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Fire Island: A Century in the Life of an American Paradise – A Highly Informative LGBTQ+ United States History Biography
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About This Book
A groundbreaking account of New York's Fire Island, chronicling its influence on art, literature, culture and queer liberation over the past century Fire Island, a thin strip of beach off the Long Island coast, has long been a vital space in the queer history of America. Both utopian and exclusionary, healing and destructive, the island is a locus of contradictions, all of which coalesce against a stunning ocean backdrop. Now, poet and scholar Jack Parlett tells the story of this iconic destination—its history, its meaning and its cultural significance—told through the lens of the artists and creators who sought refuge on its shores. Together, figures as divergent as Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, Carson McCullers, Frank O'Hara, Patricia Highsmith and Jeremy O. Harris tell the story of a queer space in constant evolution. Transporting, impeccably researched and gorgeously written, Fire Island is the definitive book on an iconic American destination and an essential contribution to queer history.
Reviews
"Parlett also does an admirable job illuminating how the Stonewall Riots, the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, and other events affected the island's gay community, though his attempts to weave in autobiographical reflections are somewhat less effective."
"Readers of all stripes will appreciate this fast-paced general interest title."
"It's aptly punctuated with scenes from the author's own island visits during a period living in Manhattan."
"A vibrant social history ..."
"A fine account of an important place in gay cultural history."
"Parlett [is a] skeptical yet definitive narrator of Fire Island's carnival, a diorama he embellishes with autobiographical asides ..."
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