My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them

by Michael Montlack (Editor)

Overview

From Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Midler, and Diana Ross to Queen Elizabeth I, Julia Child, and Princess Leia, these divas have been sister, alter ego, fairy godmother, or model for survival to gay men and the closeted boys they once were. And anyone—straight or gay, young or old, male or female—who ever needed a muse, or found one, will see their own longing mirrored here as well.
    These witty and poignant short essays explore reasons for diva-worship as diverse as the writers themselves. My Diva offers both depth and glamour as it pays tribute with joy, intelligence, and fierce, fierce love.
    Finalist, Lambda Book Award for LGBT Anthology, Lambda Literary Foundation

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299231231
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	05/07/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	371,591
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Michael Montlack is professor of English at Berkeley College in New York City. He has published two chapbooks of poetry, Girls, Girls, Girls and Cover Charge. This book was inspired by his love for Stevie Nicks.

Read an Excerpt

“Part flapper, she could wrap her lovely figure up in her long brown mink or coat of lynx. Her cigarette was always held at bay from the tangerine or pink gloss of her lips by the dark span of a cigarette holder.”—Scott Hightower, on Aurora de Albornoz “There is something about these larger-than-life stars that represents our yearnings for vindication, in which we see ourselves transcending the difficulties a gay man faces in this world.”—Edward Field, on Gloria Swanson

