True homosexual experiences : Boyd McDonald and Straight to Hell / William E. Jones.

First Edition.

Los Angeles, CA : We Heard You Like Books, 2016.

Gardena, CA : Distributed by SCB Distributors

220 pages : illustrations, photographs ; 24 cm

BEIN 2019 1431: Dust jacket. Number line on title page verso indicates first printing: "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1". "First edition, April 2016"--Title page verso.

Boyd McDonald (1925-1993) had the makings of a successful career in the 1950s--an education at Harvard, jobs at Time/Life and IBM--but things didn't turn out as planned. After 20 years of resentful conformity and worsening alcoholism, McDonald dried out, pawned all of his suits, and went on welfare. It was then that his life truly began. From a tiny room in a New York SRO hotel, McDonald published Straight to Hell, a series of chapbooks collecting readers' "true homosexual experiences." Following the example of Alfred Kinsey, McDonald obsessively pursued the truth about sex between men just as gay liberation began to tame America's sexual outlaws for the sake of legal recognition. Admired by such figures as Gore Vidal and William S. Burroughs, Straight to Hell combined a vigorous contempt for authority with a keen literary style, and was the precursor of queer 'zines decades later. William E. Jones conducted in-depth interviews with many people from McDonald's life, including friends, colleagues, and most unexpectedly, family members who revealed that he was a loving uncle who doted on his nieces and great-nieces. A complex portrait drawn from a wealth of previously unpublished material, True Homosexual Experiences: Boyd McDonald and Straight to Hell is the first biography devoted to a key figure of the American underground.

English

October 24, 2019

Includes bibliographical references (pages 206-218).

United States California Los Angeles.