California"Jeff Solomon’s So Famous and So Gay effectively reinvigorates the single author genre by stretching its scope and preconceived boundaries. Solomon’s magisterial command of twentieth century American literary culture and his provocative use of author photos make this particular two-author study an engaging work of scholarship."—James Penner, author of Pinks, Pansies, and Punks: The Rhetoric of Masculinity in American Literary Culture"This book is about gayness overlooked and gay lives lovingly, materially recovered."—The Gay & Lesbian Review/Worldwide"A very ambitious and innovative work in the field of queer studies."—Leonardo "Focusing on the nexus of sexuality, celebrity, and text, Solomon positions Capote and Stein as ‘comprehensive test cases’ for the interaction between homosexuality and US literature in the first half of the twentieth century." —American LiteratureTable of ContentsContentsPrologue: Beneath the MaskIntroduction: Stein and Capote in TheoryPart I1. Young, Effeminate, and Strange: The Debut of Truman Capote2. Capote, Forster, and the Trillings: Homophobia and Literary Culture at Mid-CenturyPart II3. Gertrude Stein, Opium Queen: Notes on a Mistaken Embrace4. Gertrude Stein in Life and TIME: A Respectable Commodity5. Three Lesbian Lives: A Map of Same-Sex PassionCoda: Janet Malcolm and Woody Allen Adrift in the PastAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisWhen Ben Duncan chronicled his evolution from a Depression-era orphan in Alabama to an Oxford educated writer and commentator in England in 1962, he was unable to tell his whole story. In this book, he tells his story anew, weaving throughout his original memoir italic passages that reveal the true circumstances of his life.

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Book SynopsisExamines how popular American religious leaders navigate problems of race and gender in society. This title chronicles the rise of women and African American evangelists in the independent charismatic movement in post-World War II America.Trade ReviewScott Billingsley does a good job of explaining who people are and how they relate in the modern charismatic movement. The world he describes is richly textured and enormously influential, and the biographical sketches point readers toward an understanding of the origins and development of the movement. - Edith L. Blumhofer, Professor of History and Director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, Wheaton College, Illinois ""It's A New Day not only fills a gap in the historical literature of postwar American religion, it also ably tracks the growth, success, and surprising social outlook of one of the most significant mass-religious movements to emerge in the late 20th century."" - Randall S. Stephens, History Department, Eastern Nazarene College, Quinoy, Massachusetts

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"As a whole [these poems] showcase a singular creative mastery. With as little interference as possible, the translators facilitated a smooth transition from Korean to English, maintaining the richness of the original. The point and the goal of the pieces that make up Glory Hole is to invite the impenetrable and the subversive into the light." * Foreword *"Glory Hole is a vibrantly colorful collection that transcribes (and translates) the strangeness of the world and the queer experience into words." * International Examiner *Table of ContentsForeword Translator's Note Inhumane What Do Angels Do at Silent and Holy Night; Lone Wood's Retirement Party Galaxy Express 999 Rewind Queer; a Story That Is Always Told A Meeting with the Writer With the Dead Ones Write the Novel, the Novel; "Please Find My Shoes. They're Sandals, Blue Sandals" by Madame Novel Cabbage Nine Years on Jupiter Blow Job A Tribute to a Replicant about Which Gary Mumbled Greengrass Disappeared A World History of Midwives Cobweb Carpet Eyes and Ears, Look for Vanished Words Mr Withers of Withering Woods When They Were High on Drugs Nightswimming Real Boy Long-tailed Darlin Big Animal A Cathedral Sirius Somewhere Dear Old Miss Lonelyhearts* of "Dear Old Miss Lonelyhearts" Old Baby Homo Death Dylan What Do Angels Do on Silent and Holy Nights; Tale of the Qishi Girl (????) Ashes of Time s An Illustration of Time by the Merry Pranksters Write the Novel, the Novel; Those Days First of the Gang to Die The Last Blotch Polonaise (cont.) THE FUTURE Regarding Cate Blanchett's Dream Border The Last Person on Space Ferris Wheel No. 12 Write the Novel, the Novel; in the Final Days of the Novel, Blake With the Blue Gloves The Tale of Cho Mansion Susan Boreman's Retirement Party What Do Angels Do on Silent and Holy Nights; Sad Vagina A Mechanic of the Night Montgomery Clift Earth

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Book SynopsisA captivating memoir of one woman's long journey to late transition, as the trans community emerges alongside her.[An] achingly beautiful memoir. Manuel Betancourt, The New York Times Book ReviewA universal and profound meditation on the price of authenticity. Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of She's Not There and Good BoyLong before Laverne Cox appeared on the cover of Time, far removed from drag and ballroom culture, there were countless trans women living and dying as men, most of whom didn't even know they were trans. Diana Goetsch's This Body I Wore chronicles one woman's long journey to coming out, a path that runs parallel to the emergence of the trans community over the past several decades.How can you spend your life face-to-face with an essential fact about yourself and still not see it? This is a question often asked of trans people, and a question that Goets

