Queer domesticities : homosexuality and home life in twentieth-century London / Matt Cook.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cook, Matt, author.

Series:

Genders and sexualities in history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gay men--Family relationships--England--London.

Gay men.

Queer theory.

Gay men--Family relationships.

England--London.

Physical Description:

xiii, 326 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

UK : Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Summary:

Queer Domesticities is about the ways in which queer men have made, experienced and described their homes and families in London. How have changing social economic cultural and political context pressed in on those domestic lives? How did rented bedsits in Camden, squatted terraces in Brixton or privately owned flats in Mayfair shape queer experience? Where did the contradictory stereotypes of queer men being homeless 'exiles from kin' or else arbiters of domestic taste and fashion spring from? And what difference did these ideas make to ordinary queer men trying to find a sense of home in the city? In this book, Matt Cook's book takes queer history indoors and shows how queer men orientated their sense of themselves - behind closed doors and apart from the more public bars, clubs, cruising grounds, courtrooms, and protest and pride marches that have more often drawn our attention. In this way he integrates queer men into histories of home and family life, and gives historical perspectives on the recent upsurge in interest in gay domestic city accompanying legal change on adoption and marriage. Unheard oral histories and unpublished diaries bring the lives of relatively unknown men and into view alongside fresh accounts of famous and infamous figures, including artists Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts, architect and romantic socialist C.R. Ashbee, early reformer George Ives, interior designer Oliver Ford, writer and editor J.R. Ackerley, 'stately homo' Quentin Crisp, playwright Joe Orton and film-maker Derek Jarman. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part 1. Beautiful homes

part 2. Queer families

part 3. Outsiders inside : finding room in the city

part 4. Taking sexual politics home.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0230221394

9780230221390

OCLC:

865063298