Man’s Country: More Than A Bathhouse – Owen Keehnen (Rattling Good Yarns Press)

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Rattling Good Yarns Press

In 1972, a twenty-thousand square foot building known as Verdandi Hall went up for sale. Originally constructed fifty years prior, and located in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, just south of Andersonville, it had most recently housed the Verdandi Society, a social club for Swedish Americans. That year Chuck Renslow and Dom Orejudos purchased the building, and after extensive renovations, a new social club, Man’s Country, opened its doors on September 19, 1973. Owen Keehnen’s aptly titled Man Country: More Than a Bathhouse chronicles the impact of this seminal social club for Gay men.

Renslow initially did not intend to found a Gay bathhouse; at the time he was already co-owner of Club Baths Chicago, and he and Orejudos (better known as the artist Etienne or Stephen) owned several other Gay businesses, including the Gold Coast (Chicago’s first leather bar) and the photography studio Kris Studio. And even though the Gold Coast was doing respectable business as a bar, Renslow wanted to own more than a bar: In his own words, men “come to the bar, they come to drink, and then they go someplace to fuck.” After the immediate, heady post-Stonewall Riot days, Renslow saw further business opportunities—he also wanted to have that place where men would go to fuck.

Except that Man’s Country became so much more than a place to drink and fuck: in addition to being a bathhouse, it was a concert venue, art space, community space, juice bar, and would eventually become a dance club and gymnasium. Keehnen devotes a chapter to the Music Hall at Man’s Country, which opened December 31, 1974, and where Sally Rand performed her famous Fan Dance and Bubble Dance on February 14, 1975; other well-known performers included Wayland Flowers and Madame, Judy Tenuta, and the Kinsey Sicks. Another chapter recalls the artists—among them, Orejudos, Tom of Finland, Rex, and Bill Ward—whose artwork was displayed at Man’s Country. And Keehnen devotes most of another chapter to the reminisces of the men who frequented Man’s Country in the early 70s and 80s, and how they found sex, camaraderie, and community there.

Of course, with the onset of AIDS in the early 1980s, a lot of this came to an abrupt halt. Despite falling membership, Man’s Country did not close like the bathhouses in New York and San Francisco; instead, a progressive health commissioner acknowledged that if the club remained open, it could provide a community service by disseminating condoms and information about safe sex. (As early as 1975 the club had operated a mobile STD testing unit—the “VD Van”–that offered free, shame-free testing to its patrons.) In 1987, Renslow also reconfigured some of the inside space into a dance club, and the Bistro (an early 70s Chicago nightclub) was reborn as Bistro Too; it would stay open until 1992. Renslow would pivot again, opening a leather bar (the Chicago Eagle) within the confines of Man’s Country; it too closed in 2006. Alas, all things must end, and after Renslow’s death in 2017, the club closed for good, and the building demolished in 2019. But even in its demise the club continued to support the Gay community: souvenir bricks from the structure were sold as a fundraiser for Groceryland, a food pantry that provides meals for people living with HIV/AIDS. Keehnen includes photos and maps among the extensive research on his subject. And while his treatise reads like a veritable Who’s Who of 70s and 80s Gay culture, his focus is solely on Man’s Country, in all of its incarnations. Really, what Keehnen has written for us is a celebrity biography—and like the best celebrity biographies, it is more than just dry facts, and name-dropping: it is full of humor, great anecdotes, and clearly explains the importance of its subject, then and now.

Reviewed by Keith John Glaeske

Spring Poetry Roundup

It’s April again, meaning National Poetry Month, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to present four volumes to celebrate the form and its artistry. We have some wonderful poets with unique styles and fresh, exciting images, so let’s get right to it.

