Book Reviews, OpEds,
and Interviews
No. 1
(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. ...
READ MORE
Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath
the Skin’ by Andrew Wilson
No. 2
(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.. ...
Cleanness
by Garth Greenwell
No. 3
(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. ...
Alan Hollinghurst: On the Current State of Intrigue in Gay Life
No. 4
(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 ...
The Master of Us All: Balenciaga, His Workrooms, His World by Mary Blume
No. 5
(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.. ...
Au contraire, Charlotte. Musings on Charlotte Rampling
No. 6
(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, ...
The Testament of Mary
by Colm Tóibín
No. 7
(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. ...
Hotel Living
by Ioannis Pappos
No. 8
(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. ...
More Colors
than Purple
No. 9
(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. ...
Chantal Regnault:
Deep in Vogue
No. 10
(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. If all you know about voguing and the house ballroom, ...
Voguing and the NYC Ballroom Scene by Chantal Regnault
No. 11
(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
Alan Hollinghurst: Beauty, Love,
and Literature
No. 12
(Book Review)
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