A dazzling account of the dreamers and divas who brought a queer sensibility to culture – and changed lives in the process
he dancing was of the usual superlative quality. Them queers sure can break a leg.” So went a report from a dance organised by the Gay Liberation Front in New York in 1970, quoted in Jon Savage’s new book. With kaleidoscopic detail and exhilarating verve, he tells the intertwined, transatlantic story of pop and the struggle for LGBTQ+ emancipation.
Some queer pop stars hid in plain sight, such as Johnny Ray, whose “complete absence of emotional restraint”, Savage says, was deeply shocking in the early 50s, when “real men did not cry”. Others, such as Dusty Springfield, were endlessly goaded about why they didn’t have partners of the opposite sex, escaping the prurience of the press in underground gay clubs such as Gateways in London.
That movement was desperately needed: the first half of The Secret Public shows queer people attempting to accommodate themselves in a brutally repressive world.
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