No. 10
Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of
New York City 1989-1992’ by Chantal Regnault
(Book Review)
Finally! It has taken much too long for a book of this type to come out, perhaps reflecting both a testament to the ball culture’s once-underground status and society’s dismissal of it. Thankfully it does not disappoint. ...
No. 12
The VIPs’
by Scott Poulson-Bryant
(Book Rview)
The VIPs (Broadway Books/Random House), Scott Poulson-Bryant’s first novel, is no let-down. The author must have spent many a night watching soap-operas and mini-series’ in the 80s. If so, it paid off. He writes with ease and an eager pace, giving you season-finale style cliff-hangers after every chapter. Fans of Shirley Conran’s Lace, the classic 80s bestseller and mini-series, will be pleased with this book. ...
No. 11
Alan Hollinghurst: Beauty, Love, and Literature
(Interview)
The five novels Alan Hollinghurst has published since 1989, which all explore some aspect of British gay life, have drawn in American readers with their lyrical approach to the subject. Carefully constructed from start to finish, his books reflect a writer who composes what he observes with an architect’s precision; echoes of an early desire to be an architect. ...
No. 1
Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin’ by Andrew Wilson
(Book Review)
How difficult it must be to write a biography of a recently deceased person who was often called the ‘best of his generation’ and a ‘creative genius’; even more so in this age of instant information where video and audio evidence of an artist’s craft is prevalent. ...
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No. 2
Cleanness
by Garth Greenwell
(Book Review)
Garth Greenwell’s first novel, What Belongs To You, was greeted with much admiration both by critics and the everyday reader, longlisted for the National Book Award and made multiple Best of the Year Lists. The pressure must have been strong to deliver again. And deliver he does. ...
No. 3
Alan Hollinghurst: On the Current State of Intrigue in Gay Life
(Interview)
On a chilly, typically English day in the fall of 2011 I came to the fringe of Hampstead Heath in London to meet and interview Alan Hollinghurst in his home overlooking the green fields and hills. He had just released his fifth novel, The Stranger’s Child, to great reviews. ...
No. 4
The Master of Us All: Balenciaga, His Workrooms, His World’ by Mary Blume
(Book Review)
How does one write a biography about someone who has been dead for 40 years, was a bit of a recluse his whole life, and whom few people really knew? If you are Mary Blume, and the subject is Cristobal Balenciaga—one of fashion’s most unique and forward-thinking designers in his day—you focus on the fashion itself, the time when the subject was most creative, and on the impact he had on fashion. ...
No. 5
Au contraire, Charlotte. Musings on Charlotte Rampling
(OpEd)
Her eyes! Are they what make up the bulk of her beguiling presence? Are they grey? No,
perhaps they are blue. Sometimes they look silver, the left one being a little sleepy, it’s fold more pronounced. Whatever their colour, they pierce into you. She is all mystery, this woman.
Giving just enough of herself to keep you salivating for more. ...
No. 6
The Testament of Mary’
by Colm Tóibín
(Book Review)
They say there are two sides to every story,
and then there’s the truth. If you consider the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as one, since they basically tell the same story with variations, here is the other. Or , another. This novel is not the truth, whatever that may be, but it is a fascinating tale. ...
No. 7
Hotel Living’
by Ioannis Pappos
(Book Review)
Management consultants don’t exactly sound like the kind of people that would make for interesting summer reading: they evoke thoughts of boardrooms, airport lounges, expense accounts, and the kind of asshole with whom not many people would want to spend time. ...
No. 8
More Colors
than Purple
(OpEd)
I first saw The Color Purple at the cinema in 1986 and I did not like it. It was too melodramatic for me, particularly the separation scene where Celie is dragged down the porch stairs, holding on to Nettie who is banished, screaming “Why? Why?” I was a teenager on a first date. ...
No. 9
Chantal Regnault:
Deep in Vogue
(Interview)
French-born photographer and documentarist Chantal Regnault left Paris for New York after the May 1968 uprisings. She began documenting the house ballroom and voguing scene in the late 1980s, capturing it at its height. Her collection, Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of New York City 1989-92, was released this year by Soul Jazz Records. ...