The University of Wisconsin Press
Gay & Lesbian Interest / Biography
Travels in a Gay Nation
Portraits of LGBTQ Americans
Philip Gambone
Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies
David Bergman, Joan Larkin and Raphael Kadushin, Series Editors
"This collection of interviews with gay activists and artists is like going to dinner with people you’d love to know but don’t, and Phil Gambone is the perfect stand-in for the reader: impressively prepared, sympathetic, and smart."—Andrew Holleran, author of Grief: A Novel
•Finalist, Foreword Magazine’s Anthology of the Year
•Outstanding Book in the High School Category, American Association of School Libraries
•Best Book in Special Interest Category, Public Library Association
For two years, Philip Gambone traveled the length and breadth of the United States, talking candidly with LGBTQ people about their lives. In addition to interviews from David Sedaris, George Takei, Barney Frank, and Tammy Baldwin, Travels in a Gay Nation brings us lesser-known voices—a retired Naval officer, a transgender scholar and "drag king," a Princeton philosopher, two opera sopranos who happen to be lovers, an indie rock musician, the founder of a gay frat house, and a pair of Vermont garden designers.
In this age when contemporary gay America is still coming under attack, Gambone captures the humanity of each individual. For some, their identity as a sexual minority is crucial to their life's work; for others, it has been less so, perhaps even irrelevant. But, whether splashy or quiet, center-stage or behind the scenes, Gambone's subjects have managed—despite facing ignorance, fear, hatred, intolerance, injustice, violence, ridicule, or just plain indifference—to construct passionate, inspiring lives.
"By asking good questions and really listening, Philip Gambone opens an illuminating window into the minds, hearts, and guts of a fabulous array of extraordinary Americans. At this critical time in America's decades-long movement toward LGBTQ equality, you really shouldn’t miss this view."—Will Fellows, author of Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest
Philip Gambone teaches English at Boston University Academy and at the Harvard Extension School. An award-winning essayist, journalist, and fiction writer, he is author of Something Inside: Conversations with Gay Fiction Writers and Beijing: A Novel, both published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Photo credit: Hayley Bartlett Gambone
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June 2010
LC: 2009041591 HQ
328 pp. 6 x 9
Paper $26.95 t
ISBN 978-0-299-23684-7ADD TO CART
The 40 interviewees include:
Dorothy Allison
Tammy Baldwin
Alison Bechdel
Mark Doty
Lillian Faderman
Barney Frank
Scott Heim & Michael Lowenthal
David Sedaris
George Takei
Urvashi Vaid
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