Category: On Books and Publishing

“It’s about somebody trying to get some answers as to why things are why they are.  But nothing seems to quite work.”

As anyone who’s been involved with involved people will tell you, the possibility of betrayal is sometimes the only thing that keeps a relationship going, whether between the betrayers or between spouses and partners.

The figures of the lower class like, Victor and Clover, are pitted against lesbians and gays who are, it seems, uniformly heroic and literate and kind. 

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), the latest statistics on HIV indicate that the populations at greatest risk for new infections are African-American men who have sex with men, and African-American women.  This is a marked shift from the early years of the epidemic, when HIV/AIDS was perceived—and stigmatized—as a white gay men’s disease.

Chicago’s annual Pride Parade is a popular spectacle for queer Chicagoans and their straight allies.  But even its most ardent supporters often wonder if Pride, meant to commemorate Stonewall, has retained its insurgent and activist roots. This year, a new group named Bash Back! decided to reclaim some of what it feels is the original spirit of Pride: protest, critique and anti-assimilationist politics.

The strange conclusion is a fitting end that may well be another beginning.