ISBN: 979-8218647698
Where the Pulse Lives:
A Memoir of Growing Up Gay in the Twentieth Century
Where the Pulse Lives is a personal memoir — the author’s account of growing up in Connecticut at a time when gay desire represented an unspeakable shame, experiencing in New York City the highly sexual and politically charged climate of the 1970s, and coming to terms with what it meant to be a gay man in the years dominated by the tragedy of AIDS, the empowering activism of gay men and lesbians in ACT UP, and a growing interest in gay history.
Where the Pulse Lives covers the period from the author’s school days in a homophobic climate, to meeting his partner — later husband of 49 years — in college, and his travels across the country in the 1990s interviewing activists and hundreds of older gay men for his Lambda Award-winning narrative history, The Other Side of Silence.
Critical Praise
“Where the Pulse Lives is an entertaining and moving memoir. Loughery gives us splendid glimpses of New York from the inside… and a rich portrait of that crucial group of activists, the gay men and lesbians of ACT UP.”
— Charles Kaiser, Washington Post
“Loughery, a smart historian, gives a wonderful historical romp through a young man’s gay odyssey.”
— Walter Holland, The Gay & Lesbian Review