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Book SynopsisAn intimate, revealing memoir from one of the most important activists of our time. While working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq for the United States Army in 2010, Chelsea Manning disclosed more than seven hundred thousand classified military and diplomatic records that she had smuggled out of the country on the memory card of her digital camera. In 2011, she was charged with twenty-two counts related to the unauthorized possession and distribution of classified military records, and in 2013, she was sentenced to thirty-five years in military prison.The day after her conviction, Manning declared her gender identity as a woman and began to transition, seeking hormones through the federal court system. In 2017, President Barack Obama commuted her sentence and she was released from prison.In README.txt, Manning recounts how her pleas for increased institutional transparency and government accountability took place alongside a fight to defend h

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Book SynopsisA comprehensive and moving biography of Max Jacob, a brilliant cubist poet who lived at the margins of fame.Trade Review"[Warren] painstakingly reconstructs the scene of an entire generation of artists and writers through Jacob’s eyes. The level of detail she marshals is impressive... Her greater achievement, however, is her portrait of the tension among art, faith and sexuality in [Jacob's] life... Warren wears many hats—translator, critic, chronicler—to resuscitate a richly contradictory figure and to give him a seat at the table." -- Ayten Tartici - New York Times Book Review"Being a distinguished poet herself, Warren pays particularly close attention to the richness of Jacob’s language... [Max Jacob] is definitive and chockablock with entertaining anecdotes." -- Michael Dirda - Washington Post"[A] lively literary biography... Jacob was a Zelig of Paris’s bohemian demimondes, but Warren also makes a case for the importance of his ecstatic prose poems and cabaret verse, which appear in her own deft translations." -- The New Yorker"Rosanna Warren’s impressive achievement allows us to accept, and maybe even to fall in love with, an almost forgotten French writer." -- Phil Gambone - Gay and Lesbian Review"Brilliant... Warren’s narrative everywhere glows with the ease and compassion of having lived with her research for many, many years... Max Jacob will likely stand as the definitive English-language life of this perennially enigmatic figure." -- Steve Donoghue - Open Letters Review"Rosanna Warren’s Max Jacob is both monumental and intimate, a long-awaited portrait of a highly influential artist who haunts any account of early modernism…Max Jacob led a raucous, poignant, and mysterious life movingly illuminated in this elegant and passionate biography." -- Honor Moore, author of Our Revolution"This radiant book will make you love Max Jacob, as his best friend and protégé Picasso undoubtedly did and as Rosanna Warren clearly does. Warren is completely at home in all three of Jacob’s fascinating worlds: first, and most importantly, on the page in brilliant verse and prose; second, in Paris, from the heady rise of Modernism to France’s ignominious capitulation to Hitler; and third, in the mystical world, to which Jacob was deeply committed. Scrupulously researched and deftly written, Max Jacob is a joy to read." -- Christopher Benfey, author of If"Max Jacob, one of the great French avant-garde poets of the early twentieth century, remains surprisingly little known in the English-speaking world. Poet Rosanna Warren’s dazzling biography, based on decades of research and superb critical insight, has now made up for this neglect. Max Jacob reads like an absorbing novel but is also superb reportage and literary history. Anyone interested in the brilliant but contradictory period when Paris was the capital of world art will want to read Rosanna Warren’s biography." -- Marjorie Perloff, author of Unoriginal Genius"Only a poet, artist, translator, and classicist could have written this totally engaging account of the many-sided Max Jacob. We meet a host of artists we have known about elsewhere, and here they come vividly to life, and some to death; poets we might have thought we knew well, we know again. Max Jacob deserves these thirty years of impassioned thinking and superbly delicate, forceful writing. As poetry surely dwelt in him, poetry dwells no less in Rosanna Warren." -- Mary Ann Caws, author of Creative Gatherings"Max Jacob led a life of allegory, as Keats would have called it. All the glory and barbarism of the twentieth century are summed up in his fortune and fate. Rosanna Warren has brought a poet’s eloquence and a historian’s doggedness to bear in this heartbreaking tale. Her book’s humanity is commensurate with her hero’s. She has given us a masterpiece of life writing." -- Benjamin Taylor, author of Here We Are

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Book SynopsisThe Equality of Opportunity for Sexual and Gender Minorities (EQOSOGI) is a new initiative that applies established World Bank methodology in new areas in development. It seeks to identify laws that discriminate against or protect sexual and gender minorities in six categories around the world.

