A fast&ndash\;paced\, meticulously researc hed\, thoroughly engaging (and often infuriating) look&ndash\;see into the systematic criminalization of gay men and widespread condemnation of homo sexuality post&ndash\;World War I. &mdash\;Alexis Burling\, San Francisco Chronicle Stories of murder have never been just about killers and victims . Instead\, crime stories take the shape of their times and reflect cultur al notions and prejudices. In this Edgar Award&ndash\;finalist for Best Fa ct Crime\, James Polchin recovers and recounts queer stories from the crim e pages―often lurid and euphemistic―that reveal the hidden h istory of violence against gay men. But what was left unsaid in these crim e pages provides insight into the figure of the queer man as both criminal and victim\, offering readers tales of vice and violence that aligned gen der and sexual deviance with tragic\, gruesome endings. Victims were often reported as having made \;indecent \;advances\, forcing the accus ed's hands in self&ndash\;defense and reducing murder charges to manslaugh ter. As noted by Caleb Cain in The New Yorker review of "Indecent \;Ad vances\," it&rsquo\;s impossible to understand gay life in twentieth&ndash \;century America without reckoning with the dark stories. Gay men were un able to shake free of them until they figured out how to tell the stories themselves\, in a new way. "Indecent \;Advances" is the first book to fully investigate these stories of how queer men navigated a society that criminalized them and displayed little compassion for the violence they en dured. Polchin shows\, with masterful insight\, how this discrimination wa s ultimately transformed by activists to help shape the burgeoning gay rig hts movement in the years leading up to Stonewall.
\n&mdash\;From th e Publisher.
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