Prepared by Martha Stone and Michael Wofsey of HQ76.3/New England
May 23, 1996
Aldyne, Nathan. Canary. New York: Ballantine Books, 1986.
Aldyne, Nathan. Cobalt. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982.
Aldyne, Nathan. Slate. New York: Villard Books, 1984.
Aldyne, Nathan. Vermilion. New York: Avon, 1980.
First of a mystery series featuring Boston bartender, Dan Valentine.
Nathan Aldyne was a pseudonym for the writing team of Michael
McDowell and Dennis Schutz.
Baker, Nikki. The Lavender House murder: a Virginia Kelly mystery.
Tallahassee, FL: Naiad Press, 1992.
Lesbian mystery set in Provincetown.
Burns, John Horne. Cry of children. New York: Harper, 1952.
A novel about a concert pianist.
Cunningham, Michael. Flesh and blood. New York: Farrar, Straus,
Giroux, 1995.
A novel about a Greek-American family. Billy, the gay son, settles
in Boston.
Doty, Mark. Heaven's coast. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
A memoir of Doty's lover, Wally Roberts's death from AIDS.
Friskopp, Annette and Sharon Silverstein. Straight jobs, gay lives:
gay and lesbian professionals, the Harvard Business School, and
the American workplace. New York: Scribner, 1995.
Gambone, Phillip. The Language we use up here and other stories.
New York: Dutton, 1991.
Sixteen stories about gay men in Boston in the 1980's and 1990's.
Gangitano, Lia. Boston School. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art,
1995.
This catalogue features the art work of several lesbian and gay artists.
Gilgun, John. Music I never dreamed of. New York: Amethyst Press, 1989.
A novel set in South Boston in the 1950's.
Grant, Stephanie. The passion of Alice. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995.
A novel about the lesbian awakening of Alice, who has an eating disorder.
Much of the action takes place at a South Shore psychiatric hospital.
Green, Martin Burgess. The Mount Vernon Street Warrens: a Boston story,
1860-1910. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989.
A history of the prominent Beacon Hill family which included the
flamboyant art collector, Edward Perry Warren.
Grove, Lee. Drowning. New York: Viking, 1991.
A family saga, in which the gay son teaches at a New England prep school.
Grove, Lee. Last dance: a novel. London: Faber and Faber, 1984.
The main setting is a gay Boston disco.
Guerrier, Edith, 1870-1958. An independent woman: the autobiography
of Edith Guerrier. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992.
Guerrier was a Boston librarian and feminist; her partner for nearly
forty years was Edith Brown.
Helms, Alan. Young man from the provinces: a gay life before Stonewall.
Boston: Faber and Faber, 1995.
Memoir of a well-known "goldenboy" of 1960's Manhattan. After turning
his back on the fast lane, Helms settled in Boston.
James, Henry. The Bostonians. New York: Macmillan, 1885.
Novel inspired by the romantic friendship of Henry's sister Alice and
Katherine Loring.
Jennings, Kevin, ed. One teacher in ten: gay and lesbian educators tell
their stories. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1994.
Many of the contributors teach at Massachusetts schools.
Johnson, Shirley Everton. The Cult of the Purple Rose: a phase of Harvard
life. Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1902.
A coded homage to Oscar Wilde. Johnson is male, by the way.
Jussim, Estelle. Slave to beauty: the eccentric life and controversial
career of F. Holland Day, photographer, publisher, aesthete. Boston:
D.R. Godine, 1981.
Katz, Judith. Running fiercely toward a high thin sound: a novel.
Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1992.
Set in the Northampton area.
Kirstein, Lincoln. Mosaic: memoirs. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1994.
The famous ballet impresario lived in Back Bay from 1911-1918, attended
the Devotion School in Brookline and Harvard.
Loring, Frederic W. Two college friends. Boston: Loring, 1871.
