Synopsis:
Queer Pulp exposes the history of queer sexuality in mid-twentieth century American paperbacks. Historian Susan Stryker charts the rise of the queer paperback within the context of American pop- and publishing culture, with a peppy and accessible overview of the cultural, political, economic, and sociological factors involved. A diverse lot, queer pulp is most easily broken down in the categories of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender themes. Within those subgenres, the books and authors themselves are accompanied by countless fascinating stories (for example, a former Georgetown University philosophy professor named H. Lynn Womack founded the notorious Guild Press, a major gay porn publishing house that was a prominent First Amendment crusader in the sixties). Featuring the work of such highbrow authors as W. Somerset Maugham and Truman Capote, to the no-brow hacks who worked under several names at once, Queer Pulp is the entertaining and informative introduction to these lost, lurid literary genres.
About the Author:
Susan Stryker, a freelance scholar, writer, and activist, earned her Ph.D. in US history at UC Berkeley, where she is currently a visiting professor in the Women's Studies Department. She has been on the Board of Directors of the Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California for the past two years where she has also worked as a volunteer and public program organizer. She has recently worked on the development of public policy on AIDS, the history of Frameline and the San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, post-structuralist theories of transsexuality, and the photography of Loren Cameron. She is the co-author of Gay by the Bay, a historical look at gay life in San Francisco, as well as Gay Pulp and Lesbian Pulp Address Books, all published by Chronicle Books.
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