Pink Highways: Tales of Queer Madness on the Open Road

Co-creator of Monk, an underground zine that chronicled his travels throughout America with coauthor Jim Crotty, Lane here describes two memorable journeys he took on his own. After nine years on the road with Crotty, Lane jumped ship in Oregon and struck out across the country to attend the 1993 gay rights march in Washington, D.C. Along the way, he partied with drag queens in San Francisco, helped create ``performance art on wheels'' on the freeway between New York and Washington and got more enmeshed than he meant to in the troubled life of a young hitchhiker he picked up in Arizona. Sometimes joyous and sometimes profoundly disturbing, Lane's encounters with old friends and total strangers inspire reflections on the endless quirks in the American psyche and on the often startling consequences that ensue when members of different subcultures try--or are forced--to intermingle. Lane's experiences provoke recollections of a coming-of-age journey to Morocco during which he began to come to terms with his sexual and national identities. This is the most memorable section of the book. His vision of America--both strange and engrossing--is worth discovering. (July)