Nothing Ever Just Disappears
Seven Hidden Queer Histories
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
An exploration of artistic freedom, survival, and the hidden places of the imagination, including James Baldwin in Provence, Josephine Baker in Paris, Kevin Killian in San Francisco, and E. M. Forster in Cambridge, among other groundbreaking queer artists of the twentieth century.
Nothing Ever Just Disappears is radical new history of seven queer lives and the places that shaped these groundbreaking artists.
At the turn of the century, in the shade of Cambridge's cloisters, a young E. M. Forster conceals his passion for other men, even as he daydreams about the sun-warmed bodies of ancient Greece. Under the dazzling lights of interwar Paris, Josephine Baker dances her way to fame and fortune and discovers sexual freedom backstage at the Folies Bergère.
And on Jersey Island, in the darkest days of Nazi occupation, the transgressive surrealist Claude Cahun mounts an extraordinary resistance to save the island she loves, scattering hundreds of dissident artworks along its streets and shorelines.
Nothing Ever Just Disappears brings to life the stories of seven remarkable figures and illuminates the connections between where they lived, who they loved, and the art they created. It shows that a queer sense of place is central to the history of the twentieth century and powerfully evokes how much is lost when queer spaces are forgotten.
From the suffragettes in London and James Baldwin's home in Provence, to Kevin Killian's San Francisco and Derek Jarman’s cottage in Kent, this is both a thrilling new literary history and a celebration of freedom, survival, and the hidden places of the imagination.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This incisive chronicle from Cambridge University historian Hester (Wrong) examines the "significance of place" in the lives of queer artists. Exploring the Cambridge grounds once trod by E.M. Forster as a student there in the early 20th century, Hester suggests that the vogue for Hellenic ideals in British academia at the time brought renewed attention to ancient Greeks' approval of love between men, influencing Forster's depiction of "a place where relationships could be conducted without shame and without secrecy" in his novel Maurice, first published in 1971. Elsewhere, Hester suggests that the permissive culture in 1920s Paris allowed singer Josephine Baker to explore her bisexuality and that San Francisco's Small Press Traffic book store served as a hub for the New Narrative movement of the 1970s and '80s, which included such poets as Kevin Killian and Robert Glück. Hester's evocative prose brings the locales to vivid life (he describes 1909 London, which served as the backdrop for producer Edith Craig and playwright Cicely Hamilton's "radical feminist theatre" work, as marked by traffic "moving arrhythmically forward in spurts" and the "thick, pervasive aroma of sour horsedung"), and he offers keen insight into works by some of the 20th century's most notable queer artists. The result is a scintillating investigation of the intersection between environment, creativity, and identity. Photos.