From Publishers Weekly
Award-winning author (The Zuni Man-Woman) and spearhead of the gay men's spirituality movement in the U.S., Roscoe has assembled and annotated a diverse, sometimes irritating, sometimes involving collection of poems, stories and myths that either explicitly or implicitly engage archetypal gay experience. Some of his choices are intriguing and amusing?Hans Christian Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling" becomes in context a fable of coming out. Classical figures?Ganymede, Hyacinthus, Endymion?are admirably well represented, as are figures from Native American myth. The "two-spirit" of Zuni mythology is an empowered "third gender" figure that Roscoe presents as a positive alternative to the Oedipal narrative of the homosexual's genesis. Less satisfactory are Roscoe's annotations, many of which are self-indulgently autobiographical; one can't help wondering if the book sometimes blurs the distinction between what is personally meaningful and what is genuinely archetypal. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
A fascinating collection of myths and stories from around the world that offers gay men a key to discovering the myths and heroes of their lives.
Queer Spirits: A Gay Men's Myth Book FROM OUR EDITORS
These selections of mythology and folklore, from Chinese tales and Native American legends to gay archetypes gleaned from erotica and other literature, sample such writers as Hans Christian Andersen, Flannery O'Connor, James Thurber, Jean Cocteau, James Broughton, and Walt Whitman.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Based on tireless research in the archives of mythology and folklore, Queer Spirits weaves a rich, multicultural tapestry. Selections include everything from Chinese folktales to firsthand accounts of Native American two-spirits to the occasional gay archetypes to be gleaned from nursery rhymes, newspaper clippings, and gay erotica. Among the writers represented are Hans Christian Andersen, James Broughton, Jean Cocteau, Steven Saylor, Samuel Steward, and Walt Whitman. Interspersing these selections is the author's commentary on their meaning, drawing on his own inner journey, beginning with his arrival as a young man in the teeming gay world of San Francisco in the 1970s. The result is a fascinating, often loving testimony to gay spirit that shows how gay men can find the myths and heroes within themselves.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Award-winning author (The Zuni Man-Woman) and spearhead of the gay men's spirituality movement in the U.S., Roscoe has assembled and annotated a diverse, sometimes irritating, sometimes involving collection of poems, stories and myths that either explicitly or implicitly engage archetypal gay experience. Some of his choices are intriguing and amusing-Hans Christian Andersen's ``The Ugly Duckling'' becomes in context a fable of coming out. Classical figures-Ganymede, Hyacinthus, Endymion-are admirably well represented, as are figures from Native American myth. The ``two-spirit'' of Zuni mythology is an empowered ``third gender'' figure that Roscoe presents as a positive alternative to the Oedipal narrative of the homosexual's genesis. Less satisfactory are Roscoe's annotations, many of which are self-indulgently autobiographical; one can't help wondering if the book sometimes blurs the distinction between what is personally meaningful and what is genuinely archetypal. (May)
Art & Photography
Book Info
