Hometowns: Gay Men Write About Where They Belong

Rating:
Summary: Superb essays on gay writers' sense of where they are from
Review: The late John Preston's collections of essays by American gay male writers about where they live now or lived when they were growing up is always interesting and often insightful. Among other things, it shows that the elite (creationist) discourse about social construction remains very far from the lived experience of even articulate and reflective natives. Michael Nava's memoir of Sacramento and Jesse Monteagudo's of Miami struck me tas the most poignant and insightful. The absence of any Asian-Americans was noticeable. It would be interesting to know if American lesbian writers have similar senses of place and to link these splendid accounts to theories of cognition of place, but these are both other projects.

Rating:
Summary: Superb essayson gay writers' sense of where they are from
Review: The late John Preston's collections of essays by American gay male writers about where they live now or lived when they were growing up is always interesting and often insightful. Among other things, it shows that the elite (creationist) discourse about social construction remains very far from the lived experience of even articulate and reflective natives. Michael Nava's memoir of Sacramento and Jesse Monteagudo's of Miami struck me tas the most poignant and insightful. The absence of any Asian-Americans was noticeable. It would be interesting to know if American lesbian writers have similar senses of place and to link these splendid accounts to theories of cognition of place, but these are both other projects.