ISBN: 978-0805038965
The Other Side of Silence is a narrative history of gay male life from 1919, the year of a major U.S. Navy entrapment scandal approved by FDR as Secretary of the Navy, to the 1990s and the first debates about more liberalizing laws, the challenges of identity politics, and gay marriage.
Based on archival research and interviews with hundreds of gay men in twenty states who came out c. 1930s–1960s, this study of gay experience looks at the different ways society’s ultimate outsiders dealt with the prejudices of their time, suffered or triumphed over those obstacles to happiness, and ultimately fashioned a sense of identity that wasn’t one to be imposed on them by a homophobic society.
The Other Side of Silence: Men’s Lives and Gay Identities, A Twentieth-Century History
Awards
Lambda Award for Gay Male Studies
Randy Shilts Award, Publishing Triangle (1999)
Critical Praise
“The Other Side of Silence is exceptionally rich history by almost any standard… This extraordinary book will shame anyone who still wishes that gay issues would just go away.”
— Warren Goldstein, New York Times Book Review
“In this sweeping and rich history, John Loughery demonstrates how gay male communities and identities have been constantly refashioned in 20th-century America.”
— Lillian Faderman, Washington Post Book World
“Mr. Loughery combines literary criticism, social history, and political analysis to provide an extraordinary exploration… His analysis is light years beyond what most other authors have managed on this subject.”
— Charles Kaiser, New York Observer
“The best book so far available on the emergence of 20th-century American gay politics and culture.”
— Stephen O. Murray, New York Times
“A splendid achievement, a beautifully argued and written, comprehensive, subtle and evenhanded book.”
— Martin Duberman, CUNY Distinguished Professor of History
“Broad in scope, rich in descriptions, provocative in insight… A must read.”
— James Sears, author of Growing Up Gay in the South