"Some of the best travel writing ever published. Within these pages, the reader travels to such distant lands as Tangiers, Beijing, Jaipur, or Capri--with writers like James Baldwin, Philip Gambone, Joe Orton, Edmund White and Paul Monette."
--Genre magazine"A really, different, readable, intriguing and useful travel guide . . . . Some pieces are sexy, others humorous, still others dramatic. . . . It is the first anthology of gay travel writers."
--The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review
"This volume makes no attempt to rival those gay travel guides that already exist. It is something different, far more intriguing: a collection of stories that aim at being what Herman Melville deemed "an inside narrative." That is, what being a gay man in a foreign land really feels like, smells like, tastes like, and hurts like. The voices here might be likened to those of friends sitting around a dinner table the night before your journey who provide you with insights and warnings that only later do you discover add infinitely to your excursion."
From the foreword by Felice Picano
Seventeen stories by some of the best contemporary gay writers evoke a variety of experiences relevant to the gay traveler. Here Paul Monette strives to visit the ruins of Tiberius's villa during a cruise stop in Capri. This struggle prompts him to string together moments of thundering clarity on various peaks and temple sites to form a truly inspired piece of travel writing. Joe Orton combines drugs and sex in Tangier, Michael Nava journeys back in time, and Philip Gambone finds gay life in Beijing. Regardless of their destination, gay travelers can find in this volume the perfect traveling companion.
CONTRIBUTORS: James Baldwin, Brian Bouldrey, Hanns Ebensten, Philip Gambone, Erasmo Guerra, Andrew Holleran, Cary Alan Johnson, Adam Klein, Michael Lowenthal, Rondo Mieczkowski, Paul Monette, Michael Nava, Achim Nowak, Joe Orton, Darieck Scott, David Tuller, and Edmund White.
GAY TRAVELS, edited by Lucy Jane Bledsoe, $14.95, ISBN # 1-883513-06-5
