UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

A Canon of Gay Fiction, 1945–1995

Book Jacket: "Unlimited Embrace" by R. Woodhouse

Reed Woodhouse

A superb literary roadmap of postwar gay fiction

"This stunningly good book is an example of literary criticism of the old style. . . . Woodhouse's close and extremely perceptive readings of works by White, Isherwood, Andrew Holleran, Gore Vidal, Larry Kramer, and many more need to be read by anyone with a serious interest in American gay male literature."

Library Journal

"A shamelessly original piece of scholarship. In his provocative study . . . Woodhouse is egotistical enough to see in literary history 'my own roughly simultaneous history writ large.' . . . Woodhouse repeatedly exposes himself in this contentious, compelling study of the history and the nature of America's gay fiction. . . . Readers of gay fiction are rarely served such lively critical controversy."

Boston Book Review

"Woodhouses's remarkably sustained critical performance makes Unlimited Embrace the best survey of gay male fiction to date."

Vancouver Sun

"Intricate and far reaching. . . . Those seeking a cogent overview and analysis of our literary heritage would do well to begin with Unlimited Embrace."

Bay Windows

"Unlimited Embrace is a book to converse with. For something so scholarly and thoughtful, it has a light intimacy in which the author is as much a reason for reading the essays as anything. We want to drink tea, or beer, with Woodhouse because who wouldn't want to spend time with somebody who is smart as a whip, funny as hell, and not afraid to talk about sex?"

Lambda Book Report

"One of those rare works of literary criticism that is itself a work of literature."

David Bergman, author of Gaiety Transfigured:
Gay Self-Representation in American Literature

Reed Woodhouse was for ten years a lecturer in the humanities department at MIT. He is an associate editor of the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review and a senior coach at the Juilliard School of Music.

Gay and Lesbian Studies / Literary Studies
352 pp.
LC 97-48588
$37.50s cloth, ISBN 1-55849-132-5
$24.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-259-3
2000
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