Prize-winning essayist and critic Daniel Harris argues in his new book that the assimilation of gay culture into mainstream society is rapidly undermining gay men's sense of themselves as a distinct minority. Harris, whose work has been anthologized in "Best American Essays of 1993" and who is a regular contributor to Harper's, Salmagundi and Newsday, shows how a once vibrant sensibility, which was originally created in response to oppression, is now being eroded by social acceptance and rampant commercialization. Furthermore, Harris raises crucial questions, not only about the decline of the homosexual sensibility, but about the death of racial and cultural diversity in society at large.

     With wit, audacity, and penetrating insight, Harris charts the historical development and meaning of the icons and institutions of gay culture in order to assess what is gained and what is lost when the very factors that gave rise to that culture are eliminated.  What, Harris asks, lies behind the deification of gay cult figures such as Judy Garland and Bette Davis?  When did gay men abandon the natty attire of the fop and begin imitating the appearance of working-class straight men?  What role have homosexuals played in society's recent fascination with men's underwear?  Why was AIDS -- the first disease with its own gift shop -- turned into kitsch?

     Over time, Harris contends, essential elements of gay culture have not only changed, but have changed into their opposites; what were once vehicles of political protest have now become sanitized commodities.  The veneration of actresses has become the ridicule of actresses.  Butch, tattooed bodies have become effeminiate, "decorated" ones.  Exotic, playful drag queens have become mean, militarized gender benders.  Sadistic leather men have become macrobiotic neopagans. Conservative, assimilationist propagandists have become anti-mainstream radicals.

     Harris writes, "The force behind these changes is the accelerating pace of our assimilation into mainstream society.  What is happening to gay culture parallels what has been happening to popular culture on a much larger scale ever since the invention of a metaphor central to our understanding of the historical mission of America: the melting pot . . . THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY CULTURE traces the circuitous route of assimilation, following the long trail of debris jettisoned by a decaying civilization as it levels the features of the various tribes it comprises in order to create out of a racially pluralistic society a single monolithic culture.  By focusing as a test case on the changes that have occurred in the gay community, I describe the gradual dissolution of the ethnic diversity of a country that demands from its minorities nothing less than a voluntary act of subcultural suicide performed to avoid both social ostracism and economic disenfranchisement."

     Village Voice writer Gary Indiana says THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY CULTURE contains "the clearest analysis of gay culture I have ever seen in print. . . this book is a triumph of thinking over sentimentality and weak-mindedness."

     Bernard Cooper says the book is "breathtaking in the humor and beauty of its prose" and is "the most provocative and entertaining overview of gay culture, of any culture, you will ever read."

     New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm calls it "astonishing," "delightful," "provocative," and "entirely unpredictable."

     Daniel Harris writes regularly for Harper's, Salmagundi, the Antioch Review and Newsday.  His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation and The Washington Post. In addition, his work has been reprinted in Best American Essays of 1993 and The Anchor Essay Annual 1997.  In 1993 Harris won the Southwest Review's award for best essay of that year.  Mr. Harris lives in Brooklyn, New York.
 
 
 

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY CULTURE

"Daniel Harris is one of the sharpest observers of American culture - gay or straight - on the scene today." -- Philip Lopate, author of "Portrait of My Body," "Bachelohood" and "Against Joie de Vivre."

"Truly wonderful. . .  Some of the clearest analysis of gay culture I have ever seen in print: Harris has many original insights, makes many important connections, but also articulates things that have been, to one degree or another, widely perceived by gays themselves, but unspoken. . . in the gay media as well as in mainstream writing."  -- Gary Indiana, author of "Gone Tomorrow" and "Let It Bleed."

"Daniel Harris is one of the shrewdest, funniest and most infuriating critics of popular culture today.  His controversial and deeply disturbing first book is a landmark study in assimiliation."  -- Barbara Seaman, author of "Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann" and Doctors' Case Against the Pill."
 
 
 
 

The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture is a QPB (Quality Paperback Book Club) Alternative Paperback Selection.