Description
Book SynopsisEsther Newtona pioneer figure in gay and lesbian studiestells the compelling and disarming story of her struggle to write, teach, and find love, all while coming to terms with her lesbian identity during one of the worst periods of homophobic persecution in the twentieth century.
Trade Review"Newton is not afraid to get personal and offer her mistakes, personality development, and failed relationships for contemplation. After decades of personal and professional struggle, Newton finds a scholarly community in an evolved culture and helps to create the academic study of gender and sexuality. This book is simultaneously a memoir and an exemplar of this important field." -- Emily Dziuban * Booklist *
"In the tradition of the best memoirs, it is chattily engaging, historically illuminating, and deeply, provocatively ruminative. . . .
My Butch Career feels intoxicatingly, palpably real: It’s a story we can reach out and touch and one we can also situate ourselves in, even if we’re decades younger than the 78-year-old Newton. What makes M
y Butch Career so compelling is that while writing about herself, Newton is also examining her milieu with the eye of the cultural anthropologist she became. The story she tells is as much our story as it is hers." -- Victoria A. Brownworth * Curve *
"The most captivating part of the book sees Newton circulating through second-wave feminist and lesbian circles in New York and Paris, where the debates, social hierarchies, and tangled affairs she encounters bring her to a late coming of age. In the eighties, her scholarship, once ignored, achieves recognition with the rise of gender and sexuality studies. The book is a thoughtful examination of how personal experiences spur intellectual progress." * The New Yorker *
"Throughout
My Butch Career, Newton is remarkably candid about the ways that class has influenced her work and perspective on the historical events unfolding around her. . . . It’s a testament to just how great an anthropologist and chronicler of queer life she is that Newton makes sure to include the kinds of details that paint a more complete and complex picture of the world as she’s experienced it." -- Alexis Clements * Los Angeles Review of Books *
"Disarming and compelling. . . .
My Butch Career is the humorous and graceful story of a gender outlaw in the making, blazing the trail in queer academia." * The Advocate *
"
My Butch Career joins a distinguished list of lesbian herstories. . .. It is for readers interested in the psychological and cultural challenges for an individual who identifies as a butch lesbian, as well as readers who are interested in lesbian herstory within the greater context of thegay rights movement." -- Cassandra Langer * Gay & Lesbian Review *
"
My Butch Career is an important narrative of liberation that contributes singularly to the growing body of collective LGBTQ history. It covers the first forty-one years of the writer’s life, a time frame that calls out for a sequel. Newton concludes her memoir with a tribute to the queer writers who have preceded her. With this work, she has secured her place in that pantheon." -- Anne Charles * Lambda Literary Review *
“
My Butch Career is an arrival story.... All anthropologists, students as well as educators, should read this because it calls attention to what has changed and shows the importance of LGBT/queer social movements and networks of non-normative communities.” -- Anika Keinz * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Quarterly *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. A Hard Left Fist 18
2. A Writer's Inheritance 33
3. Manhattan Tomboy 56
4. California Trauma 72
5. Baby Butch 81
6. Anthropology of the Closet 102
7. Lesbian Feminist New York 119
8. The Island of Women 160
9. In-Between Dyke 183
10. Paris France 198
11. Butch Revisited 237
Notes 249
Bibliography 261
Index 265
