Books about books are a rare species, special tomes for writers and book lovers. More than an affirmation of taste, a book about books is often a spirited celebration and sincere investigation. Quickly coveted, it remains on that particular shelf, guarded and revered, and eventually slips out of print. What good company we will keep then, among a library lost, only momentarily invisible, waiting patiently to be found.

Cocks aside, if not books and scrolls, then music makes me feel complete.

When you can hear someone giving head but can’t see them, it sounds terribly like a child eating spaghetti.

The Stonewall riot may have been the start of a civil rights movement, but it was not the beginning of our history.

Our collective memories of these years, and what younger men learn from reading our stories, will shape the narrative for many years to come.

As we construct our AIDS history from these years will we be honest about who we were? (I’m not claiming to have the honest answers.) Will we resist easy reductions?

There is very little literature even on the fringes of our American canon describing sex in old age, and even less willing to explore the complexities of what motivates us sexually beyond the simple goal of orgasm-related satisfaction.

Gore Vidal once said to me during an interview. “I think he’s out of his mind. Why limit yourself any more than literature has limited you? In a world where people don’t read, what are you going to make of a man who calls himself a gay novelist? What’s that supposed to mean, that he’s only going to write about cock?

This prowess with extended metaphor, which has made his fiction so memorable, the best of it so enduring, is on display here throughout. Sometimes you’ll see three or four of them big motherfuckers on the same page!

When people complain about the energy and ingenuity gays devote to silly pursuits, they should be reminded that so many serious ones are closed to us.