QUEEN IS DEAD, THE: A Story of Jarheads, Eggheads, Serial Killers and Bad Sex [Paperback]

"One of the most congenial, winning, intelligent and original 'gay' publications for many years."

"So appealing... highbrow gay porn, a thoughtful critique of masculinity and the urban gay lifestyle, scattered with witty epigrams...pure entertainment. "

"A symphony of sexual debate in a minor key whose insights deserve to become proverbs"

"Simpson and Zeeland resurrect the lost art of letter writing with this engaging collection of correspondence....Compelling, moving and frequently hilarious. 5/5 Stars"

'Some books rock our world. Since it turned up in our postbox we haven't been able to put down THE QUEEN IS DEAD.'

'A skinhead Oscar Wilde, Simpson's bons mots are both alarming and amusing, getting up people's noses and inside their trousers with equal aplomb'

"Brilliant. Wry, darkly comic, a brutally honest correspondence, constantly engaging and entertaining, with a perverse ingenuity that manages to plumb the depths of joy and soar to the heights of despair."

"Profound and hilarious - A wealth of insight, wit and warmth"

"Marvellous, witty, dry…"

"Dear Mark and Steven,
I really enjoyed your book.... I look forward to hearing from you again.
Affectionately yours,
Nathan"

"A funny, lively, thoughtful and sexy read."

"The best gay book of the year"

A chance letter sparks off an hilariously doomed transatlantic literary romance involving Marines, glory holes, cats, intellectuals, transsexuals and a bizarre love-triangle rivalry with gay serial-killer and Gianni Versace's assassin Andrew Cunanan.

If you believe the old adage that something is funny because it's true and true because it's funny, The Queen is Dead will kill you. Or at least make you laugh and cry until you wish that you'd been lied to instead. Provocative, revealing, startling and scandalously funny, The Queen is Dead is bound to be one of the most talked about queer books of the year.

MARK SIMPSON's previous works, Male Impersonators, It's a Queer World and Anti-Gay (Ed.) have provoked some strong reactions: "I almost hate to agree with anything he says", confessed the London Review of Books. "The gay Anti-Christ" declared Vogue. "A brainy thug" sighed The Seattle Stranger. "Brilliantly buccaneering" enthused The Spectator. "A queer Captain Kirk" pronounced The Bay Area Reporter. "A cunt", complained Boyz. Perhaps Philip Hensher was closest to the Mark: "A skinhead Oscar Wilde, his bon mots are both alarming and amusing, getting up people's noses and inside their trousers with equal aplomb". He lives in London.

STEVEN ZEELAND, dubbed 'Oprah Whitman' by Simpson, is an acclaimed cult writer in the US and has created his own genre of socio-sexology with his elegiac collections of confessional interviews with the American fighting man, including: The Masculine Marine: Homoeroticism in the U.S. Marine Corps, Sailors and Sexual Identity: Crossing the Line Between "Straight" and "Gay" in the U.S. Navy, and Military Trade. His work has appeared in The Times, The Face, Honcho, Transition, and The Village Voice. The Scottish 'alternative' pop star Momus has recorded an eyepoppingly bawdy song about him and his (s)exploits called 'Steven Zeeland'. He lives in Seattle.