The Gay Metropolis

Rating:
Summary: The rainbow prism shines in Kaiser's book.
Review: (The Fabulous) Gay (Life)

Straight America may always be schizophrenic in its relationship with the gay community, but as evidenced in Charles Kaiser's THE GAY METROPOLIS 1940-1996 (Houghton Mifflin Co., $27), no matter what the level of rejection, toleration or acceptance- there was no stopping us then and there is no stopping us now.

Kaiser tracts a burgeoning gay community, building as a collective force, at the national upheaval of America during WWII. What emerged in US cities at the time is a formidable, if rutterless minority. One that didn't seek to mirror the dominant straight society, but rather, was forced to be refracted by it, through an arbitrary sexually fuedalism.

Kaiser's sober, respectably researched and thoughly engrossing book is a light panoramic history of the indeflagitable homosexual urban culture in the US since that defining period. Interviewing many who where there then and here now, he draws sharp parallels and contrasts that show how far we have come and how far we have to go.

The gay mines have been swept and few exploded in THE GAY METROPOLIS- The least of them turns out to be scandalous exposes of celebrities and politicals in pre-liberation days. Although, a little bombe like the fact that House on Un-American Activities Sen. Joe McCarthy didn't rout out homosexuals (an institutionalized government tactic since WWI), along with his commies because he had sex with men, is delicious.

The real mushroom cloud in this book is that lesbian and gay men through sheer normalcy of will thrived in pre-Stonewall decades no matter what forces moved to oppress them. From fascinating personal remembrances of non-celebrities to the sublime tales of the infamous, Kaiser is expert in interfacing the infinite cross-culturalism that has molded gay life, for better or worse.

It's obvious from the assessable scope of this book that Kaiser has both the authoritative power of a historian and the storytelling flair of a great novelist. For instance, writing potently of the shrouded shenanigans of McCarthy aide Roy Cohn, New York columnist Joseph Alsop, J. Edgar Hoover, among other politically powerful closet queens, Kaiser de-sensationalizes the venomous gossip and instead disects the socio-political background that produced such internalized homophobia.

Another laudable method Kaiser employs is to regard all expressions of gay life worthy of even-handed reporting, from the (necessary) clandestine trysting places of toilets and salons to the complex socio-political structures of the gay-rights movement, the whole prism is in there.

Yet he always brings the antecdotes back to the point that, all along, no matter what the gay-bashing flavor of the year is, for gays, it is always about a civil-rights struggle-

"Gay Life in New York City in the 1950s was by turn oppressive and exhilarating, a world of persecution and vast possiblilities."

Kaiser tends to fawn over the importance of the arts and celebrity as pivotal touchstones and breakthroughs within the gay community. His observations are fascinating, even asute, you get the feeling that he should have written a separate book. He goes on about gay milestones in the theater, yet gives an almost one-dimensional reportage of the New York lesbian community.

He provides a great service, though, in drawing perspective on the impact of the crucial scientific research of the 1950s of homosexuality by Alfred Kinsey and Dr. Evelyn Hooker, whose studies, along with the personal experiences of gays, provided the solid architecture for a unified gay rebellion, movement, liberation and community infra-structure.

He also heralds the almost forgotten achievements of early gay militantcy, such as that of The Mattachine Society, the first known grassroots gay organization, which was founded by Harry Hay.

Although the vibracy of Kaiser's chapters on the 40s and 50s quiets a bit by the time we get into the closer ring of the latter decades, he writes movingly and accurately about the early years of the gay community's response to the AIDS epidemic.

With this book, the author can join the list of important gay historians like John Boswell, George Chauncey, Elizabeth Kennedy and Martin Duberman in liberating the invisible and silent past. Crisp, objective and colorful, Charles Kaiser has rescued from obscurity, the private and public lost stories that have weaved the tapestry of the still unfurling gay flag.

Lewis Whittington

Rating:
Summary: Readable, Informative
Review: A charming history of gay life in New York City (and by extension, the world) from 1940-1996. Scholars will dig the history, gossips will exult in learning who was doing whom. It has those tersely journalistic minichapters that keep you reading "just one more" until three in the morning. A good book for toilet visits, subway reads (about two stops to digest a section), or curling up on the couch by an open window in winter waiting for snow. It is by turns witty, lurid, hilarious, informative, erotic, and touching--all the elements which comprise daily life in New York City. The Gay Metropolis is an intellectual turn-on, whether you're gay, straight or in between. You don't have to be gay to read it, though it might make you wish you were if you're not.

Rating:
Summary: Detailed, readable, dishy
Review: Highly detailed, highly readable, and more than a little dishy, Kaiser's chronicle of post-WWII gay life and culture is told through the stories of the individuals -- activists, celebrities, writers; many fascinating, some tragic -- who shaped it. The book's focus on New York gay males is a limitation, of course, but this is still a rich and essential volume in 20th century gay history.

