Fire Island
A Century in the Life of an American Paradise
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
*A Town and Country Must-Read Book of Summer*
*A BUZZFEED BEST BOOK OF JUNE*
*A Washington Post “Book to Read This Summer”*
*AN ADVOCATE BEST LGBTQ+ BOOK OF 2022*
*A USA Today "Book to Celebrate Pride Month"*
*A New York Times "Editor's Pick"*
*A Kirkus Reviews Hottest Book of Summer*
A groundbreaking account of New York's Fire Island, chronicling its influence on art, literature, culture and queer liberation over the past century
Fire Island, a thin strip of beach off the Long Island coast, has long been a vital space in the queer history of America. Both utopian and exclusionary, healing and destructive, the island is a locus of contradictions, all of which coalesce against a stunning ocean backdrop.
Now, poet and scholar Jack Parlett tells the story of this iconic destination—its history, its meaning and its cultural significance—told through the lens of the artists and creators who sought refuge on its shores. Together, figures as divergent as Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, Carson McCullers, Frank O'Hara, Patricia Highsmith and Jeremy O. Harris tell the story of a queer space in constant evolution.
Transporting, impeccably researched and gorgeously written, Fire Island is the definitive book on an iconic American destination and an essential contribution to queer history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Literary theorist Parlett (The Poetics of Cruising) delivers an immersive history of Fire Island and the evolution of LGBTQ culture in 20th-century America. Documenting the island's Native American origins; the emergence of Cherry Grove and its neighboring community, Fire Island Pines, as refuges for those seeking to evade "the scrutiny of mainland morality"; and their development as increasingly risqué and sexually permissive vacation destinations in the latter half of the 20th century, Parlett excels at portraying literary odd couples who helped shape the culture of Fire Island. These include "gay patron saints" Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde (though Parlett admits there is "no real evidence" Wilde visited the island), writers Frank O'Hara and James Baldwin, and novelists Carson McCullers and Patricia Highsmith, who were part of Fire Island's "lesbian literati" in the 1950s and '60s. Parlett also does an admirable job illuminating how the Stonewall Riots, the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, and other events affected the island's gay community, though his attempts to weave in autobiographical reflections are somewhat less effective. Still, this is a rich and rewarding study of Fire Island's vital role in LGBTQ history and culture.