Snap.Shot – Brandon Blue (Finishing Line Press)

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Finishing Line Press

Ekphrasis, or writing about the art of others, is a revelatory weapon in the poet’s arsenal–from the subject to the homage, it may be the most personal of poetry because it not only tests the poet’s artistry but reveals something about their composition of their artistic tastes as well. It’s no surprise, then, that such a visual poet as Brandon Blue chooses photographs or paintings as his jumping off points. What is surprising is how sell Blue captures the gist of these images but echoes it. In two perfect examples near the front of the book, Blue uses the unsettling, off-kilter Bob Ross-ness of Matthew Brandt’s Rainbow Lake, WY A23 and turns it into the tense masquerade of “Vacation Facade,” then he resets the peaceful slumber of Peregrine Honig’s The Twin Fawns as part of a juxtapositioning with raucous clubbing in “The Twin Fawns.” Both illustrate his approach perfectly. However, the images he conjures separate from the inspiration of others are just as satisfying. From the sensuality of “Tinted” to the clever “Hiccups,” which is more about circumcision and shame than anything else, Blue proves himself a poet to be reckoned with whether he’s inspired by either his external or internal eye.

Far From Atlantis – Raymond Luczak (Gallaudet University Press)

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Gallaudet University Press

Raymond Luczak is no stranger to ekphrasis either, but there’s not much Luczak hasn’t written. From poetry to fiction to non-fiction to dramaturgy, Luczak has dabbled in many forms. His most recent book of poetry, Far From Atlantis, finds the common ground between the mythical Atlantis and the very real upper peninsula of Michigan (or “yoop” as we like to call it) where Luczak was raised. His ekphrastic jumping off points are Seventies TV shows like Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and The Six Million Dollar Man, among others, but like Brandon Blue, those exercises are only a part of his gift. Luczak has a Whitmanesque love of nature that ties Atlantis to Ironwood and makes the whole volume work, as do his occasional references to his Deafness. I always enjoy new Raymond Luczak, and his Ironwood material is particularly important to me since I grew up in Michigan as well and made many trips up north. “Standing Before Lake Superior” and “Currents of Ironwood” are particularly fine examples of this, but anywhere you land in this collection you’ll find something worthwhile.

Crazy/Mad – AJ Dolman (Gordon Hill Press)

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Gordon Hill Press

A glance at the Table of Contents in AJ Dolman’s skittery, jittery Crazy/Mad shows absolutely no ekphrasis anywhere. But you’ll recognize the territory quickly enough. Its three sections are “Hysteria,” “Neurosis,” and “Melancholia,” and the poem titles read like a compendium of mental disturbances, syndromes, and anomalies. It’s very sharp work, poking holes in theories and slicing away old methodologies. Titles like “Critical race theorist,” “Antisocial behavior,” and “Murderous tendencies” are particularly pointed, the latter inspired by Andrea Yates, a mother who murdered her children. Other favorites for me are “Delusions of grandeur,” the poignant ode to a convenience store worker “Self-harm,” and “Difficulty concentrating” (with the wonderful opening line, “I lost track of what books I read this pandemic”), but like the Luczak volume, anywhere you put yourself down here, you’ll find a thought or an outlook or jab that’s particularly relevant. This is the first work I’ve read of theirs, and I’ll certainly be waiting for the next.

Imperative to Spare – Scott Hightower (Rebel Satori Press)

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Rebel Satori Press

No devastation I know is more complete than the death of a spouse, and only those who have experienced it can truly know. I greatly admire Hightower’s bravery, because this collection of poetry addresses the matter with such profundity and frankness it leaves me breathless. Titles such as “It Would Have Been My Preference To Have Gone Before You,” “Long Hard Slag,” and “On My Own” speak for themselves, but as plainspoken as his grief is, these pieces at times have a subtle positivism that enables the reader to work through the process in the same way the author does. By the time we reach the fifth section, “Renaissance,” the poems are hopeful, regretful, and just a touch bittersweet. But the wisdom, the way the survivor alchemizes grief into growth–as those of us who survive must do–is evident. Imperative to Spare is, for me at least, a harrowing read in the beginning that reminds me of some personally dark times but also reminds me in places of my path through them and the routes I didn’t take.

