LGBT - Queer literature

Along with Gore Vidal's The City and the Pillar, Baldwin's Giovanni's Room is one of the most widely read of gay literature, probably the most widely read by heterosexuals. However, it has long been a problematic text for gay readers, particularly gay African American readers.

Baldwin was actively involved with the civil rights movement, but shied away from the gay rights movement. He proudly fought along the lines of African American identity politics, was involved in forming a positive ...

I don't usually write book reviews in my blog, but I've recently finished reading Vidal's The City and The Pillar for the second time. Clearly, if I'm willing to read this book twice, I must have some sort of high opinion of it.

The novel follows Jim Willard, a young man from Virginia, from his last days of high school in the 1930 to the end of WWII. Over the course of the book Jim lives in Hollywood, Mexico, and New York, and spends a brief period in the military. The central theme ...