In a new book, journalist Elon Green explor the unr-reported stori of gay men btally murred by a killer who evad jtice for a
Contents:
- YEARS BEFORE STONEWALL, A CHEF PUBLISHED THE FIRST GAY COOKBOOK
- LAST CALL: BEHD THE TERRIFYG UNTOLD STORY OF NEW YORK'S GAY BAR KILLER
- GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN
- THE GAY KCHEN
YEARS BEFORE STONEWALL, A CHEF PUBLISHED THE FIRST GAY COOKBOOK
* the gay kitchen book *
It is important to note that the same-sex soc-sexual behavr observed the study is distct om homosexual behavr bee s motivatn and purpose are social, said Jean-Baptiste Le, who studi primate behavr at the Universy of Lethbridge Canada and was not volved the new rearch. To be classified as te homosexual behavr, the form, motivatn and functn would all have to be sexual nature, he said.
But to actually be lockg ey wh Ellen and hold her, shakg hands as she said, "I'm gay, " on natnal televisn and for the first time, as she has shared outloud that way publicly, was such a profoundly extraordary and timate gift to that moment that I will forever be grateful for. The Gay Cookbook was a culary trailblazer.
LAST CALL: BEHD THE TERRIFYG UNTOLD STORY OF NEW YORK'S GAY BAR KILLER
On January 21, 1966, Time magaze ran a story entled “The Homosexual Ameri. ” The anonymo thor cricized the growg activism and visibily of gay people Ameri, notg that many of them “apparently do not sire a cure” for their sexuali. As an example, the thor referenced advertisements for a new publitn: The Gay Cookbook by Lou Rand Hogan, a book that ma no apologi prentg an image of happy men okg elaborate meals for their lovers.
It was published years before the Stonewall rts igned the gay rights movement Ameri, and at the time, wily advertisg a okbook for gay men was fairly edgy. But the thor of The Gay Cookbook was no stranger to the gay publishg scene.
In fact, five years before, he had published what is now believed to be the first tective novel wh a gay protagonist, tled The Gay Detective. One of the few thgs known about him is that his name was a nom plume, says Stephen Vir, assistant profsor at Bryn Mawr College and thor of an amic paper on The Gay Cookbook.
GOD AND THE GAY CHRISTIAN
The reer move was opportune: In a short memoir, Hogan timated that the vast majory of the stewards employed by Matson were gay. Not only was Hogan learng about the high-class ntental cuise that he would later scribe The Gay Cookbook, he also was immersed “mp” culture—what Vir scrib his paper as “adoptg or accentuatg mannerisms and lguistic styl d as ‘feme.
However, the looseng of censorship laws the 1950s meant that publishg gay and lbian lerature beme more mon. Hogan’s The Gay Detective was meant to palize on this newly available nsumer market. The Gay Detective was republished 2003, rponse to growg tert s thly-veiled pictn of gay life midcentury San Francis.
But the foreword to the new edn of The Gay Detective not that Hogan’s real claim to fame would be The Gay Cookbook. The 280 pag of The Gay Cookbook are filled wh the jok and nuendo of the time.
THE GAY KCHEN
” (An sential part of mid-century mpy dialogue, Vir says, was the e of female nicknam among gay men: Hogan addrs the rear by many, cludg Myrtle, Mabel, and Mame. “Mary” also served as a sometim-rogatory term for a gay man.
Much of the book, though, is ncerned wh enomil okg, suable for gay men livg and entertag solo. As you gayly ask, ‘How’s ya meat today, Butch? “In terms of his public role, I thk that he imag himself as kd of a gay Julia Child, ” Vir says.
In the troductn to The Gay Cookbook, Hogan scrib a perhaps-fictnal nversatn wh an edor eager to hop on the okbook publishg wagon. The edor stat that he’s heard one six people are gay, so there’s the potential to sell a lot of books.