Journalist
City of Night appropriately reads like a beat novel. Written in the 60’s, it follows a gay-for-pay hustler whom we follow from New York to L.A. to San Francisco to New Orleans and further, but we never learn his name. This is appropriate as well, because one of the main themes ringing throughout the piece is the discontent that comes from steeling oneself to the world and its experiences.
This biography on one of my favorite actors is brimming with anecdotes that perfectly capture the immutable charisma of Tallulah Bankhead. Unlike most actors, I always thought Tallulah’s best performances were at the beginning of her career. In her first talkies, her characters are arguably more natural and entrancing than even Bette Davis. But her personality and antics over the decades led to audiences refusing to forego their perception of her to make room for the characters she portrayed. One anecdote in the book talks about her performance as Blanche Dubois (whom Tennessee Williams actually based on her). Some of Blanche’s most heart wrenching lines were dismissed by the audience as camp. They refused to take her seriously, only acknowledging Tallulah, unwilling to see Blanche. Though the book details her tempestuous and often tragic life, it’s also peppered with “Tallulah-isms,” such as “Cocaine isn’t habit-forming, darling. I ought to know, I’ve been doing it for years,” and “I’m as pure as the driven slush.” The woman had a wit to rival Dorothy Parker (whom she often encountered at the Algonquin Round Table).
Hanya Yanagihara’s second novel is equal parts soulful and soul-crushing. It has some of the most exhilarating sentences I’ve ever had the joy of reading, but at some points, as much as I love it, it delves a little into trauma porn. It’s not for the faint of heart, but past the ugliness and past the despair, it’s nothing short of marvelous– a lot like life itself.
It’s sometimes frustrating to me that gay history pre-Stonewall is routinely treated as less relevant than the decades after the riots set forth a nearly linear surge of progression. So reading George Chauncey’s exhaustive documentation of how gay people forged a culture in New York before World War II was riveting. Chauncey details the secret enclaves that let them revel in pace, the imperceptible cues (such as asking for a cigarette) that sent signals to prospective lovers, and the general blurriness of sexual orientation at the time.
This work is vital and timely. Coates’ conveyance of what it is to be black in a society built on white supremacy is searing and urgent, while his perspective on blackness as a whole is symphonic and ultimately beautiful. An absolutely necessary read for everyone existing in a society affected by colonization. In other words, a necessary read for everyone.
Evan Brechtel 