Posts

Showing posts with the label WW2

You Should Read "Crossing the Lines".

Image
I went to a book launch at The Women's Bookshop the night before we moved back to Level 3 lockdown here in Auckland. It was packed, a great night, a celebration. And deservedly so.  The books is "Crossing the Lines" by Brent Coutts, and it's excellent in so many ways. Just look at that cover!We've been doing this stuff way before Ru Paul. Crossing the Lines is a book that adds hugely to our understanding of the world of gay men in New Zealand, and it does this by giving us a rich historical context and background to a world few know much about or have thought of. If you think "gay history" seems a bit forbidding, don't be put off. This is fascinating, and more than that, it is in places deeply tender and moving. He is telling real stories of real gay men who might seem distant in time but whose lives I believe are familiar in so many way to our own. He shows us what it was like to be gay, more accurately to be homosexual, the term they used, in New Z...