{"product_id":"castro-street-blues-paperback","title":"Castro Street Blues - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJack Fritscher\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eMark Hemry\u003c\/b\u003e (Editor), \u003cb\u003eTerje Svendsen\u003c\/b\u003e (Photographer)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eINDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD 2024 DISTINGUISHED FAVORITE LGBT FICTION\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDesperate Husbands\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA Gay Hero's Journey through Covid\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis \u003cem\u003eamuse-bouche\u003c\/em\u003e gay pop-culture novel of arts, ideas, and history, packed with comic dish, is a meta-fiction memoir told by a marvelously unreliable third-person narrator. The \"coming-out novel\" meets the \"elder-exit novel\" in the circle of life when the closet of quarantine disrupts a happily married couple aging in place.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe longtime husbands are representative men, survivors of gay history, from their coming out into the homophobia of the 1950s to their rowdy post-Stonewall life of fifty years in San Francisco before retiring to the Marin Headlands across the Golden Gate Bridge. Quarantined there, they watch online news of thousands of Covid refugees and renters fleeing the City, creating the most empty downtown in America, turning their once fabulous Castro gayborhood into a ghost town.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCovid depression is the worst room in the best hotel of gay life. With the sinking feeling of drowning men, they see their pre-Covid queer life flashing before their eyes in slow-motion homosurreal memory scenes of magical realism, late-night noir films, and their own video diaries of friends lost to AIDS. Having survived isolation in the closet and the viral AIDS years, the veterans of the midcentury gay liberation wars, surveying their personal history, struggle forward on their gay heroic journey through the dark cave of Covid vowing never to surrender to the PTSD many gay men carry from years of homophobia.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe author keeps this tale of Covid lockdown, the New Normal, and desperate husbands real and authentic with time-capsule headlines ripped from the news of the pandemic, the rise of MAGA fascism, the great gay migration to Palm Springs, rainbow pronouns, and a transgender person leading the revived Pride Parade.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDirector Oliver Stone said of his film \u003cem\u003ePlatoon\u003c\/em\u003e, \"This movie is not about me, but I had to be in Vietnam to write it.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIf this literary fiction, gayly packed with queer pop culture, seems as real as an autobiography, the author has done his job as an artist taking the reader on a fanciful ride as entertaining as his award-winning \u003cem\u003eSome Dance to Remember: A Memoir-Novel of San Francisco 1970-1982\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 106\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.25 x 8.5 x 5.5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e May 22, 2023\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51755092279584,"sku":"9781890834654","price":10.75,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/221e716e9254e653056f7aa752a4d749_2c833d0a-4abe-485d-9b97-84708a342b0b.webp?v=1780050238","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/castro-street-blues-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}