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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
"An immersive history of Fire Island and the evolution of LGBTQ culture in 20th-century America ..."
"Among the most poetic and moving parts of this beautifully written book are Parlett's own memories of New York City, Fire Island, and his growth as a gay man ..."
"Instead it emerges as a singular place, and an almost improbably influential one ..."
"He pays filial attention to archives and to the table talk of queer elders; intergenerational wisdom lends his tale its crepuscular bite ..."
"An illuminating, well-written history of a unique place."
"A fine account of an important place in gay cultural history."
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