Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #572073 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780786718139
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Aprogenitor of the gay literary movement, as well as a poet, author and publisher, Picano recounts the creatively rich, landmark period during the 1970s and '80s when the first dedicated gay presses arose in New York City. Focusing primarily on SeaHorse Press and the Gay Presses of New York, both founded or cofounded by Picano, he covers the two decades following the 1969 Stonewall riots, outlining how he (and others) fostered a GLBT literary tradition that continues today, with writers such as Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, Larry Kramer and, of course, Picano. Although evocative details thrust the reader immediately into the scene, there's no larger narrative to anchor them. Dense with information, the book is weighed down by page after page of authors' names, dates and titles of books, almost like a veteran's memorial. Writing informally, Picano also has a tendency to digress and jump confusingly forward and back in time. This highly personal account of an important and often neglected area of gay history offers compelling material that makes a reader long for a more objective account. But until that book is written, this is the most complete document of the gay book publishing movement to date. (Aug.)
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About the Author

Customer Reviews

Fascinating and Frustrating
A memoir of the heady days of gay writing and publishing, the 70's and 80's in New York City, which is alternating fascinating and frustrating. Fascinating in the stories Picano has to tell in his fluent, readable prose style: the development of "Torch Song Trilogy" and Harvey Fierstein's early career, the personalities behind Three Lives Bookstore and Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore (Greenwich Village institutions), the Violet Quill writers circle, the trials and tribulations of getting gay and lesbian literature written at all when societal prejudice continued to create obstacle upon obstacle, the devastations of the AIDS epidemic upon multiple budding careers.

Frustrating in the narcissism with regard to the author's contribution to gay literature, the myopia that conflates historic significance with literary worth, the overvaluation of minor writers (his friends) and the undervaluation of major ones (not his friends):

"I'd begun writing what would end up being the first part of my first memoir and I was intensely aware that I believed I'd accomplished a kind of breakthrough in the form". (page 166)

"Today the criticism my book received then seems silly when it isn't hypocritical". (p.171)

A little of this goes a long way - and there is alot of this.

Picano is out to dish the dish, settle some scores and make perfectly clear how heroic his (and some others)efforts were. It isn't so much as I disagree with his assessment of some of his accomplishments as his manner of seeing them all in the same rosy glow.

While I frequently found this book compulsively readable, I episodically had to slow down to step around the little piles of egocentricity.

a disappointing history of gay publishing
I am a big fan of Felice Picano, having read almost everything he's written, back to Slashed to Ribbons in Defense of Love. So I am sorry to say that this book was a huge disappointment. I know the history of gay publishing and was hoping for some insight into its overlooked history. Alas, this book is mostly about Felice. And Felice. And Felice.

It's also not really about Art and Sex. It's a history of Picano's publishing ventures in New York. There's almost nothing about art, and there are passing references to sex, but the book is completely mistitled. It should be, "A Brief History of Gay Publishing in New York."

A True Insider's Look at the Gay Literary Movement
Felice Picano's Art and Sex in Greenwich Village is an informative and entertaining history on the emergence of gay literature in the 1970's and `80's from someone who was not only there, but helped pioneer it.

With his own SeaHorse Press and later Gay Presses of New York, Picano published the works of then- unknown gay writers such as Harvey Fierstein, Brad Gooch and Dennis Cooper.

With his no-holds-barred candor, razor-sharp memory and quick wit, Picano recollections (from visiting Fierstein's tiny Brooklyn apartment to an after-hours private photo session with Robert Mapplethorpe) are, at times, dishy and gossipy, yet always incredibly fascinating to read. Picano also settles some scores and puts a few rumors to rest along the way, too. I also enjoyed the many photos of book covers, artists and writers of the era.

But I was mainly touched by Picano's stories on lesser-known writers, many who died too young to establish great literary legacies. Although never becoming big names, these writers' contributions were no less important, and Picano's book reverently honors their place in gay literary history.

Salvatore Sapienza, author of Seventy Times Seven