A novel of a romantic friendship set at Harvard. Not explicitly gay,
but coded in Whitmanesque language. Was Frederic related to Katherine
Loring, Alice James' romantic friend?
Marotta, Toby. Sons of Harvard: gay men from the class of 1967.
New York: Morrow, 1982.
Massachusetts. Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. Making
colleges and universities safe for gay and lesbian students: report and
recommendations of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth.
Boston: The Commission, 1993.
Massachusetts. Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. Making
schools safe for gay and lesbian youth: breaking the silence in schools
and in families: education report. Boston: The Commission, 1993.
Matthiessen, F.O. Rat & the Devil: journal letters of F. O. Matthiessen and
Russell Cheney. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1978.
McCauley, Stephen. The easy way out. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.
Novel set mostly in Cambridge.
McCauley, Stephen. The man of the house. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.
Novel set in Cambridge.
McCauley, Stephen. The object of my affection. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.
Novel set mostly in Brooklyn, but the main character visits his family in a
Boston suburb.
McDaniel, Judith. Just say yes: a novel. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1991.
Lesbian romance set in Provincetown.
Merlis, Mark. American studies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
A novel very loosely based on the life and suicide of Harvard professor,
F.O. Matthiessen.
Michaels, Grant. Body to die for. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990.
Mystery novel with a gay beautician as the amateur detective, set in Boston.
Michaels, Grant. Dead on your feet. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993.
Murder in a Boston ballet company.
Michaels, Grant. Love you to death. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.
Michaels, Grant. Mask for a diva. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.
Mitzel, John. The Boston sex scandal. Boston: Glad Day Books, 1980.
Mitzel, John. John Horne Burns: an appreciative biography. Dorchester, MA:
Manifest Destiny Books, 1974.
Monette, Paul. Becoming a man: half a life story. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1992.
Memoir of growing up gay in Lawrence, Mass., attending Phillips Academy
in Andover, going to Yale, and then teaching at private schools in Boston suburbs.
Monette, Paul. Taking care of Mrs. Carroll. Boston: Little Brown, 1978.
Novel set in and around Boston.
Moore, Honor. The white blackbird: a granddaughter's life of the painter
Margarett Sargent. New York: Viking, 1996.
Boston-born Sargent had an affair with Jane Bowles.
Myles, Eileen. Chelsea girls. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1994.
Autobiographical novel about growing up Catholic and gay in Boston.
Oleson, Amy. Love and memory. San Francisco: Spinsters Book Co., 1991.
A novel set in Boston.
Patterson, Rebecca. The Riddle of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1951.
This was the first book that dealt frankly with the great Amherst poet's
attraction to other women.
Plante, David. The Catholic. Boston: Atheneum, 1985.
Novel with gay characters set in Boston in the 60s.
Preston, John and Michael Lowenthal, editors. Flesh and the word 3.
New York: Dutton, c1995.
This collection of erotica includes a nonfiction remembrance of Harvard
tearooms.
Preston, John. Franny, the Queen of Provincetown: a novel. New York:
St.Martin's Press, 1995.
Preston, John and Michael Lowenthal, editors. Friends and lovers: gay men
write about families they create. New York: Dutton, 1995.
Preston, John, ed. Hometowns: gay men write about where they belong.
New York: Dutton, 1991.
Several of the essays are about Boston and environs, including Preston's
about Medfield, Mass., and Michael Bronski's about Cambridge.
Preston, John, ed. A member of the family: gay men write about their
families. New York: Dutton, 1992.
Christopher Wittke's chapter is about his family in Boston.
Preston, John. My life as a pornographer & other indecent acts. New York:
Masquerade Books, 1993.
Preston, John. Sweet dreams. Boston: Alyson Press, 1984.
One of the Alex Kane series.
Preston, John. Winter's light: reflections of a Yankee queer. Hanover, NH:
University Press of New England, 1995.
Quirk, Lawrence J. Some lovely image. Secaucus, N.J.: Meadowland Books,
1989, c1976.