Rating:
Summary: lazy and lame book
Review: i ordered this, based largely on the concept, which seemed like a book on gay history that was much needed to fill in the gaps. instead, the book comes off as if Kaiser got a nice advance and then needed to submit *some* kind of manuscript, but he had lots of other things to do, so he did the absolute minimal amount of new research. instead, he relies heavily on taped interviews with 6 or 7 gay men to fill out the pages. The chapter on the '70s, one of the most important decades in gay history, has nothing more than former bartenders saying that "the Mineshaft was wild, man" and a politico friend of his talking about how he semi-came out of the closet. No sense of the "gay metropolis" here, just a random series of unconnected anecdotes. I hope he got a nice advance, but this book isn't really worth actually BUYING - just check it out at the library, in all its dismalness, and see for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Charming Anecdotes Posing as History
Review: There is much to enjoy in the Gay Metropolis (subtitled the landmark history of gay life in America since World War II). The history is presented as a series of observations and anecdotes from many people who lived in the gay scene during this time. The subtitle is a little misleading as the book is really only covering New York and not America and there is no he said, she said as it is basically (with a few very interesting exceptions) only men who are covered in this book. It is by no means a definitive history but it is an entertaining read as the stories are usually told well and are intimately personal. As the book goes on, most readers over the age of thirty will learn nothing new but it still reads quickly and pleasantly. A fun volume for the general reader of a slice of the Big Apple gay life.

Rating:
Summary: I only wish high school history class was as interesting...
Review: This book is everything I hoped it would NOT be. I second the emotion on snobbish and name-dropping, but the vilest criticism is that Kaiser is so uncritical of anything the gay community has done, continues to do in destroying itself from within, and ventures nowhere in the future. Kaiser is so 'proud' that what he has produced is one of the most skewed pieces of propagandistic writing in the last 50 years and far from what I would call analytical historical writing. Considering the length of this book, the tragedy is what it could have been with a more objective outlook.

Rating:
Summary: A marvelous grounding in popular history
Review: This book provides the reader with a clear, basic understandingof the grounding of popular opinion regarding gay life during the last50 years. While the history is too rich and detailed to be dealt within a book with this scope, this is a remarkably readable and valuable thumbnail of the currents of the public discourse on gay life, and should provide any reader with an understanding of how crucial and new gay civil rights really are. I only hope that it will inspire others whose experience of being gay is a relatively new one to realize how important political activism and community still is. Not only that, a very engaging read!

Rating:
Summary: The Rainbow talks about the Big Apple
Review: What a wonderful, wonderful read! Go and get this book for yourselves to read. Find out who you are, and where you came from, and where you have the power to go.Obtain strength from others you read in this book. Charles Kaiser has concentrated on New York, but it does not detract from an overall understanding of the 20th Century gay tapestry. The use of New York could probably be seen as symbolic for the broader gay commonwealth.Probably a wise move. The decision to make this mainly an oral history was most likely a wise one as well.It brought this book, and our community's history to life in a way that traditional academic writing cannot possibly achieve. Kaiser has very pertinently compared our situation with all other minorities, and it's what we have in common that counts, not the differences.

The treatment of our history in different decades was the most interesting feature - the 2nd World War, and the 1990's being the most interesting and illuminating episodes, in an episode-filled book. The history of the '80s was the hardest to read, but to appreciate what Kaiser writes of the 1990s, it's necessary to read the book from beginning to end.

As a group, we still need positive reinforcement, and this book does it beautifully. You won't regret reading it, and I am indebted to a wonderful straight friend for bringing this back from New York as a present for me.

Rating:
Summary: The Rainbow talks about the Big Apple
Review: What a wonderful, wonderful read! Go and get this book for yourselves to read. Find out who you are, and where you came from, and where you have the power to go.Obtain strength from others you read in this book. Charles Kaiser has concentrated on New York, but it does not detract from an overall understanding of the 20th Century gay tapestry. The use of New York could probably be seen as symbolic for the broader gay commonwealth.Probably a wise move. The decision to make this mainly an oral history was most likely a wise one as well.It brought this book, and our community's history to life in a way that traditional academic writing cannot possibly achieve. Kaiser has very pertinently compared our situation with all other minorities, and it's what we have in common that counts, not the differences.

The treatment of our history in different decades was the most interesting feature - the 2nd World War, and the 1990's being the most interesting and illuminating episodes, in an episode-filled book. The history of the '80s was the hardest to read, but to appreciate what Kaiser writes of the 1990s, it's necessary to read the book from beginning to end.

As a group, we still need positive reinforcement, and this book does it beautifully. You won't regret reading it, and I am indebted to a wonderful straight friend for bringing this back from New York as a present for me.