HOT OFF THE PRESS
SOME OF THE BIGGEST NAMES IN GAY LITERATURE AND PHOTOGRAPHY HAVE LONGAWAITED RELEASES DUE IN 2017, REPORTS GRAEME AITKEN.
Maupin, Hollinghurst, Ackroyd.
MARK HENDERSON’S COLOUR EXPLOSION
This new project from Mark Henderson is a striking counterpoint to the images in his previous publication, Lap Of Luxury, which consisted of photographs with an intentionally subtle palette of whites, greys, blacks and beiges. In this new book dazzling colour is the primary formal motif… though it will only enhance and not overshadow the well-hung, often erect models and their magnificent physiques. Due out in June.
DAVID VANCE’S EMOTIONS
In his new book, acclaimed photographer David Vance shares his particular vision of emotions. “As a beauty addict, I am compelled to photographing beautiful subjects. When I see something that is beautiful, I want to show it to the world the way I have experienced it,” he says. The resultant emotion for the viewer is often unbridled lust! The collection of works is due for release in Europe in March.
ALAN HOLLINGHURST’S MYSTERY
Nothing is known about Alan Hollinghurst’s sixth novel except for the title – The Sparsholt Affair – and that it is due to be published in November. Neither his publisher nor his agent have released any details. At the Jaipur Literature Festival in January, where he appeared, Hollinghurst confirmed that he’d finished the book two weeks earlier.
ARMISTEAD MAUPIN’S MEMOIR
How did Maupin evolve from a conservative son of the Old South into a gay rights pioneer and scandelous author? He explains in the funny, poignant and unflinching Logical Family: A Memoir, due out in October.
After losing his virginity to another man, Maupin packs up and heads west to San Francisco in the early 1970s. There he plunges headlong into an exhilarating Eden of gay bathhouses and unrepentant free spirits. While working odd jobs, he begins to absorb impressions of the city that he weaves into an epic urban saga for the next 40 years; Tales Of The City.
Along the way Maupin’s stumbling search for his ‘logical family’ is revealed with candour and self-effacing humour. He loses some of his dearest friends to AIDS and, earlier than any other writer, wields his fiction to make others feel the weight of that loss.
PETER ACKROYD’S GAY LONDON HISTORY
In Queer City: Gay London From The Romans To The Present Day (due out in June), Ackroyd looks at London in a whole new way – through the history and experiences of its gay population.
In Roman Londinium (the name of the settlement where London is now) the city was dotted with lupanaria (‘wolf dens’ or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels) and thermae (hot baths). Then came the Emperor Constantine, with his bishops, monks and missionaries, and thus began an endless loop of alternating permissiveness and censure.
Ackroyd takes us from the notorious Normans to the frenzy of executions for sodomy in the early 19th Century. He journeys through the coffee bars of Sixties Soho to Gay Liberation, disco music and the horror of AIDS. Ackroyd tells us the hidden story of queer London and how it got there; celebrating its diversity, thrills and energy on the one hand but reminding us of its very real terrors, dangers and risks on the other.