Novel set at 19th Century Harvard.
Rasi, Richard A. and Lourdes Rodriguez-Nogues. Out in the workplace: the
pleasures and perils of coming out on the job. Los Angeles: Alyson Publications,
1995.
Many of the workers who participated in this study are from Boston, as are the authors.
Reid, John. The best little boy in the world. New York: Putnam, 1973.
John Reid is a pseudonym of Andrew Tobias, the prominent investment counselor.
Much of this memoir is set at Harvard, with visits to Sporters, the recently closed
Beacon Hill bar.
Rofes, Eric E. Socrates, Plato, & guys like me: confessions of a gay schoolteacher.
Boston: Alyson Publications, 1985.
Sarton, May. Faithful are the wounds. New York: Rinehart, 1955.
A novel set in the academic world of Harvard, Cambridge, and Boston,
to some extent inspired by the F.O. Mathiessen tragedy.
Sarton, May. The education of Harriet Hatfield. New York: W.W. Norton,
1989.
A novel of anti-gay violence at a women's bookstore in a "blue-collar
neighborhood near Boston."
Schalet, Randi. Lunch. La Mesa, CA: Clothespin Fever Press, 1994.
A lesbian novel set in Boston, with a vivid evocation of a Pride March.
Shand-Tucci, Douglas. Ralph Adams Cram, American medievalist. Boston:
Boston Public Library, 1975.
Cram was an important Boston-based architect who designed New York's
great Episcopal cathedral, St. John the Divine, among other buildings. This
is Shand-Tucci's dissertation.
Shand-Tucci, Douglass. Ralph Adams Cram: life and architecture. Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 1995- Contents: v. 1. Boston Bohemia, 1881-1900.
This first volume paints a broad sociological picture of late 19th Century Boston.
Sox, David. Bachelors of art: Edward Perry Warren & the Lewes House
brotherhood. London: Fourth Estate, 1991.
Art collecting in 19th Century London, with some Boston references.
Stebbins, Emma, ed. Charlotte Cushman: her letters and memories of
her life. Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878.
The title page of this collection of actress Cushman's letters says it
was "edited by her friend, Emma Stebbins."
Stevens, Jake. Concept and practice of community among gay people in
Dorchester, Massachusetts. Cambridge: Harvard University, 1986.
Undergraduate thesis, written during the heyday of Dorchester GALA.
Tatelbaum, Brenda Loew, ed. The Boston collection of women's poetry:
an anthology of poetry by women who participated in the Gay/Feminist
Poetry Contest 1983 sponsored by Brush Hill Press, Boston, Massachusetts.
Boston: Brush Hill Press, 1983.
Wells, Anna Mary. Miss Marks and Miss Woolley. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978.
Nonfiction account of a Boston marriage at Mt. Holyoke and Wellesley.
White, Edmund. States of desire: travels in gay America. New York: Dutton, 1980.
Chapter on Boston.
Wings, Mary. She Came Too Late. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1987.
A mystery set in Boston.
Woods, James D. The corporate closet: the professional lives of gay men in
America. New York: The Free Press, 1993.
Many of the participants were from the Boston area.
Zabarsky, Marsha. Free fall. Austin, TX: Banned Books, 1990.
A novel about three Boston lesbians.
LOCAL AUTHORS
Bates, Katharine Lee. Yellow clover: a book of remembrance. New York: Dutton, 1922.
Best known for "America the Beautfiul," Bates addressed this book of elegiac love
poems to fellow Wellesley professor, Katharine Coman. Bates and Coman had been
in a Boston marriage for many years until Coman's death.
Bishop, Elizabeth. The complete poems, 1927-1929. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux,
1983.
Blumenthal, Warren J. and Diane Raymond. Looking at gay and lesbian life.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1988.
Borawski, Walta. Lingering in a silk shirt: poems. Boston: Fag Rag, 1994.
