Middlebrow Queer

Christopher Isherwood in America

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Gay & Lesbian, Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Gender Studies, Gay Studies
Cover of the book Middlebrow Queer by Jaime Harker, University of Minnesota Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Jaime Harker ISBN: 9781452939223
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press Publication: February 1, 2013
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press Language: English
Author: Jaime Harker
ISBN: 9781452939223
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publication: February 1, 2013
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press
Language: English


How could one write about gay life for the mainstream public in Cold War America? Many midcentury gay American writers, hampered by external and internal censors, never managed to do it. But Christopher Isherwood did, and what makes his accomplishment more remarkable is that while he was negotiating his identity as a gay writer, he was reinventing himself as an American one. Jaime Harker shows that Isherwood refashioned himself as an American writer following his emigration from England by immersing himself in the gay reading, writing, and publishing communities in Cold War America.


Drawing extensively on Isherwood’s archives, including manuscript drafts and unpublished correspondence with readers, publishers, and other writers, Middlebrow Queer demonstrates how Isherwood mainstreamed gay content for heterosexual readers in his postwar novels while also covertly writing for gay audiences and encouraging a symbiotic relationship between writer and reader. The result—in such novels as The World in the Evening, Down There on a Visit, A Single Man, and A Meeting by the River—was a complex, layered form of writing that Harker calls “middlebrow camp,” a mode that extended the boundaries of both gay and middlebrow fiction.


Weaving together biography, history, and literary criticism, Middlebrow Queer traces the continuous evolution of Isherwood’s simultaneously queer and American postwar authorial identity. In doing so, the book illuminates many aspects of Cold War America’s gay print cultures, from gay protest novels to “out” pulp fiction.


View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart


How could one write about gay life for the mainstream public in Cold War America? Many midcentury gay American writers, hampered by external and internal censors, never managed to do it. But Christopher Isherwood did, and what makes his accomplishment more remarkable is that while he was negotiating his identity as a gay writer, he was reinventing himself as an American one. Jaime Harker shows that Isherwood refashioned himself as an American writer following his emigration from England by immersing himself in the gay reading, writing, and publishing communities in Cold War America.


Drawing extensively on Isherwood’s archives, including manuscript drafts and unpublished correspondence with readers, publishers, and other writers, Middlebrow Queer demonstrates how Isherwood mainstreamed gay content for heterosexual readers in his postwar novels while also covertly writing for gay audiences and encouraging a symbiotic relationship between writer and reader. The result—in such novels as The World in the Evening, Down There on a Visit, A Single Man, and A Meeting by the River—was a complex, layered form of writing that Harker calls “middlebrow camp,” a mode that extended the boundaries of both gay and middlebrow fiction.


Weaving together biography, history, and literary criticism, Middlebrow Queer traces the continuous evolution of Isherwood’s simultaneously queer and American postwar authorial identity. In doing so, the book illuminates many aspects of Cold War America’s gay print cultures, from gay protest novels to “out” pulp fiction.


More books from University of Minnesota Press

Cover of the book The Thought of Death and the Memory of War by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book Penumbra by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book Spectacular Mexico by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book Writing Human Rights by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book Dispatches from Pakistan by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book Screens by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book Karma Of Brown Folk by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book Enchantment Lake by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book The Jobless Future by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book Writing by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book White Birch, Red Hawthorn by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book Breathing Race into the Machine by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book Abolitionist Geographies by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book Made to Hear by Jaime Harker
Cover of the book Desert Dreamers by Jaime Harker
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy