The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America

Charles Kaiser

Dec 2007 · Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

About this eBook

Now featuring an updated introduction celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Stonewall
 
“The landmark portrait of 20th-century New York viewed through the eyes of gay New Yorkers.” —The New York Observer
 
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year and winner of a Lambda Literary Award, The Gay Metropolis is a landmark saga of struggle and triumph that was instantly recognized as the most authoritative and substantial work of its kind. Now, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprisings, Charles Kaiser has brought this history into the twenty-first century. In this new edition he covers the three court cases that lead to the revolutionary legalization of gay marriage in America, as well as shifts toward inclusion in mainstream pop culture, with the Oscar–winning films Brokeback Mountain and Call Me by Your Name.
 
Filled with astounding anecdotes and searing tales of heartbreak and transformation, it provides a decade-by-decade account of the rise and acceptance of gay life and identity since the 1940s. From the making of West Side Story to the catastrophic era of AIDS, and with a dazzling cast of characters—including Leonard Bernstein, Montgomery Clift, Alfred Hitchcock, John F. Kennedy, and RuPaul—this is a vital telling of American history.

Ratings and reviews

So I really wanted to lile this book. I was hoping to learn a great deal about gay history that is not just focused on Aids and the Stonewall Riots. This book however is a collection of random stories from people who happen to be gay. It feels as if I was sitting around a dinner table listing to people tell their histories. I thought I was going to read a book that told the history of gay culture as told by people who lived it, instead I get random stories of who they slept with. There is no coecion.

Armistead Maupin had a book series that capturedctge San Francisco gay scene, its beighbirhoods, bars, relationshipscwith neighbors in apartment buildings. Circa early 1970s to 1985 ish. It ran on PBS in the early to mid 1980s.

About the author

Charles Kaiser, the author of 1968 in America, has been a reporter at the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek. He has also written for Vanity Fair, New York magazine, and the Washington Post. He has taught journalism at Columbia and Princeton, and is the author of The Gay Metropolis, a history of gay life in New York City since 1940.