New Books

Gerber/Hart Library is continuously building its collections through donations of materials from our supporters. Below are examples of new books on our shelves—a hint of the breadth and diversity of newly acquired books and other media. We welcome you to come check them out.

• The Greek Boy by Victor J. Banis
• Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism by Anne Enke
• ManBug by George K. Ilsley
• Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh
• The View From Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers by Matthew Hays

The Greek Boy by Victor J. Banis

The Greek Boy is not your typical coming-to-America story. Spiro Dimopolous is sent from Greece by his American-born mother to her family in Kentucky because she can no longer support him in Greece . One has to wonder if she knew what she was doing. The lustful uncle Win, the young, sullen and handsome cousin Branston, and old aunt Leticia (who gives another meaning to the term, "nocturnal emissions") all give young, handsome Spiro a run for his money in this outlandish story of high-class, low-brow 1950s Kentucky society.

Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism by Anne Enke

Finding the Movement illustrates how lesbians reconfigured public spaces for women in Chicago and other Midwestern cities. Historian Anne Enke highlights social, political, and often entrepreneurial "interventions" led by lesbians, including the founding of bars, bookstores, and softball leagues in public parks. She details a feminist struggle against patriarchal attitudes and laws—including "blue codes," which all but prohibited women-only (and thus lesbian) gatherings until the 1960s and 1970s. Enke unearths materials from archives across the Midwest (including Gerber/Hart Library) and weaves in 120 interviews with women who organized the grassroots in order to liberate the places where women could meet, read, play, and otherwise live.

ManBug by George K. Ilsley

The quirky relationship of an unemployed, socially awkward entomologist and his dyslexic, bi-curious boyfriend are touchstones for wide-ranging musings on the nature of attraction in this experimental novel by George K. Ilsey. Born, like a Kafka protagonist, in a root cellar, Sebastian is passionately geeky about all things insectoid--yet he can't quite capture the affections of Tom, a player who swings both ways. Using a storytelling mode that underscores the characters' intellectual passion and emotional ambivalence, Ilsey raises provocative questions about how love manifests itself in the physical universe. In his telling, the lowly bug bears clues to the uncertainty and impermanence of gay romance, and human love might be a mere biological phenomena—akin to the bodily possession of a parasite.

Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh

Newly unearthed correspondence and copiously assembled archival research form the backbone of this biography, which traces Rudolph Nureyev's journey from a Russian adolescent struggling with his unconventional body type to the driven and sometimes petulant artist and sex symbol from the 1960s until his death from AIDS. Behind the famous images (muscle-bound legs that end in a suggestive dance belt) are densely detailed glimpses that reveal the emotional and psychological turmoil of Nureyev's love and sexual entanglements with men—from bathhouse hook-ups to affairs with mentors and protégés in the dance world.

The View From Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers by Matthew Hays

In thirty-three interviews by Montreal-based critic Matthew Hayes, the wide range of queer viewpoints on cinema is explored and celebrated. Conceived of as a continuation and counterpoint to Russo's Celluloid Closet, most of these artists actually work outside the Hollywood mainstream. So while the book includes bold-faced names like Divine, Almodovar, and Gus Van Sant who straddle independence and mass recognition, the concerns and struggles of less heralded filmmakers are emphasized. With contributors including lesbian documentary team Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman, indie director/L-word contributor Rose Troche, and esoteric outsiders like Annie Sprinkle and Kenneth Anger, the book surveys the state of queer media today—some of which can be found in Gerber/Hart's circulating collections.

This page was last updated April 25, 2010.