James Smalls: The Homoerotic Photography of Carl van Vechten

USA 2006, 199 pp., hardback, € 33.20
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
A white supporter of the Harlem Renaissance, Van Vechten was a portrait photographer as well as the author of popular novels and criticism, and is very much worthy of rediscovery today. The departure point for this incisive volume is a series of nude, interracial, homoerotic photographs that Van Vechten took in the '30s and '40s. In contextualizing them, the author explores the complex interplay of race, sexuality and masculinity in 20th-century art and culture, including the history of nude male photography, from the late 19th century work of Thomas Eakins to the more recent career of Robert Mapplethorpe. Drawing on a wide range of primary and critical sources, he not only uncovers a vital link in American cultural history but makes an important contribution to understanding contemporary culture.

Darwin Porter: Brando Unzipped

USA 2006, 644 pp., cloth, € 21.39
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
This new biography about Marlon Brando claims to feature a photograph of the late actor having oral sex - with another man. The book also claims that the legendary star, who died in 2004 aged 80, was insatiable in the bedroom and slept his way through some of Hollywood's biggest stars, both male and female. The author also claims the actor seduced two of »America's First Ladies«. The publishers admit that the image of Brando engaging in a gay sex act may shock some readers, but insist the topic of the actor's sexuality be treated »tastefully« in the book. From the male sex symbol of the 1950s to an overweight slob and tabloid scandal, the self-admitted bisexual Brando seduced more women and the occasional man than any other Hollywood actor.

Alastair Blanshard: Herkules - Aus dem Leben eines Helden

Dt.v. Sebastian Wohlfeil. D 2005, 215 S., geb., € 24.67
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
Die Geschichte von Herkules, Sohn des Zeus und einer sterblichen und somit ein Halbgott, beschäftigt die Menschen seit der Antike (und wie man anhand von heutigen TV-Serien sehen kann selbst heute noch). In der Regel sehen wir in ihm den fast unbesiegbaren Helden, dessen Heldentaten jedes Kind kennt. Es gibt aber auch eine etwas sensiblere Seite, die in den griechischen Sagen offen angesprochen wird, heute aber in den Hintergrund getreten ist. Sie wird z.B. an der Figur seines Lieblings Hylas deutlich. Weil der schöne Jüngling den Nymphen in die Hände gefallen ist, bricht Herakles seine Teilnahme an der Argonautenfahrt ab und setzt auf der Suche nach seinem schönen Geliebten sein Leben aufs Spiel. Die antike Sage kennt aber auch Herakles als unbarmherzigen Rächer, der in seiner Rage Frau und Kinder erschlägt. Der Historiker Alastair Blanshard interpretiert Kunstwerke, Geschichten, Überlieferungen aus über 2000 Jahren.

William Bast: Surviving James Dean

USA 2006, 304 pp., hardback, € 21.20
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
Bast, a TV writer and journalist, was infatuated with James Dean from the moment they met at UCLA. A closeted gay man, Bast had a crush on the brooding, unknown actor and had a brief fling with him. This work records their close friendship, Dean's rise to stardom and the years following his premature death at age 24. Dean's troubled life is well documented, and Bast isn't interested in repeating his previous biography, written one year after Dean's death. At the time, Bast was loathe to reveal his homosexuality or Dean's affairs with men. He now hopes to make up for his »youthful shortcomings and omissions«. The hook is Dean's sexuality, which Bast explores in detail, discounting his relationships with women and focusing on those with men, including a stint with a notorious »chicken hawk«, an older man who fancies younger guys.

Martin Moran: The Tricky Part

USA 2006, 285 pp., brochure, € 13.89
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Österreichs.
Raised in a loving Catholic family in Denver, Martin Moran was a star student who imagined that he would one day become a U.S. senator. When he was 12 years old, a camp counselor seduced him, initiating a sexual relationship that would last years and haunt Moran's life for decades. He discovered a passion for acting and built a career that would take him to Broadway, but only when Moran finally tracked down and confronted his abuser 30 years later could he finally and forgive himself for someone else's trespass. Funny and tender about growing up Catholic and gay, »The Tricky Part« never oversimplifies either the abuse or the vexing work of recovering from it.

Charles Winecoff: Anthony Perkins

USA 2006, 449 pp., brochure, € 13.89
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Österreichs.
Paramount groomed him to replace James Dean and become Hollywood's hottest hertthrob. But his landmark performance as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's »Psycho« killed that - and spawned an image of Anthony »Tony« Perkins that eerily paralleled his conflicted, fractured off-screen life. These performances overwhelmed Perkins's career - increasingly during the decades leading up to his death from AIDS at the age of 60 in 1992, his performances were pastiche unto parody. His private life was also a series of frustrations: his father died when Anthony was 5. His mother was distant and cutting. Although he was married to Berry Berenson and became the father of two sons, Perkins remained actively homosexual while struggling with his own homosexuality and looking for acceptance at the same time. We find him related to Tab Hunter and Rudolph Nureyev.

Aiden Shaw: My Undoing

USA 2006, 308 pp., brochure, € 14.59
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Österreichs.
The star of more than 50 adult films ranks as one of gay porn's all-time favourite performers. His films from Falcon, Catalina and Studio 2000 have brought him international celebrity. Now, for the first time, the real Aiden Shaw shares in unsparing details his personal stories about the sex and drugs that have fueled his private life. However, the book also follows him through a course of rocky and unfulfilling relationships. As Shaw points out, the romantic life of an adult film superstar can be lonely and wanting for love. But not only in the form of a significant other - also love from within himself. The book also reveals his Irish Catholic upbringing, his open HIV-positive status, and his recovery from a near fatal car accident that left him paralyzed temporarily.

Ilija Dürhammer: Geheime Botschaften

Ö/D 2006, 567 S., geb., € 39.00
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Wer Ilija Dürhammers spritzigen Vortrag im Schubert-Haus Anfang Mai versäumt hat, kann seine Erkenntnisse über die Homoerotik in Leben und Werk so verschiedener österreichischen kulturellen Größen wie Franz Schubert, Hugo von Hofmannsthal und Thomas Bernhard hier nachlesen. Dürhammer zeigt besonderes Interesse an den größeren Zusammenhängen, in denen die Homosexualität der drei Männer umso deutlicher ans Tageslicht tritt: er beleuchtet die Querverstrebungen zu Zeitgenossen, deren Homosexualität als gesichert angesehen werden kann, beleuchtet die Freundeskreise, in denen homoerotische Bindungen zum einigenden Band wurden, und klopft einschlägige Texte auf homoerotische Subtexte ab. Denn explizite Homosexualität (sozusagen schwules Selbstbewusstsein) war angesichts der Zensur sowohl im Biedermeier als auch im Fin de Siècle als auch in der Nachkriegszeit undenkbar.