Borawski, Walta. Sexually dangerous poet. Boston: Good Gay Poets, 1984.
Boston Lesbian Psychologies Collective. Lesbian psychologies: explorations
and challenges. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.
Bronski, Michael. Culture clash: the making of gay sensibility. Boston: South
End Press, 1984.
Bronski is a well-known local author and a founder of the Gay Liberation Front.
Brooten, Bernadette J. Women leaders in the ancient synagogue: inscriptional
evidence and background issues. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982.
Brooten is on the Harvard faculty.
Bulkin, Elly, ed. Amazon poetry: an anthology of lesbian poetry. Brooklyn, NY:
Out and Out Books, 1975.
Bulkin is a poet who lives in Jamaica Plain.
Bulkin, Elly. Enter password: recovery, re-enter password. Albany, NY: Turtle,
1990.
Bulkin, Elly, ed. Lesbian fiction: an anthology. Watertown, MA: Persephone Press,
1981.
Bulkin, Elly, ed. Lesbian poetry: an anthology. Watertown, MA: Persephone Press,
1981.
Burns, John Horne. The gallery. New York: Harper, 1947.
World War II novel set in Italy.
Burns, John Horne. Lucifer with a book. New York: Harper, 1949.
Cole, Henri. The zoo wheel of knowledge. New York: Knopf, 1989. Poems.
Corinne, Tee and Jacqueline Lapidus. Yantras of womanlove. Tallahassee, FL:
Naiad Press, 1982.
Poems.
Daly, Mary and Jane Caputi. Websters' first new intergalactic wickedary
of the English language. Boston: Beacon Press, 1987.
A dictionary of the terminology of feminism and witchcraft. Daly is
currently a professor at Boston College.
Daly, Mary. Gyn/ecology, the metaethics of radical feminism. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1978.
Daly, Mary. Outercourse: the be-dazzling voyage: containing recollections from
my Logbook of a radical feminist philosopher (being an account of my time/space
travels and ideas--then, again, now, and how). San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco,
1992.
Day, F. Holland. F. Holland Day: suffering the ideal. Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms, 1995.
F. Holland Day was a prominent publisher and photographer, with an office on Pinckney
Street on Beacon Hill.
DeSantis, John and Matthew V. Jaquith. Gay and lesbian materials in the
Amherst College Library: a bibliography. Amherst, MA: Amherst College Library,
1994.
Includes a filmography and discography.
Dickinson, Emily. The complete poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Little Brown, 1960.
Doty, Mark. Atlantis: poems. New York: HarperPerennial, 1995.
Doty, Mark. Bethlehem in broad daylight: poems. Boston: David R. Godine, 1991.
Doty, Mark. My Alexandria: poems. Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1993.
This collection won the National Book Award.
Dreher, Sarah. Bad company: a Stoner McTavish mystery. Norwich, VT: New Victoria,
1995.
Encyclopedia of homosexuality. New York: Garland Pub., 1990.
Co-editor is William A. Percy, Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts,
Boston.
Frank, Barney. Speaking Frankly: what's wrong with the Democrats and how to fix it.
New York: Times Books/Random House, 1992.
Fries, Kenny. The healing notebooks. Berkeley, CA: Open Books, 1990.
This volume of poems won the Gregory Kolovakos Award for AIDS Writing in 1991.
Garden, Nancy. Annie on my mind. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1982.
This young adult novel about a teenaged lesbian by local writer Garden is one of
the most challenged books in school and public libraries of the last decade.
Gay, A. Nolder. Some of my best friends: essays in gay history and biography.
Boston: Union Park Press, 1990.
Gay, A. Nolder. The view from the closet: essays on gay life and liberation,
1973-1977. Boston: Union Park Press, 1978.
Goldfarb, Hilliard T. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: a companion guide
and history. Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1995.
Grimes, Thomas. Reclamations. Cambridge, MA: Parfait de Cocoa, 199?.
