cover image From Lonely Hunters to Lonely Hearts: An Oral History of Lesbian and Gay Southern Life

From Lonely Hunters to Lonely Hearts: An Oral History of Lesbian and Gay Southern Life

James T. Sears. Basic Books, $28 (336pp) ISBN 978-0-8133-2474-6

Seeking to redress the ""bicoastal bias"" in gay history studies, Sears (Growing Up Gay in the South) presents seven anecdotally driven episodes of Southern gay life and gay activism from the two decades prior to Stonewall. The history is made more immediate through extensive interviews with participants, but lacks the broader perspective and more rigorous organization of a standard history. Indeed, a thorough narrative might have eliminated some of Sears's side roads into the civil rights movement, which contribute little to the book's stated purpose. The overlaps between the two struggles, however, make for good reading, especially Sears's accusation of racism in one of Armistead Maupin's (Tales of the City) early pieces in which he wrote about African Americans and ""the shortcomings of their race."" The book's greatest strength is the compilation of information and testimony on an age and a place that some would consider as dark for gays as for blacks; its greatest weakness is Sears's inability to keep track of the numerous characters over the course of the chapters. His inclusion of an entirely anomalous story of Southern hermaphrodite Gordon Langley Hall would probably have been better left to another book. (Oct.)