cover image A Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Society

A Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Society

Bruce Bawer. Poseidon Press, $20.5 (269pp) ISBN 978-0-671-79533-7

As an amalgam of candid autobiography, teenage homosexual guide, indictment of homophobes and eloquent plea not only for tolerance but for acceptance of homosexuality, this highly personal ``meditation-manifesto'' by gay poet and literary critic Bawer ( Diminishing Fictions ) provides a much-needed historical and moral perspective on the problems faced especially by gay men. Highly visible Gay Pride members of a sex-dominated, politically active subculture, the author contends, are not representative of the varied mainstream, seen here as a mostly silent, gay population now subject, especially in the military, to a ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy. Bawer further charges that it is largely anti-gay prejudice that defines gays as a group. He deplores misleading negative images that brand homosexuals as AIDS-prone, physically or mentally ill, promiscuous and drug-addicted. The best (and last) chapter treats the need for homosexual self-recognition and the dangers of denial. Bawer's well-reasoned, articulate arguments are of inestimable value. (Nov.)