Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni's Room

A portrait of two gay men bonding into a marriage before its time, Men Touching is Henry Alley’s poignant new novel of the healing powers of intimacy.

In 1986, Robb, a Vietnam veteran now living in Seattle, tries to go off drugs and enters a nightmarish world, when he recalls his involvement in a hit-and-run accident in Saigon during the war. After he emerges from treatment for his addiction, he seeks help from his partner Bart, a high school drama teacher, who is in the process of coming out to his family, just as a friend is dying of AIDS. As the two stories unite, Bart and Robb reach a reconciliation both between and within themselves.

Winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

A tiny, fastidiously dressed man emerged from Black Philadelphia around the turn of the century to mentor a generation of young artists including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jacob Lawrence and call them the New Negro — the creative African Americans whose art, literature, music, and drama would inspire Black people to greatness.

In The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart offers the definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance, based on the extant primary sources of his life and on interviews with those who knew him personally. He narrates the education of Locke, including his becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar and earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University, and his long career as a professor at Howard University. Locke also received a cosmopolitan, aesthetic education through his travels in continental Europe, where he came to appreciate the beauty of art and experienced a freedom unknown to him in the United States. And yet he became most closely associated with the flowering of Black culture in Jazz Age America and his promotion of the literary and artistic work of African Americans as the quintessential creations of American modernism. In the process he looked to Africa to find the proud and beautiful roots of the race. Shifting the discussion of race from politics and economics to the arts, he helped establish the idea that Black urban communities could be crucibles of creativity. Stewart explores both Locke’s professional and private life, including his relationships with his mother, his friends, and his white patrons, as well as his lifelong search for love as a gay man.

Stewart’s thought-provoking biography recreates the worlds of this illustrious, enigmatic man who, in promoting the cultural heritage of Black people, became — in the process — a New Negro himself.

“A fierce and voluble refutation of the patriarchy and its soul-crushing oppression of female power. These writers make clear that as witches, femmes, and queers, they will use their own strength, ingenious rituals, beauty routines, and spells to rise above and beyond the limits of racism/classism and objectifications set by a male-dominated society. While bound by a thread of magic, these are inspiring feminist writings for readers of feminist literature, however identified.” —Library Journal

Edgy and often deeply personal, the twenty-one essays collected here come from a wide variety of writers. Some identify as witches, others identify as writers, musicians, game developers, or artists. What they have in common is that they’ve created personal rituals to summon their own power in a world that would prefer them powerless. Here, they share the rituals they use to resist self-doubt, grief, and depression in the face of sexism, slut shaming, racism, patriarchy, and other systems of oppression.

Contents

Introduction
Notes from the Editors
Content Warning

1. Unfuckable–Cara Ellison
2. Trash-Magic: Signs & Rituals for the Unwanted–Maranda Elizabeth
3. Uncensoring My Ugliness–Laura Mandanas
4. Femme as in Fuck You: Fucking with the Patriarchy One Lipstick Application at a Time–Catherine Hernandez
5. Before I Was a Woman, I Was a Witch–Avery Edison
6. Undressing My Heart–Gabriela Herstik
7. Garden–Marguerite Bennett
8. Reddit, Retin-A, and Resistance: An Alchemist’s Guide to Skincare–Sam Maggs
9. The Future is Coming for You–Deb Chachra
10. My Witch’s Sabbath of Short Skirts, Long Kisses, and BDSM–Mey Rude
11. Buzzcut Season–Larissa Pham
12. The Harpy–Meredith Yayanos
13. Fingertips–merritt
14. Red Glitter–Sophie Saint Thomas
15. Touching Pennies, Painting Nails–Sim Bajwa
16. Ritual in Darkness–Kim Boekbinder
17. Gayuma–Sara David
18. Pushing Beauty Up Through the Cracks–Katelan Foisy
19. Ritualising My Humanity–J. A. Micheline
20. Simulating Control–Nora Khan
21. I Am, Myself, a Body of Water–Leigh Alexander

Contributors
Acknowledgements

Sequel to Family Bashings.

Former cops Doyle and Kord, together now for six months, struggle to keep their fledgling PI business afloat. Kord is unhappy with boring divorce cases, but Doyle will take any case that pays the bills. But things are about to change.

When shop owner Brandon hires them to find his missing business partner, they dive into the case. Experienced investigators, they methodically check every lead: Gary’s new fiancé, family members, business connections, gambling associates, and even Brandon are questioned in an effort to find the missing man. When, Owen, the fiancé produces a letter purportedly from Gary saying he’s away on a buying trip, the investigation is nearly derailed, but Doyle insists they continue the search until the letter is proven genuine.

Just as they hit their stride, someone from an old and violent case finds Kord, and his intentions could be lethal. Fearing the man may harm Doyle, Kord decides to handle things on his own. Distracted now, Kord can’t pull his weight on the missing persons case. But when Gary is found dead, the investigation turns a corner. Even their client, Brandon, may be the murderer.

Things turn violent but Kord, still preoccupied with the old case, fails to help Doyle when he’s needed most. Will they be able to overcome this serious breech that threatens to derail the investigation …and their relationship?