Description
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 Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Christopher and His Readers
1. Isherwood’s American Incarnation and the Gay Protest Novel
2. “Too Queer to Be Quaker”: Gay Protest and Camp
3. “Fagtrash”: Pulp Paperbacks and Cold War Queer Readers
4. Sixties’ Literature and the Ascension of Camp Middlebrow
5. “A Delicious Purgatory”: Sex and “Salvation”
6. Secret Agents and Gay Identity: Cold War Queerness
7. Spiritual Trash: Hindus, Homos, and Gay Pulp
8. Christopher Isherwood, Gay Liberation, and the Question of Style
Notes
Bibliography
Index
