justabean_reads's review
funny
informative
slow-paced
3.5
Something of an oddball book that was free from Chicago University Press last pride month, it comprises of thirty selected essays originally published in a dental journal. Though they occasionally touch on dentistry, they're mostly personal and social commentary on life and foibles in WWII-era and post-war Chicago, as told by a gay man who is trying to see how much camp he can get past the censors.
The essays themselves are often quite funny, usually pretty campy, and offer good slices of life into the period. Though honestly a few of them at a time was plenty (I've been puttering through this book for about a month), as the artifice of the style is better in small doses.
Of greater interest are the introductions, end notes and ephemera included by Jeremy Mulderig, who wrote a biography of Steward. He includes where Steward was in his life when he wrote each essay, a detailed illumination of the cultural and literary references (there are many), and quite a bit about gay life at the time. For example, in an essay about the importance of keeping military secrets, in which Steward says he tries to chat military officers up to see how easily a spy might get information from off duty personnel, Mulderig includes without comment pictures of several pretty well naked sailors in Steward's apartment. In an essay about the tribulations of working in a bookstore over the Christmas rush, Mulderig comments that Steward still managed time for a quicky with Rock Hudson in a freight elevator.
I think, on the whole, I'd have found the biography more interesting. However, free book, and one I don't regret reading.
The essays themselves are often quite funny, usually pretty campy, and offer good slices of life into the period. Though honestly a few of them at a time was plenty (I've been puttering through this book for about a month), as the artifice of the style is better in small doses.
Of greater interest are the introductions, end notes and ephemera included by Jeremy Mulderig, who wrote a biography of Steward. He includes where Steward was in his life when he wrote each essay, a detailed illumination of the cultural and literary references (there are many), and quite a bit about gay life at the time. For example, in an essay about the importance of keeping military secrets, in which Steward says he tries to chat military officers up to see how easily a spy might get information from off duty personnel, Mulderig includes without comment pictures of several pretty well naked sailors in Steward's apartment. In an essay about the tribulations of working in a bookstore over the Christmas rush, Mulderig comments that Steward still managed time for a quicky with Rock Hudson in a freight elevator.
I think, on the whole, I'd have found the biography more interesting. However, free book, and one I don't regret reading.
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