Under This Beautiful Dome: A Senator, a Journalist, and the Politics of Gay Love in America

Former Associated Press writer Mutchler shares the transformative tale of her clandestine five-year marriage to Illinois state senator Penny Severn and its devastating aftermath following Severn’s death from cancer in 1998. Despite owning a house and living together, Mutchler and Severn went to extreme lengths to hide their relationship, fearful of its impact on Severn’s political career. Unexpectedly, Severn’s family did not acknowledge their relationship after her death, and due to a misleading will and a betrayal by Severn’s twin sister, Mutchler lost her home and possessions. More disturbing is the author’s passivity during these ordeals, which she attributes to a childhood defined by fundamentalism. She endured years of depression and alcoholism. Though this memoir deserves a prominent place on gay rights bookshelves (and Mutchler’s frank self-analysis is admirable and moving), readers involved in the gay rights struggles of the 1990s may be mystified by the subtitle’s lack of historical reference, and both sympathetic to and frustrated by Mutchler’s response to injustice. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary. (Nov.)