Items

• Circles on the water : selected poems of Marge Piercy
  Marge Piercy (1936-) is perhaps best known for her speculative feminist tale ‘Woman on the Edge of Time’ (1976), although she has authored many other novels, short stories and poems. This book collects in one volume 150 of Piercy’s poems from seven titles published between 1963 and 1982. As a result of the twenty-year span, the poems reflect Piercy’s developing ideas and changing themes including her involvement in the USA activist group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), her enjoyment of growing fruit and vegetables in Cape Cod, her involvement in second-wave feminism and her Tarot poems. The book has been continuously in print ever since its first publication by Alfred A. Knopf.
• Cockringed plover
• Coming out
  This novel tells the story of middle-aged divorcee Roger Thornton, and his new life as an out gay man residing in New York, in a relationship with the younger and more extrovert Michael. In addition to this central relationship, the novel features characters from the wider LGBT community including a lesbian couple and Lola, who we would now recognise as a trans woman. The book’s design is reminiscent of a pulp novel, complete with yellow edges. The blurb contains the word “sensitive” which was often used by publishers in the earlier half of the twentieth century to allude to gay men. Wallace Hamilton (1919?-1983) also wrote non-fiction and plays and was a contributor to the ‘New York Native’ paper. Like his character Roger, he was married and came out when he was middle-aged.
• Coming out to parents : a two-way survival guide for lesbians and gay men and their parents
  In 1975, Mary Borhek (1922-2016) learnt that her son Steve was gay. As a member of the New Testament Church, Borhek initially believed homosexuality was a sin but, over the following years, she not only accepted Steve’s sexuality but became an activist for lesbian and gay rights, particularly within the church community. Borhek turned her experiences into two books aimed at supporting lesbians and gay men and their families – 1979’s ‘My Son Eric’ and, in 1983, the book that was seized during ‘Operation Tiger’, ‘Coming Out to Parents’. Borhek’s introduction to this book expresses sorrow that coming out still necessitates “such elaborate preparation”, and an example ‘Coming-out Letter from Rick to his Family’ is included at the end. The publisher of both books was the Christian Pilgrim Press.
• Common lives/lesbian lives : a lesbian feminist quarterly. Number eight, Summer 1983
  Founded in 1981 and edited, typeset, printed and bound by a lesbian collective from Iowa City, ‘Common Lives/Lesbian Lives’ was a quarterly journal committed to “describing the lives of ordinary lesbians” in all their diversity. As the front matter states, this included “lesbians of color, Jewish lesbians, fat lesbians, lesbians over fifty and under twenty years old, physically challenged lesbians, poor and working-class lesbians and lesbians of varying cultural backgrounds”. This issue features poetry, childhood memoir from Joan Nestle and a piece showcasing visual art, with black-and-white reproductions. It is also notable for the essay ‘Love as Addiction – A Story of Battering’ by Kate Hurley, one of the first explorations of intimate partner violence among same-gender couples. ‘Common Lives/Lesbian Lives’ ran for a total of 56 issues, until its primary distributor went bankrupt in 1995.
• Community, joy and books
• Counter play
  A high school football novel about friends Brad and Alex, one straight, one gay. Alex’s sexuality is revealed in the first few pages, but remains central to the plot, as Brad is forced to choose between his friend and his wider community. Anne Snyder (1922-2001) wrote seventeen books, mainly young adult ‘problem novels’ which explored issues such as alcoholism, homelessness and anorexia. She collaborated with Louis Pelletier on several titles. Originally marketed as an adult novel, ‘Counter Play’ was republished in 1987 as ‘The Truth about Alex’ and was adapted into a television movie of the same name, broadcast by HBO. Teen heartthrob Scott Baio (Chachi from ‘Happy Days’) played the character of Brad.
• Coven
• Cross sections from a decade of change
  Elizabeth Janeway (1913-2005) was a novelist, pro-abortion campaigner and prominent second-wave feminist. In this book, which has minimal LGBTQ+ content, Janeway discusses the process of social change regarding women’s personal and public lives and rights in sections entitled ‘History’, ‘Work’, ‘Sexuality’, ‘Literature’ and ‘Dailyness’ (which she describes as “the homely details of ordinary life”). Published in 1983, the book is an unillustrated collection of Janeway’s writings, including essays and reviews, with one piece – a review of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel ‘Lolita’ – dating from 1958. A book named ‘Cross Sections’ was listed, minus author and publisher, in a Defend Gay’s The Word briefing document about the seized titles. It is likely it was this book.
• Cruise to win
  “This book is about making contact” is the opening declaration of this self-help guide to successful and confident cruising for gay men. Written by Lenny Giteck, assistant editor and columnist at ‘The Advocate’, the book is based on interviews with fifty pseudonymous gay men and seventeen mental health professionals. In chapters on the principles of cruising, ‘dealing with rejection’ (and ‘rejecting others’), ‘sex and intimacy’ and older men and cruising, among others, the book aims to bolster self-worth and reduce anxiety around meeting other men, especially in bars. The inside back cover includes a statement that the book now comes with an ‘AIDS Supplement’. This suggests that this is a later edition of the book – an exact date of publication is not given – as this kind of material would not have been available on first publication in 1982. The supplement is unfortunately not included with this copy.
