Joseph M. Ortiz is associate professor of English at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Joseph Ortiz’s book about Gordon Merrick is a meticulously researched and beautifully written biography. Merrick was a Broadway actor who spent time in OSS during World War II before becoming one of America’s earliest and most successful gay novelists. This is not only a rich portrait of an important and previously neglected cultural figure: it is also a terrific social history spanning fifty years of the 20th Century. Anyone curious about the gay culture that flourished in the decades before Stonewall will have a wonderful time reading this book.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Autobiography of a Gay ReaderChapter One: An American DynastyChapter Two: Et Ego In Arcadia: PrincetonChapter Three: The Great White WayChapter Four: The SpyChapter Five: The Postwar NovelistChapter Six: Connecting with ForsterChapter Seven: The Protest NovelistChapter Eight: The Dancer from San FranciscoChapter Nine: The Island of DreamsChapter Ten: The Great Gay American NovelChapter Eleven: Getting It PublishedChapter Twelve: The Irene Rockwood PhenomenonChapter Thirteen: Going Greek, or Making a Gay MythologyChapter Fourteen: A Return to the StageChapter Fifteen: Adventures in the EastChapter Sixteen: Rewriting the PastChapter Seventeen: Merrick vs. KramerChapter Eighteen: Imperfect FreedomAfterword: Gay Literary CanonsBibliographyAbout the AuthorIndex

Joseph M. Ortiz is associate professor of English at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Joseph Ortiz’s book about Gordon Merrick is a meticulously researched and beautifully written biography. Merrick was a Broadway actor who spent time in OSS during World War II before becoming one of America’s earliest and most successful gay novelists. This is not only a rich portrait of an important and previously neglected cultural figure: it is also a terrific social history spanning fifty years of the 20th Century. Anyone curious about the gay culture that flourished in the decades before Stonewall will have a wonderful time reading this book.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Autobiography of a Gay ReaderChapter One: An American DynastyChapter Two: Et Ego In Arcadia: PrincetonChapter Three: The Great White WayChapter Four: The SpyChapter Five: The Postwar NovelistChapter Six: Connecting with ForsterChapter Seven: The Protest NovelistChapter Eight: The Dancer from San FranciscoChapter Nine: The Island of DreamsChapter Ten: The Great Gay American NovelChapter Eleven: Getting It PublishedChapter Twelve: The Irene Rockwood PhenomenonChapter Thirteen: Going Greek, or Making a Gay MythologyChapter Fourteen: A Return to the StageChapter Fifteen: Adventures in the EastChapter Sixteen: Rewriting the PastChapter Seventeen: Merrick vs. KramerChapter Eighteen: Imperfect FreedomAfterword: Gay Literary CanonsBibliographyAbout the AuthorIndex