So, there you have four very different voices with four very different volumes. But don’t just buy poetry in April–it’s a gift for any occasion, not only for someone else but for yourself as well.

JW

© 2024 Jerry L. Wheeler

The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl – Bart Yates (Kensington)

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Kensington Press

The life course of a gay man born at the end of World War I is the subject of Yates’s latest novel, and it’s an interesting study of how a queer fellow of the Greatest Generation might have navigated the many turbulent events of twentieth century America, as well as family, friendships, and love.

Yates tells his subject Isaac Dahl’s biography in a first person narrative of twelve shortish chapters. Each chapter is a day (or so) in Isaac’s life, and an eight year increment forward in his tale. Beginning in 1926, when Isaac is eight years old, we meet his family, who are immigrants from Sweden, living in a hardscrabble mining town in Colorado. Most significantly, we’re introduced to Isaac’s twin sister Aggie and his best friend Bo. Whereas Isaac is mild-mannered and sensitive, Aggie is loud and undisguised in her opinions. The two bicker constantly, as siblings often do, but the tight bond between them is readily apparent. Affable, easygoing Bo becomes the perfect complement to their opposing personalities, not just as a peacemaker, but as someone who appreciates each of them for who they are. The three form an unbreakable triangle that gets them through a series of tragedies. Even as their journeys diverge at times, they always come back to each other.

The ‘strangeness’ of Isaac’s life, alluded to in the title, has to do with him encountering more than his fair share of freak natural disasters. At eight years old, he and Aggie survive an avalanche that has them tumbling together down a mountain in a steel bathtub that ultimately serves as a shelter from the tsunami of snow and debris, while their parents are lost along with most of their Colorado town. They’re taken in by an uncle in Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl, where they, and Bo, who was also orphaned by the avalanche, endure the nation’s worst heat wave and drought in history, which produces an epically devastating dust storm. Later, Isaac, a young war correspondent, gets assigned to the USS Houston in the Pacific theater of World War II. The battleship takes heavy bombing from the Japanese, and Isaac’s life is narrowly spared when he disembarks before the ship’s final, fateful foray in the Timor Sea.

Thus, one of the main themes of the novel is surviving against the odds, and that motif takes on new dimensions when Isaac joins his teenage nephew Elias (Aggie and Bo’s son) to volunteer as a peace activist during the racist backlash to desegregation in the 1960s South, and later, as he lives through the decades of the AIDS crisis.   

Yates’s chronicle of all these harrowing events begs the question: what determines who survives and who does not? Yet, it would be foolish to offer some simplistic answer, and the author skirts around that pitfall. He does seem to have something to say about how one rebounds from the cruelties of the world, whether random or guided by the baser instincts of human nature, and that harkens back to the sturdy triumvirate of Isaac, Aggie and Bo. They stick together through each other’s personal hardships and life’s inevitable losses of loved ones, and develop a certain hardiness to whatever gets thrown their way, including the physical discontents of aging. In some ways it’s a three-way marriage, with Isaac taking on equal responsibility in raising his nieces and nephews, and later great-nieces and nephews, and showing them the world as they come of age.

One wishes that Isaac could have found love all on his own, but Yates’s handling of that matter scans genuine based on the position for gay men of Isaac’s generation. He finds occasional intimacies and a longer term partnership that is long distance and never really integrates the two men’s lives. That’s his personal choice, however, which reflects a solidly independent mindset, which one might expect of queer people who were not afforded acceptance of their relationships for the majority of their lives. Isaac’s story isn’t one of loneliness and regret for what could have been, however. The power of human relationships comes through for him in platonic ways, which are no less meaningful and comforting.

Reminiscent of John Irving’s quirky family sagas, Yates’s novel is a great title for readers interested in gay representation in twentieth century historical fiction.

Reviewed by Andrew J. Peters

New Releases for April

From Bywater Books:

Bloodline – Jenn Alexander

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Big Girls Don’t Fry – Fay Jacobs

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From Rattling Good Yarns Press:

Grace Period – Elisabeth Nonas

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A Cat in the Act – Brian Arsenault

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From Rebel Satori Press:

The Miraculous Life of Rupert Rocket – Mark Salzwedel

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Time Remaining – James McCourt

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From Bold Strokes Books:

Aubrey McFadden Is Never Getting Married – Georgia Beers

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The Broken Lines of Us – Shia Woods

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A Case for Discretion – Ashley Moore

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Flowers for Dead Girls – Abigail Collins

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Good Bones – Aurora Rey

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Leather, Lace, and Locs – Anne Shade

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Rainbow Overalls – Maggie Fortuna

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Revisiting Summer Nights – Ashley Bartlett

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Triad Magic – ‘Nathan Burgoine

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New Releases for March

From Rebel Satori:

Mercedes General – Jerry L. Wheeler

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Saints & Sinners New Fiction from the Festival 2024 – Amie Evans & Paul Willis

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Saints & Sinners New Poetry from the Festival 2024 – Jan Edwards Hemming & Paul J. Willis

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From Rattling Good Yarns Press:

Domestic Affairs: Tales of American Males – Daniel M. Jaffe

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From Queen of Swords Press

Terror at Tierra de Cobre – Michael Merriam

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From Bold Strokes Books:

The Romance Lovers Book Club – MA Binfield and Toni Logan

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Dancing Toward Stardust – Julia Underwood

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Lean in to Love – Catherine Lane

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All This Time – Sage Donnell

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Crossing Bridges – Chelsey Lynford

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View from the Top – Morgan Adams

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Evacuation to Love – C.A. Popovich

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Searching for Someday – Renee Roman

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Truly Home – J.J. Hale

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French Quarter Nights & Other Stories – JR (Library of Homosexual Congress/Rebel Satori Press)

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Rebel Satori Press

With the repeal of censorship laws in the 1960s, magazines such as Mandate, Honcho, and Blueboy began to appear on newsstands in the 1970s, displaying photos of full frontal male nudity (followed by Advocate Men, Torso, Inches, et al. in the 1980s). Taking their cue from Playboy, these magazines included articles of interest to the growing out Gay community, reviews, perhaps a celebrity interview or two, and erotic fiction, often illustrated by non-photographic art. French Quarter Nights & Other Stories by JR collects ten such stories from the 1980s, with an introduction by Matthew Rettenmund and an afterword by the author. (Although there is no indication of where/when these stories were first published–an omission I find regrettable–the presence of condoms, as well as conversations between the characters about safe sex, presume a mid-to-late 1980s publication date at the earliest.)

The danger of a volume of erotic fiction (especially a collection by a single author, or of an anthology organized around a theme) is that after reading a few of the stories, they often become indistinct and meld into one another. JR alludes to this in his afterword, when he discusses the “formula” he expected from a well-written porn story: a clear setting, characters, and circumstances; a minor or near-sex scene at the beginning to “hook” the reader; and finally the climax should be obvious and presented in detail. Fortunately, the scenarios are varied enough that JR is able to avoid this pitfall; he can even write an arousing story that doesn’t end in intercourse (“Punk Rock Cock” is essentially about a single blow job). Moreover, many of his stories have a cinematic quality to them, relaying several sex scenes, instead of just describing a single encounter.

Of especial interest in this volume are the stories that depict 1980s Gay nightlife in New Orleans (the title story), Fire Island (“Fire Island Threesome”), and two of the three set in New York City (“Kerouac at the Everard,” and “The Anvil”). “The Anvil” reads almost like an entry in an oral history, as does the title story; “Kerouac at the Everard” does even better, where the contemporary protagonist overlays his bathhouse encounter with a fantasy of Kerouac at the same bathhouse nearly thirty years earlier. Like the best of historical fiction, JR makes me want to learn more about these (now mostly closed) places of 1980s Gay nightlife (one does not expect porn to arouse scholarly as well as carnal interest, but there you go.)

