Case histories, demonstrating ways in which parents of gay children have dealt with their fears and guilt are included in this discussion of the problems that often follow the discovery of a son's or daughter's homosexuality.

In Journeys & Arrivals prize-winning author Lev Raphael explores for the first time in non-fiction the gay and Jewish identities that have dominated his highly acclaimed fiction for many years. Journeys & Arrivals reveals in a collection of autobiographical and critical essays the influence these often conflicting identities of being gay and Jewish have had in his life and his writing.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Who was Sappho? How gay was the Renaissance? When were the first sodomy laws passed in America? Were there any gay heroes in the American Revolution? Were "passing" women lesbians? Who was Walt Whitman? Who was Karl Heinrich Ulrichs? How did San Francisco become so gay? Was Susan B. Anthony a lesbian? Who were the "berdaches"? Who was Katharine Lee Bates? What was the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee? What were Oscar Wilde's trials about? What is the history of gay bathhouses? When did American gays, lesbians, and others first start calling themselves "queer"? Who was E.M. Forster? Who were Havelock Ellis and Edith Lees Ellis? How gay was the Harlem Renaissance? Who were Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas? Who was Willa Cather? What was the Leopold and Loeb case? Who was Natalie Barney? What was the first gay rights organization in America? Who was Janet Flanner? What was the "Padlock" Bill? What was The Well of Loneliness? Who was Babe Didrikson Zaharias? Was Eleanor Roosevelt a lesbian? What was The Children's Hour? What happened to gays and lesbians during the Holocaust? Who were some of the lesbians in Hollywood's golden age? What is the origin of the phrase "a friend of Dorothy's"? Who were Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead? What were the army drag shows during World War II? What were "blue discharges"? When did the American gay and lesbian press begin? How gay were Tennessee Williams's plays? What was the Kinsey Report? What were the lesbian pulp novels of the 1950s? What were physique magazines? Who was Christine Jorgensen? What was the Mattachine Society? How did McCarthyism affect gays and lesbians? Who were the Daughters of Bilitis? Who was Rudi Gernreich? Who was James Baldwin? What was the Boise Sex Scandal? What was Evelyn Hooker's research about? What was the Wolfenden Report? Who was Lorraine Hansberry? What was the Supreme Court's first pro-gay ruling? What have gays and lesbians experienced in revolutionary Cuba? Who was Bayard Rustin? What was NACHO? What is the origin of the annual gay and les

The Way Things AreOr Are Ratz Nice? a conversation with author Lawrence Ytzhak Braithwaite "Let's start with the title. "Ratz are Nice." What the hell? " Rats survive and adapt; they run together in the lower parts where nobody wants to go, eat what nobody else wants to eat. Like the poor and lower classes, like Edison and the other characters in the book. Since that's the way things are, I say rats are nice. "Your first book, "Wigger, "was about co-opting someone else's culture, but the characters in "Ratz" seem more directed toward their own. " "Ratz" starts the way "Wigger" did. But this time Edison is deciding on stuff about his life with the "Dumbdumz." He realizes you can be a part of something without it stealing parts of yourself to be there. So it's about kids deciding to make this decision in life. They want to make that adult decision, right or wrong, and deal with the consequences. "Tell us about the world your characters inhabit. " We are in another failed "Reconstruction Period." There was the Civil War and the exploitation and lost hope of civility and equality. Then we had the overhyped civil rights movement followed by the big '80s Pomo divisive cultural revolution. The people in "Ratz" are the bastard children of all this. The have-nots are the only ones who've never gotten a voice, and everyone keeps saying they're speaking for them. What else could we get from the kids who grew up during this period, but them running a power move on things? "Some of them are pretty evil in a lot of ways. " I do think there is evil out there. They say that Victoria is the occult capital of North America, that it's the center of the pentagram and that there are places here which are right on the crossroads. You can call up evil or goodness in the middle of a crossroads. I think people have called up some wickedness. It's the underlying theme in the novel. The "Dumbdumz" reflect that. How distorted and twisted they have become. Edison knows that we don't have a "Buffy" to slay baddies nor do we have "Hellboy" or a John Constantine. Todd McFarlane is from around here. He created Spawn to fight that stuff but really it's up to an in