The Gay Metropolis [Hardcover]

Straight America may always be schizophrenic in its relationship with the gay community, but as evidenced in Charles Kaiser's THE GAY METROPOLIS 1940-1996 (Houghton Mifflin Co., $27), no matter what the level of rejection, toleration or acceptance- there was no stopping us then and there is no stopping us now.

Kaiser tracts a burgeoning gay community, building as a collective force, at the national upheaval of America during WWII. What emerged in US cities at the time is a formidable, if rutterless minority. One that didn't seek to mirror the dominant straight society, but rather, was forced to be refracted by it, through an arbitrary sexually fuedalism.

Kaiser's sober, respectably researched and thoughly engrossing book is a light panoramic history of the indeflagitable homosexual urban culture in the US since that defining period. Interviewing many who where there then and here now, he draws sharp parallels and contrasts that show how far we have come and how far we have to go.

The gay mines have been swept and few exploded in THE GAY METROPOLIS- The least of them turns out to be scandalous exposes of celebrities and politicals in pre-liberation days. Although, a little bombe like the fact that House on Un-American Activities Sen. Joe McCarthy didn't rout out homosexuals (an institutionalized government tactic since WWI), along with his commies because he had sex with men, is delicious.

The real mushroom cloud in this book is that lesbian and gay men through sheer normalcy of will thrived in pre-Stonewall decades no matter what forces moved to oppress them. From fascinating personal remembrances of non-celebrities to the sublime tales of the infamous, Kaiser is expert in interfacing the infinite cross-culturalism that has molded gay life, for better or worse.

It's obvious from the assessable scope of this book that Kaiser has both the authoritative power of a historian and the storytelling flair of a great novelist. For instance, writing potently of the shrouded shenanigans of McCarthy aide Roy Cohn, New York columnist Joseph Alsop, J. Edgar Hoover, among other politically powerful closet queens, Kaiser de-sensationalizes the venomous gossip and instead disects the socio-political background that produced such internalized homophobia.

Another laudable method Kaiser employs is to regard all expressions of gay life worthy of even-handed reporting, from the (necessary) clandestine trysting places of toilets and salons to the complex socio-political structures of the gay-rights movement, the whole prism is in there.

Yet he always brings the antecdotes back to the point that, all along, no matter what the gay-bashing flavor of the year is, for gays, it is always about a civil-rights struggle-

"Gay Life in New York City in the 1950s was by turn oppressive and exhilarating, a world of persecution and vast possiblilities."

Kaiser tends to fawn over the importance of the arts and celebrity as pivotal touchstones and breakthroughs within the gay community. His observations are fascinating, even asute, you get the feeling that he should have written a separate book. He goes on about gay milestones in the theater, yet gives an almost one-dimensional reportage of the New York lesbian community.

He provides a great service, though, in drawing perspective on the impact of the crucial scientific research of the 1950s of homosexuality by Alfred Kinsey and Dr. Evelyn Hooker, whose studies, along with the personal experiences of gays, provided the solid architecture for a unified gay rebellion, movement, liberation and community infra-structure.

He also heralds the almost forgotten achievements of early gay militantcy, such as that of The Mattachine Society, the first known grassroots gay organization, which was founded by Harry Hay.

Although the vibracy of Kaiser's chapters on the 40s and 50s quiets a bit by the time we get into the closer ring of the latter decades, he writes movingly and accurately about the early years of the gay community's response to the AIDS epidemic.

With this book, the author can join the list of important gay historians like John Boswell, George Chauncey, Elizabeth Kennedy and Martin Duberman in liberating the invisible and silent past. Crisp, objective and colorful, Charles Kaiser has rescued from obscurity, the private and public lost stories that have weaved the tapestry of the still unfurling gay flag.

Lewis Whittington