American Voyeur
Dispatches From the Far Reaches of Modern Life
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
BENOIT DENIZET-LEWIS, one of the most perceptive and interesting journalists writing today, takes us into some unusual precincts of American society in American Voyeur.
Denizet-Lewis made news with his New York Times Magazine cover story "Double Lives on the Down Low," included here, which ignited a firestorm by revealing a subculture of African-American men who have sex with other men but who don’t consider themselves gay. In American Voyeur, he also takes us inside a summer camp for pro-life teenagers, a New Hampshire town where two young brothers committed suicide, a social group for lipstick lesbians, a middle school where a girl secretly lives as a boy, a college where fraternity boys face the daunting prospect of sobriety, a state where legally married young gay men are turning out to be more like their parents than anyone might have suspected, a high school where dating has been replaced by "hooking up," and other intersections of youth culture and sexuality. Peer behind the curtain of modern American life with this remarkable collection.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Denizet-Lewis (America Anonymous) offers these stirring and sensitiveportraits of individuals-frequently adolescents-struggling to articulatedesire and identity while bearing the weight of so-cietal taboo andmarginalization. In the best sections-such as his groundbreakinginvestigation into a subculture of closeted gay African American men andhis acutely observed piece on the os-tracized organization NAMBLA-hecombines sharp-eyed reportage, sensitive depiction, and happily,considering the sober subject matter, a wry wit. The pieces werepreviously published in such magazines as the New York Times magazine,and they have the expected celerity and read-ability-only a few(including a piece on lipstick lesbians) succumb to a more shallowtreatment. But for the breadth of his inquiries, the real shoe-leatherjournalism, and his ability to balance sympathy and skepticism (hisstudy of transient gay youth is one such an example) he admirablysucceeds.