As interesting as the stories are, of equal value are the introduction and afterword. The former, titled “The Rise and Fall of Gay Porn Magazines,” provides a context for the milieu of JR’s stories, and explains what led to its eventual demise (the advent of home video in the 1980s, and later, the Internet); most of these magazines would cease publication by 2009. The latter, “Life in a Porn Magazine Office,” offers a dishy, behind-the-scenes look at the office of Mavety Media, where JR worked as an Associate Editor for Mandate and other erotic magazines (both Gay and otherwise) for twelve years. Both of these additions increase the historical value of the original volume.

Originally published in 1996 by Masquerade Books, French Quarter Nights is the second title to be reissued by The Library of Homosexual Congress imprint of Rebel Satori Press. Curated by Tom Cardamone and Sven Davisson, this imprint is devoted to rescuing forgotten queer classics from obscurity, specifically “preserving and promoting provocative works” of Gay literature, focussing in particular on the AIDS crisis and political action. (As an aside, I also highly recommend the first such reissue, Invisible History: The Collected Poems of Walta Borawski, edited by Philip Clark and Michael Bronski.) However one may feel about a volume of Gay erotica initially published in stroke mags from the 1980s, it cannot be denied that it is provocative, and furthermore preserves a snapshot of a (nearly) forgotten era.

Reviewed by Keith John Glaeske

The Line of Dissent: Gay Outsiders and the Shaping of History – Martin Duberman, edited by Richard Schneider Jr. (G&LR Books)

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Amazon

Since outsiders dwell on the borders of society–either by choice or by nature–who is better situated to shape its history? And LGBTQI+ individuals have been dwelling on those borders for hundreds of years, quietly (and sometimes not so quietly., G&LR editor Richard Schneider Jr. has collected twelve fascinating essays by distinguished gay historian Martin Duberman profiling influential and interesting gay men and women, spanning twenty years from the pages of G&LR in a wide swath of fields and occupations, all with a hand in advancing queer welfare.

Beginning with the oldest essay, appearing in 1997, about Edward Sagarin, founder of the Homophile Movement and author of The Homosexual in America (under the name Donald Webster Cory), and ending with a profile of lesbian champion speedboat racer Joe Carstairs, the depth and breadth of professions explored in this collection is astounding. The obvious touchstones–Sylvia Rivera, Alfred Kinsey, Barbara Deming, and Andrea Dworkin–are all here but Duberman digs a bit deeper into them than other essayists I’ve read, never losing sight of their essential humanity and personal reasons they had for pushing their corners of the envelope.

My favorites here were the three-part series on ballet impresario Lincoln Kirstein, Black activist Essex Hemphill, and a very interesting portrait of the relationship between W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman, which I knew of but not about. I also enjoyed “The Two Eds,” which profiles furniture designer Edward Wormley and his lover Edward Crouse. But I have a special place in my heart for Duberman’s look at Joe Carstairs, including her affairs with Tallulah Bankhead and Marlene Dietrich.

Far from being dry and self-consciously intellectual, Duberman’s work is interesting and accessible, concentrating not only on his subjects but putting them into a larger context as well. This collection is truly a treat and will not disappoint those looking for a lesson from those brave men and women who came before us.