• Cry to heaven
  ‘Cry to Heaven’ is a historical novel set in the world of eighteenth-century Italian opera. It follows castrato singer Guido Maffeo and his star student, the young Venetian nobleman Tonio Treschi, as they navigate same-sex love affairs, incestuous seductions and melodrama both on and off-stage. Anne Rice (1941-2021) was a prolific writer of gothic, erotic, and Christian fiction, perhaps best known for her 1976 debut, ‘Interview with the Vampire’, which was adapted into a feature film in 1994. ‘The Sleeping Beauty Quartet’, written under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure, explored sadomasochism and a range of sexualities and sexual practices. Rice has commented that “From the beginning, [...] gay readers [...] felt that my works involved a sustained gay allegory [...] I didn't set out to do that, but that was what they perceived.”
• Cum : true homosexual experiences from S.T.H. Volume 4
  This volume of “more than 100 sexually explicit stories” is one of a few anthologies culled from ‘Straight to Hell’, the magazine self-published by Boyd McDonald (1925-1993), that were seized during the raids. The collection gathers ‘true’ stories of sexual experiences, sent to the magazine by its readers, interspersed with black-and-white photographs. The book notes that the pictures are posed by professional models, and their inclusion “does not imply that they are necessarily homosexual”. The humour of these publications is reflected in the title of the cover photograph, taken by Mike Arlen – ‘A typical laundry scene in present-day London’.
• Cute : and other poems
  A collection of around thirty poems, many of which had previously appeared in gay publications such as ‘Fag Rag’ and ‘Gay Sunshine Journal’ as well as the avant-garde literary review ‘New – American and Canadian Poetry’. Everhard’s writing is moving, personal and direct. ‘For Marcie’ details the complicated feelings of the speaker on sleeping with a woman to whom he is unable to come out. ‘Reasons Why I Love You’ and ‘Enemy’ explore a love affair with a man named Richard – and its aftermath. The book’s cover features a drawing of a boy, face-on and in the foetal position, and on the inside flyleaf there is a sketch of a nude young man, all by Joe Fuoco. Born in 1946, Everhard died of AIDS in 1986.
• Death claims
  Following ‘Fadeout’ (1970), this is the second book in Joseph Hansen’s Brandstetter series, featuring gay private investigator David ‘Dave’ Brandstetter. Set in Los Angeles, it moves through the worlds of rare books, community theatre and television. Hansen eventually published twelve books in the series and can be credited with inventing the ‘gay detective’ genre. Gay themes are woven throughout – in book nine, Brandstetter must track down a serial killer who is targeting gay men with AIDS. Hansen, born in 1923, was also a poet and journalist. Under the pen name James Colton, he published several gay novels in the pre-Stonewall era, including ‘Strange Marriage’ (1965) and ‘Known Homosexual’ (1968). He received a Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992, writing several more books before his death in 2004.
• Death trick
  Written by journalist and author Richard Lipez (1938-2022), using the name Stevenson, this is the first novel in a series of sixteen to feature the private investigator, Donald Strachey. The story follows Strachey as he investigates a murder in Albany, New York, where the victim and prime suspect are both gay men. Strachey is also gay so can explore the otherwise closed ranks of the gay community. The back cover blurb includes a quote from author Armistead Maupin which makes the perhaps unavoidable comment, “At last a private dick who really earns the title”. Some other books in the Donald Strachey series were filmed for television. Stevenson’s series is often considered alongside books by Joseph Hansen featuring gay detective Dave Brandstetter, who first appeared in print in 1970. One of these books, ‘Death Claims’, was also seized during ‘Operation Tiger’.
• Ed Dean is queer : a novel
  Praised on publication for its “grabbing and lucid style”, ‘Ed Dean is Queer’ was the first novel by N.A. Diaman (1936-2020). Set in 1983, this tale of political intrigue grapples with pro- and anti-gay politics to provide a vision of a “meaningful future” for queer people, according to one reviewer. The book’s layout and typesetting are noticeably DIY in style, and Diaman set up Persona Press in order to self-publish, driven by the conviction that “straight people are not going to tell our stories.” He would go on to write another nine books. Timothy Thompson’s cover design features a striking monochrome graphic of two moustachioed men and a woman looking suspiciously on behind them. The copy on display here is dated “4 December 1984” and is inscribed “Best wishes to Gay’s The Word and its fight against censorship.”
• Enemy : a novel
  First published in the UK in 1981 as ‘The Deserters’, ‘Enemy’ was based initially on Robin Maugham’s play of the same name, which premiered in Guildford in 1969 before transferring to London. Maugham (1916-1981), the nephew of the novelist W. Somerset Maugham, drew on his experience in the Sahara during the Second World War for this tale of two soldiers, one British and one German, who stumble across each other in the desert. Maugham depicts a friendship that crosses boundaries of class, sexuality and nationality. Supported by Peter Burton, who edited Maugham’s short-story collection ‘The Boy from Beirut’, another of the books seized in ‘Operation Tiger’, ‘Enemy’ was the last book Maugham published before he died.
