John Preston

First published to wide acclaim in 1983, Franny was a book of gay heroism and camaraderie in the shadow of the burgeoning AIDS crisis. Today, one can read it with a sense of nostalgia, and with the knowledge that Franny's dream of a society that accepts gays and lesbians without question is closer to fruition, but far from complete.

"Accountant, virgin, large-bottomed man of unusual drabness, Edmund Crowe wants nothing more than to fit in. Trouble is, nothing feels right. Least of all the Roundhouse: Mecca to Camden's undesirables - people with low moral standards and correspondingly low standards of hygiene." "Assigned the job of balancing the Roundhouse's books - and thereby ensure its demise - Edmund is advised to keep his purpose there a secret. But then Barney appears on the scene: Barney the Lothario, the fine-handed gypsy, and hitherto the undisputed King of the Roundhouse." "Before long, Edmund and Barney are fighting it out for the affections of an ice-cream coquette called Lia. Sex, drugs, rock n' roll and mutant rats swiftly follow as Edmund's life changes in previously unimaginable ways." "Charting the progress of Barney, Lia and Edmund, from the orgiastic, mind-bending 1970s to the social-climbing, emotionally famished 1990s, from crumbling cityscape to lavish country retreat, Kings of the Roundhouse is a twisted, darkly comic novel about love, friendship, men, money, and the life-transforming power of lightning strikes."--BOOK JACKET.

In these stirring autobiographical essays and social commentaries, a prolific writer and gay rights pioneer--whose voice was stilled by AIDS in 1994--tells of the search for a place to belong. Preston's voice is as brave, honest, and clear-sighted as ever, which makes us miss it all the more sorely.--Anne Rice.

In A Member of the Family the most talented gay writers of our time turn their hearts and psyches inside out to show us the families who gave birth to them, raised them, rejected them, exiled them, and loved them. There are no stereotypes here. Each essay, commissioned specifically for this collection, describes a family that is unique and so idiosyncratic that it can belong only to the author - and so familiar and universal that it reminds us startlingly of our own. John Preston begins the anthology with the question interviewers still ask him: "What do your parents think?" Then he remembers his past, the angry letter he left for his parents the day he moved out of their home forever, and the unsuspected impact that letter had on his younger brother. Other authors write too of letters they left or sent, of hurts they gave and received, of reconciliations and unresolved conflicts. The results are extraordinary. Michael Nava writes of his stoic, enigmatic grandfather, embittered in middle age and a living portrait of the man Nava himself might become; Eric Latzky, on the other hand, makes the heart ache with his portrayal of his grandfather, Louis; and Larry Duplechan mixes laughter and tears with his hard-edged, wise-cracking description of his mother, who called the love of his life "crap" and said learning he was gay was like hearing he'd been killed in a car crash...but he was still her baby. Growing up with parents who survived the Holocaust left Harlan Greene with different kinds of scars; and Brian Kirkpatrick has created a brilliant gem of introspection, fantasy, and pain about the mother who abandoned him in a Catholic orphanage. Through their daring honesty and exceptional talents, each of the twenty-four authors has created modern American literature out of autobiography with masterfully rendered episodes that risk exposing so much about their lives, and in turn, effectively reveal to us much about our own. A deeply emotional and beautifully conceived

Politics is a dirty business, filled with dirty lies. The dirt becomes deadly in Minneapolis/St. Paul when rampant political smearing and corruption turn toward unscrupulous politicians' easiest targets: gay men. Who better to clean things up than Alex Kane! With his love and sidekick Danny Fortelli, Alex comes to protect the dreams--and lives--of gay men imperiled by the lies and deceit that threaten to tear them apart. Together they can generate the heat needed to burn away the political trash in Minnesota--and anywhere else it endangers the dreams of gay men.

From Library Journal: Writer, editor, health educator, and author of the S/M cult classic Mr. Benson, Preston here collects 30 years' worth of essays and lectures on a wide variety of topics with one common theme: sex. The work offered here runs the gamut from the essential and enlightening to the downright silly, with "A Modest Proposal for the Support of the Pornographic Arts" definitely falling into the later category. Preston's sex-positive stand on safer-sex education as the only truly effective AIDS-prevention strategy will certainly not win him any conservative converts, but AIDS activists will be shouting their assent. As the title suggests, Preston celebrates a time when homosexuality was defined in more purely sexual terms, which gives some of the work an oddly nostalgic quality. Despite some contradictions that weaken a few of the more conceptual arguments, Preston's book is a bridge from the sexually liberated 1970s to the more cautious 1990s, and Preston has walked much of that way as a standard-bearer to the cause for equal rights. Recommended for special collections and larger libraries where the topic will be of interest. - Jeffery Ingram, Newport P.L., Ore. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The ground-breaking novel The Heir tells the story of a world where slaves and masters create a new sexual society. This edition also includes a completely original work, The King, the story of a soldier who disc= overs his monarch's most secret desires.

No sooner had the first generation of gay writers emerged in this country than they found themselves caught up in the violent maelstron of the AIDS epidmeic. Here are their reports from the midst of an ongoing struggle, personal dispatches from the frontlines by some of the most accomplished writers of our time.