JW

© 2024 Jerry L. Wheeler

New Releases for February

From Blazing Heart Publishing:

Mystery Dance – Richard Natale

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From Rebel Satori Press:

The Simple Magick of Wild Things – Dave Gaddy

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The Shaman of Heaven and Hell – Chris Kim

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From Bella Books:

Season of Eclipse – Terry Wolverton

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From Bold Strokes Books:

You Had Me at Merlot – Melissa Brayden

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When Tomorrow Comes – D. Jackson Leigh

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Guide Us Home – Jesse J. Thoma & CF Frizzell

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Lost Harbor – Kimberly Cooper Griffin

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Never a Bridesmaid – Spencer Greene

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Turning Point – Cathy Dunnell

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Blood Rage – Ileandra Young

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Ghost Town – R.E. Ward

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The Rewind – Nicole Stiling

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Good Christian Girls – Elizabeth Bradshaw

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Lake | Drive – Joe Baumann (Queer Space/Rebel Satori Press)

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Queer Space/Rebel Satori Press

One hot summer day, fourteen people–the owner, bartender, three line cooks, salad maker, dishwasher, and seven servers of a supper club in a sleepy college town in northern Missouri–wake up to a changed world: people everywhere, from the President of the US to major celebrities to random citizens have all disappeared, and many have been replaced by (to them) strangers. Moreover, as far as the entire world is concerned, nothing is amiss; only the fourteen employees of the supper club Lake | Drive remember any of the missing people or the world as it was before the mass disappearances. Eventually, over the course of the summer, as they learn to navigate their new reality, the staff discover that they each can return to one person and one person only their memories of before.

What begins like a Twilight Zone episode or Stephen King novel (but without the sinister overtones) is the central premise of Lake | Drive by Joe Baumann. In fact, the implication throughout the novel is that the world has improved as a result of this reset (although unnamed, this is especially true of the presidential replacement; nevertheless, some characters comment wryly that there really is no significant change). On a personal level, Wendy, one of the cooks at Lake | Drive, comes to realize that her mother is happy, as a result of the disappearance of her boyfriend. However, not everyone’s personal situation has (obviously) improved: Glenn, the owner, wakes up to discover that his wife is among the missing. Probably fortunately for him, she is not replaced by a stranger; nevertheless, except for the Lake | Drive staff, no one remembers her, and there is no trace, material or digital, of her. As a result, he ends up taking a sabbatical from the restaurant. Glenn is the only character to lose a close family member, although Timothie, one of the servers, wakes up the morning of the change to discover that his roommate, Flower, has disappeared without a trace. (In one of the most interesting twists of the novel she does, however, return just as completely, with no memory of being “gone.”)

Although there is some initial confusion as a result of this world-changing event, the staff of Lake | Drive prove surprisingly resilient, adapting to the new world pretty quickly; most of the novel is spent not with them coming to terms with all the changes, but rather deciding on the single person (if any!) they will return memories to, and the ramifications of their decision. Satiya, the dessert maker, for example, quickly learns that returning her mother’s memory to her is a mixed blessing: every person that she learns is now missing, every person who actually is a “replacement” for someone she knew–maybe for years!–is a jolt to her, and the only one she can confide in is Satiya. (Again, returning to the example of the replaced president above, if the former president had been replaced as though he had never been, would you want to remember that?)

Baumann has crafted a compulsive page-turner of a novel, one that I had to finish in a single sitting. Although I did eventually learn Who? was responsible for and How? the central mystery occurred, what really gripped me was What would these characters do in their strange (and I think, better) new world? Not to give away the ending, but as it turned out, they became, I think, better people.

Reviewed by Keith John Glaeske

New Releases for January

From Bywater Books:

No Shelter But the Stars – Virginia Black

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From Bold Strokes Books:

Dreamer – Kris Bryant

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Appalachian Awakening – Nance Sparks

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The Secret Duchess – Jane Walsh

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Of Auras and Shadows – Jennifer Karter

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All Things Beautiful – Alaina Erdell

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Winter’s Spell – Ursula Klein

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Not Just Friends – Jordan Meadows

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Head Over Heelflip – Sander Santiago

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Eyes On Her – Eden Darry

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Lost in the Wild – Kadyan

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Letters from Sarah – Joy Argento

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