Poems.
Grimke, Angela Weld. Selected works of Angela Weld Grimke. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1991.
Grimke was a figure from the Harlem Renaissance.
Herman, Ellen. The romance of American psychology: political culture in the
age of experts, 1940-1970. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Hershman, Marcie. Tales of the master race. New York: Harper, 1991.
Hickman, Craig. Language of mirrors. Cambridge, MA: Parfait de Cocoa, 1993.
Local poet and performance artist.
Hickman, Craig. Rituals. Cambridge, MA: Parfait de Cocoa, 1994.
Poems.
Jeffers, Alex. Safe as houses: a novel. Boston: Faber & Faber, 1995.
Johansson, Warren. Outing: shattering the conspiracy of silence. New York:
Haworth Press, 1994.
Kikel, Rudy, ed. Gents, bad boys, and barbarians: new gay male poetry.
Boston: Alyson Publications, 1995.
Kikel is the arts, entertainment, and poetry editor for Bay Windows.
Kikel, Rudy. Lasting relations. New York: Sea Horse Press, 1984.
Kikel, Rudy. Long division: poems. Augusta, SC: Writers Block Pub. Co., 1993.
Kikel, Rudy. Shaping possibilities. Imaginary Press, 1980.
Lapidus, Jacqueline. Ready to survive. Brooklyn: Hanging Loose Press, 1975.
Poems.
Lapidus, Jacqueline. Starting over: poetry. New York: Out & Out Books,
1977.
Lapidus, Jacqueline. Ultimate conspiracy: poems. Provincetown, MA: Lynx
Publications, 1987, c1980.
Lowell, Amy. Complete poetical works. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1955.
The Brookline poet addressed many of her explicit lesbian lyrics to Ada Russell,
with whom she shared a thirteen-year "Boston marriage."
Lucas, Frances. If looks could kill: a mystery. Norwich, VT: New Victoria
Publishers, 1995.
This is set in Los Angeles, but there is a great deal of talk about Boston.
Matthiessen, F.O. American renaissance: art and expression in the age of
Emerson and Whitman. London: Oxford University Press, 1941.
Miller, Neil. In search of gay America: women and men in a time of change.
New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989.
Miller, Neil. Out in the world: gay and lesbian life from Buenos Aires to Bangkok.
New York: Random House, 1992.
Miller, Neil. Out of the past: gay and lesbian history from 1869 to the present.
New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
Mitzel, John. Myra & Gore: a new view of Myra Breckenridge and a candid interview
with Gore Vidal: a book for Vidalophiles. Dorchester, MA: Manifest Destiny Books,
1974.
Author is the manager of Glad Day Bookstore.
Newman, Leslea. Heather has two mommies. Boston: Alyson Wonderland, 1989.
Northampton writer, Newman, writes prose and poetry, fiction and nonfiction,
but is best known for this children's book because it has been attacked so
viciously by the extreme right.
Oliver, Mary. American primitve: poems. Boston: Little, Brown, 1983.
This volume by the Provincetown resident won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984.
Oliver, Mary. New and selected poems. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.
This volume won the National Book Award.
Orner, Eric. The mostly unfabulous social life of Ethan Green.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.
A compilation of cartoons from the widely syndicated cartoon.
Orner, Eric. The seven deadly sins of love. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.
The further adventures of Ethan Green.
Riel, Steven. How to dream: poems. Amherst, MA: Amherst Writers & Artists
Press, 1992.
Robinson, Phillip. Secret passages: a trilogy of thought. New York: Vantage Press, 1987.
Poems.
Rothblum, Esther D. and Kathleen A. Brehony. Boston marriages: romantic but asexual
relationships among contemporary lesbians. Amherst: University of Massachusetts
Press, 1993.
Schreiber, Ron. John: poems. Brooklyn: Hanging Loose Press, 1989.
Shively, Charley, ed. Calamus lovers: Walt Whitman's working-class camerados.
