A knowledgeable, high-spirited tribute to queer music through the ages.
A comprehensive journey through the annals of LGBTQ+ music from the past four decades.
As a veteran music industry journalist and critic, Walters has dedicated the past four decades to documenting and preserving the history of the queer music scene. Here, he turns his vast expertise into an expansive retrospective of musical performers and the mark they made not only on their respective genres, but the impact and influence they continue to have on global queer communities. Despite industry decision-makers who, 57 years after Stonewall, “still find reasons to nix or marginalize undisguised queer content in most pop music,” Walters writes, there is certainly room for celebration, and he begins with a commemorative nod to the 1960s, when free-thinking artists like Lou Reed, Laura Nyro, Janis Joplin, Queen, Elton John, and David Bowie defined a decade particularly appealing to queer audiences for their wildly alternative artistry and defiant lyricism. Walters writes fondly about the bawdy songs of Bette Midler, who once entertained gay bathhouse crowds in the 1970s, the Motown era unifying racial and sexual minorities with soulful rhythms, and onward into the birth of the electrifying disco era that ignited queer nightlife dance floors across the globe to the sounds of Sylvester, ABBA, and a controversial Donna Summer. Walters also draws on interviews he has personally conducted with artists such as Luther Vandross, Dolly Parton, and K.D. Lang, and the results are consistently fascinating and revelatory. Though most artists are queer-identified or “adjacent,” there are several Walters mentions who are culturally allied with the LGBTQ+ movement and have made artistic contributions to the unity and equality of the queer community, among them Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Nirvana. Uplifting, endlessly entertaining, and informative, the anthology honors decades of influential music-makers, their craft, and “the community these nurturing songs give us—especially when we think we’re most alone.”
A knowledgeable, high-spirited tribute to queer music through the ages.Pub Date: May 12, 2026
ISBN: 9798217059829
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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