• Facing up
  Featuring on the front cover a shadowy photograph of a man in silhouette and only four words, it is not until opening the book that the title and full author name are apparent, and it becomes clear that this is a photography book. The photographer, Arthur Tress (1940-), is described by Yves Navarre in the book’s introduction as a “prowler, voyeur, trickster, devourer, lover of his city and its life”. The backdrop to the sixty-five black-and-white photographs is New York, depicted predominantly as a place of urban decay. Juxtaposed with the cityscapes are (mainly) naked men posed in positions and with objects that explore ideas of male sexuality and power, dreams and the subconscious. Still producing work, Tress was recently described as “one of the most innovative American photographers of the postwar era”.
• feminine future wellness
• Feminism in the 80's : facing down the right
  A Defend Gay’s The Word briefing document about the seized titles lists a book called ‘Feminism in the 80s’ but with no other identifying features. It is possible, but not certain, that the title is that of a series including two works authored by Charlotte Bunch (1944-) and published in the years preceding the ‘Operation Tiger’ raids – ‘Facing Down the Right’ (1981), shown here, and ‘Going Public With our Vision’ (1983). These pamphlet publications are based on speeches given by Bunch who was a member of the Washington-based lesbian feminist group The Furies. Bunch was also a writer, journal editor, and active in education, and is now a professor at Rutgers University, focussing on feminism, women’s rights and violence against women.
• Flaunting it! : a decade of gay journalism from The Body Politic : an anthology
  ‘The Body Politic’ (TBP) was a collectively run gay liberation journal founded in Toronto in 1971. Initially sold locally, it developed national distribution, and this anthology collects writing and illustrations from thirty-six contributors covering the publication’s first decade. Even at the time of publication, the anthology was considered a historical record of a key decade in gay liberation, which is expressed across sections including those entitled ‘Risks’, ‘Living Our Lives’, ‘Cruising and Censorship’, and ‘Into the Eighties’. The book is published by Pink Triangle Press (which still exists), the publishing organisation behind ‘TBP’, with financial support from New Star Books. This copy is inscribed to Gay’s The Word from six members of the collective, who note that “the seizure of your stock is a tribute to your success”.
• Flesh : true homosexual experiences from S.T.H. Volume 2
  The second anthology of readers’ real-life sexual experiences from Boyd McDonald (1925-1993), compiled from his self-published magazine, ‘S.T.H. (Straight to Hell)’ and illustrated with explicit black-and-white nude photographs posed by models. McDonald used newspaper headlines to frame stories, interspersed with "demented interviews with diverse groups of homosexual men”, according to one reviewer, featuring quick-fire questions about sexual likes, dislikes and exploits. Other ‘S.T.H.’ anthologies seized in the ‘Operation Tiger’ raids included ‘Meat’, ‘Cum’ and ‘Sex’. ‘Juice’, the fifth volume in the series, continued to cause problems with the establishment. A review in ‘OUT! New Zealand’s Alternative Lifestyle Magazine’ from December 1991 includes the info “Just released by customs”.
• Forth into light
  Impossibly handsome lovers Peter Martin and Charlie Mills continue to work out their complicated romance. Peter, Charlie and sometime heterosexual love interest Martha – the Mills-Martins – are long-established in comfortable family life, complete with children (named Charlotte and Peter after their respective fathers), but newcomer Jeff still creates tension. This is the concluding part of the bestselling erotic trilogy by Gordon Merrick (1916-1988), following ‘The Lord Won’t Mind’ (1970) and ‘One for the Gods’ (1971), which were also seized in the ‘Operation Tiger’ raids. It is set on an island in the Aegean in the 1950s. Merrick himself had moved to the island of Hydra in 1960.
• Forty-deuce : a play
  This dark play was first performed Off Off-Broadway in 1981 and gave Kevin Bacon (seen here on the cover) an early, award-winning role. The play’s title is a riff on both the tennis score and a junction at New York's 42nd Street known as ‘the Deuce’, where sex shops, porn cinemas and peep shows were clustered. The play, by Alan Bowne (1945-1989), depicts the death and exploitation of a young boy alongside a critique of commodity culture and was published by Felice Picano’s Sea Horse Press. Sea Horse Press was one of the Gay Presses of New York collective, which worked to increase the visibility of gay books.
• Fox Running : a novel
  The fourth novel for teenagers by R.R. Knudson (1932-2008), again with a sporting theme (‘You Are the Rain’, about a doomed canoe trip, was another of the books seized in ‘Operation Tiger’). Fox Running is a Mescalero Apache girl in her late teens, coached by young former Olympian Kathy ‘Sudden’ Hart. To research the novel, Knudson spent time at the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico and with an athletics track team at the University of Arizona. ‘Fox Running’ was first published by Harper & Row in 1975 before being reprinted by Avon in 1977 and as an Avon Flare paperback in 1981. The inside illustrations are by Ilse Koehn and are reproduced from the Harper & Row edition.