I write historical mysteries about it set in
Washington, DC, during the post-WWII period involving gay and lesbian
characters, so I initially came to this book as research.
As I read Kirchick's
well-researched and gripping writing, I felt moved by the rich interplay
between LGBTQ lives and the halls of political power.
Although there are many
tragic stories about gays and lesbians during the 20th century, I was surprised
by how empowering I found this book as a gay man. We've not only always been
here, but we've been here at the side of the most influential leaders of our
time. A remarkable and important book!
For decades, the spectre of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret "too loathsome to mention" held enormous, terrifying power.
Utilizing thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviews with over one hundred people, and material unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, Secret City is…
Sister Holiday is the sort of queer
protagonist I yearn to read. She's full of contradictions—anger and warmth,
thoughtfulness and rebelliousness, physical yearning and spiritual
earnestness—and she is dedicated to solving a series of deadly arsons at Saint
Sebastian's School in New Orleans, a setting equally full of these
contradictions.
I connected with her, as many other readers have, queer or
otherwise, because she's constantly navigating this in-between space by doing
the hard work of solving a crime and seeking justice, so perhaps, she can
resolve some of these contradictions. Does she in the end? Well, you'll have to
read and find out!
Sister Holiday, a chain-smoking, heavily tattooed, queer nun, puts her amateur sleuthing skills to the test in this "unique and confident" debut crime novel (Gillian Flynn).
When Saint Sebastian's School becomes the target of a shocking arson spree, the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and their surrounding New Orleans community are thrust into chaos.
Patience is a virtue, but punk rocker turned nun Sister Holiday isn't satisfied to just wait around for officials to return her home and sanctuary to its former peace, instead deciding to unveil the mysterious attacker herself. Her investigation leads her down a twisty path of…
Dederer
takes on the most troubling of questions for avid consumers of art: What do we
do with good art made by bad people?
How do we resolve the contradiction of
loving a Polanski film but knowing he had sex with an underage girl? I'm a huge
Patricia Highsmith fan, but she was bigoted, racist, and, well, generally
unpleasant. How should I feel about that?
I heard an interview with Dederer on
the Gray Area podcast, and I was hooked because she wasn't approaching the
question from a moralistic standpoint but from a human and conflicted
standpoint. In her book, she never tells you how to think; she explores the
full range of her thoughts as she reckoned with these questions. It's a
beautiful, vulnerable, and honest book.
'Funny, lively and convivial... how rare and nourishing this sort of roaming thought is and what a joy to read' MEGAN NOLAN, SUNDAY TIMES
'An exhilarating, shape-shifting exploration of the perilous boundaries between art and life' JENNY OFFILL
A passionate, provocative and blisteringly smart interrogation of how we experience art in the age of #MeToo, and whether we can separate an artist's work from their biography.
What do we do with the art of monstrous men? Can we love the work of Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson, Hemingway and Picasso? Should we love…
In 1954, mystery novelist Lionel Kane witnesses his DC apartment engulfed in flames with his lover and writing partner, Roger Raymond, inside. Police declare it a suicide, but he refuses to believe Roger was suicidal.
Weeks earlier, Judy Nightingale and Philippa Watson—the tenacious heroines from The Savage Kind—attend a lecture by Roger and, being eager fans, befriend him. He has just been fired from the State Department, another victim of the Lavender Scare, an anti-gay crusade spearheaded by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the FBI.
Little do the women know, but their pursuit of their old enemy, Adrian Bogdan, a serial killer protected by powerful governmental forces, has led to Roger’s dismissal. But has their persistence brought deadly forces to the team behind their beloved books?