San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1987.
Shively, Charley. Drum beats: Walt Whitman's Civil War boy lovers.
San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1987.
Shively, Charley. Nuestra Senora de los Dolores: the San Francisco experience.
Boston: Good Gay Poets, 1975.
Strong, Jonathan. Elsewhere. New York: Ballantine Books, 1985.
Strong, Jonathan. Secret words. Cambridge, MA: Zoland Books, 1992.
Sturgis, Susanna J., ed. Tales of magic realism by women: dreams in a minor key.
Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1991.
Sturgis, Susanna J., ed. Women who walk through fire: women's fantasy & science
fiction, vol. 2. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1990.
Vaeth, Kim. Her Yes. Cambridge, MA: Zoland Books, 1994.
Poems.
Vaid, Urvashi. Virtual equality: the mainstreaming of gay and lesbian liberation.
New York: Anchor Books, 1995.
Vaid, a former director of the NGLTF, now lives in Provincetown.
Van Auken, Candace Lee. Kite maker. Norwich, VT: New Victoria Publishing, 1991.
A novel.
Warren, Edward Perry. A defense of Uranian love. New York: AMS Press, 1978.
Warren, who lived from 1860-1928, originally published this book in three
volumes under the pseudonym A.L. Raile. Warren came from a prominent Beacon
Hill family and was a well-known art collector.
Wheeler, Gordon, and Blackman, Stephanie, editors. On intimate ground: a Gestalt
approach to working with couples. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994.
This collection of essays includes one on gay couples by local therapist, Allan Singer.
Willhoite, Michael. Daddy's roommate. Boston: Alyson Wonderland,1990.
This "Gay Agenda" book has inspired many challenges in school and public
libraries throughout the nation.
Willhoite, Michael. Daddy's wedding. Los Angeles: Alyson Wonderland, 1996.
Willhoite, Michael. Uncle What-is-it is coming to visit! Boston: Alyson Publications, 1993.
PERIODICALS AND NEWSPAPERS
The Alyson almanac. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1989-
Biennial.
Bachelors' Journal. Boston: Samuel G. Andrews, 1828 (April 24-Sept. 18).
Only 22 issues of this journal devoted to the joys of bachelorhood were ever published.
Bay Windows. Boston: Alyson, 1983-
A weekly gay and lesbian newspaper.
Boston Gay Review. Boston: The Boston Gay Review, 1976-1981.
A gay literary journal; only nine issues were ever published.
Fag Rag. Boston: Fag Rag, 197?-198?.
A radical gay periodical, published in the 1970's and early 80's.
Focus. Boston: Boston Daughters of Bilitis,1971-
Continues Maiden Voyage below.
Gay Community News. Boston: G.C.N. Inc., 1973-1992.
Since ceasing weekly publication in 1992, GCN has published sporadic special issues.
Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review. Cambridge: Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus, 1994-
A quarterly of serious thought and opinion.
In Newsweekly. Boston: In Newsweekly, 1991?-
A weekly gay and lesbian newspaper, with ads for bars throughout New England.
Lavender Vision. Cambridge: Media Collective, 1970?-1971.
A lesbian periodical; apparently, only two issues were ever published.
Maiden Voyage. Boston: Boston Daughters of Bilitis, 1969?-1971.
Continued by Focus above.
Mid-town Journal. Boston: Journal Pub. Co., 1938 (April 14)-1966 (June 6).
This weekly scandal sheet often featured stories with campy, alliterative
headlines about drag balls, bar raids, and party busts.
One in Ten. Boston: Boston Phoenix, 1994-
This monthly supplement to the Boston Phoenix is also distributed separately
in gay-friendly businesses.
Sister Courage. Allston: Sister Courage, 1975-1978.
A feminist periodical with considerable lesbian content.
Sojourner. Cambridge: Sojourner, Inc., 1975-
This feminist monthly is now published in Jamaica Plain.
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