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Book SynopsisOn September 3, 1971, Michael McConnell and Jack Baker exchanged vows in the first legal same-sex wedding in the United States. Their remarkable story is told here for the first time—a unique account of the passion and energy of the gay liberation movement in the sixties and seventies. At the dawn of the modern gay movement (while New York’s Stonewall riots and San Francisco’s emerging political activism bloomed), these two young men insisted on making their commitment a legal reality. They were already crusaders for gay rights: Jack had twice been elected the University of Minnesota’s student president—the first openly gay university student president in the country, an election reported by Walter Cronkite on network TV news. They were featured in Look magazine’s special issue about the American family and received letters of support from around the world. The couple navigated complex procedures to obtain a state-issued marriage license. Their ceremony was conducted by a Methodist minister in a friend’s tiny Minneapolis apartment. Wearing matching white pantsuits, exchanging custom-designed rings, and sharing a tiered wedding cake, Michael and Jack celebrated their historic marriage. After reciting their vows, they sealed their promise to love and honor each other with a kiss and a signed marriage certificate. Repercussions were immediate: Michael’s job offer at the University of Minnesota was rescinded, leading him to wage a battle against job discrimination with the help of the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union. The couple eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court with two precedent-setting cases. Michael and Jack have retired from the public spotlight, but after four decades their marriage is still their joy and comfort. Living quietly in a Minneapolis bungalow, they exemplify a contemporary version of the American dream. Only now, with marriage equality in the headlines and the Supreme Court decision to make love the law of the land, are they willing to tell the entire story of their groundbreaking experiences. TIME magazine listed the twenty-five most influential marriages of all time and included Michael and Jack, and they were recently profiled in a cover story in the Sunday New York Times. Their long campaign for marriage equality and insistence on equal rights for all citizens is a model for advocates of social justice and an inspiration for everyone who struggles for acceptance in a less-than-equal world.Trade Review "A beautiful, well-written love story that is heartrending and ultimately heartwarming. Thank you, Michael and Jack, for opening the doors for the rest of us, for your integrity, for proving, yes: Love wins!"—Robert Alexander, New York Times best-selling author of The Kitchen Boy "In The Wedding Heard ’Round the World, chronicler Gail Langer Karwoski has fashioned a wonderfully compelling told-to story of triumph in the extraordinary lives of Michael McConnell and Jack Baker. A great and memorable read."—Terry Kay, author of To Dance with the White Dog "The only first-person account by the two visionary men who legally married, shortly after the Stonewall riot, and who recognized the importance of marriage in an era when it was disregarded by society and angrily rejected by gay activists."—Thomas Kraemer, founder, Oregon State University Foundation Magnus Hirschfield Fund "One of the great love stories of the past century, and one that jump-started the movement for LGBT marriage equality. The librarian and the law student—Mike and Jack—are all-American pioneers. Anyone interested in gay rights—or in romance—should read this book."—William N. Eskridge Jr., Yale Law School "Please read this very important book about the godfathers of marriage equality, especially if you want to know and appreciate gay history. Their proud, loving lives have always inspired me and my work."—Brian McNaught, author of On Being Gay and Are You Guys Brothers?* "Michael and Jack made history by getting married in 1971—and the letters they received reveal the impact this had on people all over the world. Their story is both universal and unprecedented, offering a riveting look into gay life, love, and activism in the late 1960s and 1970s and the fight for same-sex marriage."—Lisa Vecoli, curator of the Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries "The great appeal of McConnell and Baker’s recommended story is its simple style and the everydayness of their lives. Their appeal is how ordinary people can do extraordinary things. "—Library Journal"The Wedding Heard ‘Round the World serves as a gentle reminder that there were couples plotting this victory long, long before a consensus formed around marriage equality."—The New Republic"Michael McConnell’s easy, personable tone will make you feel like your uncle, father, or grandfather is telling the story of their younger years, and what queer life was like back in the day. His persona alone makes this book an instant classic."—Lambda Literary"A sweet story wrapped inside a righteous fight, told with charm and grace. Start The Wedding Heard ‘Round the World – and you’ll have no defense."—Washington Blade"Recommended for all LGBT-related and general history collections, and especially for readers with Minnesota ties and memories. While we can all justifiably laud 2015’s same-sex marriage Final Answer, we should also save a round of applause for Baker and McConnell, who helped forge the way."—American Library Association’s GLBT Round Table"A timely memoir."—Pioneer Press"Easy to read and good for a nice afternoon, The Wedding Heard ‘Round the World is definitely something to put on your must-read list."—The Spectrum"Theirs is a beautiful love story, fit for admission amongst history’s great classics. A tall tale filled with an enduring hunger for truth, long battles for justice against powerful, unwavering foes, filled with great challenges and crushing setbacks... And finally, a final victory for our two loves as they ride off into the sunset."—EDGE Media Network"The Wedding Heard ‘Round the World is a very important addition to GLBT history. It is a fascinating story of love and struggle GLBT rights. It is a true story that reads like a novel. It also shows that the struggle for equal rights for GLBT people is far from over."—Washington Book Review

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