Table of Contents

Introduction—Michael Montlack       

Sappho (630 BC): Love, I Implore You in Polyester Lapels—Michael Broder       
Queen Elizabeth I (1533): Heart of a King—Patrick Letellier       
Virginia Woolf (1882): This Perpetual Revision of Thought—Brian Teare       
Margaret Dumont (1882): Duchess of Dignity—Christopher Murray       
Bessie Smith (1892): Empty Bed Blues—Sam J. Miller       
Claude Cahun (1894): Masks, Makeup, Meaning—Peter Dubé       
Gracie Allen (1895): Comic Muse—Lloyd Schwartz       
Lotte Lenya (1898): Divine Weltschmerz—David Bergman       
Gloria Swanson (1899): Sunset Boulevard—Edward Field       
Agnes Moorehead (1900): Afternoons as Endora—Richard Blanco       
Marlene Dietrich (1901): Falling in Love Again—Walter Holland       
Joan Crawford (1905) and Bette Davis (1908): "But ya AHHH, Blanche!"—David Trinidad       
Lucille Ball (1911): Flaming Redhead—Lawrence Applebaum       
Mahalia Jackson (1911): Divine One—Forrest Hamer   
Julia Child (1912): Life's Ingredients—Bill Fogle       
Billie Holiday (1915): Lady Day—Alfred Corn       
Edith Piaf (1915): A Share of Pain—Gregory Woods       
Evita Perón (1919): Santa with a Soundtrack—Guillermo Castro       
Grace Paley (1922): O Stone! O Steel!—Mark Doty       
Ava Gardner (1922): Small Town Girl—Chris Cleo Creech       
Aurora de Albornoz (1926): Tia Divina—Scott Hightower       
Joan Sutherland (1926): Dame Joan and I—Gary Ljungquist       
Eartha Kitt (1927): Purrrfectly Detached—D. A. Powell       
Betty Berzon (1928): Dinners with the Diminutive Diva—Jim Van Buskirk       
Jeanne Moreau (1928): Living Dangerously with Jeanne—Collin Kelley       
Two Fat Ladies (Jennifer Paterson) (1928): Cocktails with Jennifer—Jack Lynch       
Audrey Hepburn (1929): Adoration and the Icon—Joseph Campana       
Elizabeth Taylor (1932): The Über-Diva—Scott F. Stoddart       
Anna Moffo (1932): Her Funeral—Wayne Koestenbaum       
Ms. Kiki Durane (Depression Era): Her Sound and Fury—Christopher Schmidt       
Nina Simone (1933): I Got It Bad for Bangles & Diamonds—Regie Cabico       
Julie Andrews (1935): My First Maria—Mark Wunderlich       
Tina Turner (1939): Tina & I—Jim Elledge       
Karen Black (1939): Diva of the Deranged—Michael Schiavi       
Raquel Welch (1940): As My Mother—Ron Palmer       
Julie Christie (1941): The Cocteau Girl—Cyrus Cassells       
Helen Reddy (1941): Before Anarchy—Richard Tayson       
Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter) (1942): Exploring the Amazon—Jeff Oaks       
Diana Ross (1944): How to Reign Supreme—Jericho Brown       
Rocío Dúrcal (1944): The Day She Died—Rigoberto González       
Bette Midler (1945): First Loves—Steven Cordova       
Jessye Norman (1945): Als Ob Ich Säuseln Hörte—Dante Micheaux       
Liza Minnelli (1946): Everybody Loves a Winner: Five Lessons from Liza—Jason Schneiderman       
Cher (1946): History (1987–2)—Aaron Smith       
Laura Nyro (1947): All She Asked of Living—Michael Klein       
Stevie Nicks (1948): "And Wouldn't You Love to Love Her?"—Michael Montlack       
Jessica Lange (1949): Isn't It a Laugh?—Allen Smith       
Patti Lupone (1949): Patti's Turn, In the Key of Diva—Jonathan Howle       
Wendy Waldman (1950): Seeds and Orphans—Paul Lisicky       
Cyndi Lauper (1953): The Sadness in Her Rasp—Steven Riel       
Rickie Lee Jones (1954): The Duchess of Coolsville—Timothy Liu       
Annie Lenox (1954): Desire, Despair, Desire: Some Notes on Annie Lennox & Tension—RJ Gibson       
Siouxsie Sioux (1957): Black Eyeliner and Dark Dreams—Benjamin Harper       
Auntie Mame (Rosalind Russell) (1958): "I'm Going to Open Doors for You, Doors You Never Even Dreamed Existed"—Lewis DeSimone       
Kate Bush (1958): The Invisible Diva—Reginald Shepherd       
Jamie Lee Curtis (1958): When the Artist Met His Muse—Vince A. Liaguno       
Sade (1959): The Other Material Girl—Christopher Lee Nutter       
Taylor Dayne (1962): "Tell It to My Heart"—Peter Covino       
Björk (1965): With Regards to Ms. Gudmundsdottir—John Dimes       
Kristin Hersh (1966): "Is Sticky Ever Blue?"—Mark Bibbins       
Céline Dion (1968): Cirque du Céline—Jim Nason       
Parker Posey (1968): A Pocket Full of Posey—Michael J. Andrews       
Margaret Cho (1968): How to Break Every Oriental Stereotype in the Book—Kenji Oshima       
Mary J. Blige (1971): I Take Shallowness Seriously—Jeffery Conway       
Princess Leia (1977): Leia's Kiss—Christopher Hennessy       

Contributors   

Editorial Reviews

In very short, very tender essays, a variety of gay male writers, from poets to playwrights to a standup comic, pay homage to an even wider variety of women who have inspired them. Peter Dubé writes how the photography of Claude Cahun suggested "a delirious world of possibilities"; Jeff Oaks recalls a childhood of wearing wristbands fashioned from paper cups to emulate his "model of power," Wonder Woman; Christopher Lee Nutter looks back on his closeted teenage years and how Sade taught him "that there was a world somewhere that suited them better than the world they'd been born into." While a few essays are disappointingly shallow ("More than smart and fabulous, Parker Posey is fall-on-the-floor ridiculous"), such standout pieces as Mark Doty on Grace Paley are elegant and affectionate tributes to how these muses have been "fairy godmothers" and "older sisters," as Montlack's introduction explains, and illustrate how complex, sustaining and lifelong are the bonds between gay men and their divas. (May)

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Publishers Weekly

A diva. Every good gay man has one, it seems, and, to paraphrase the editor, it's amazing that no one thought of this before. Montlack (English, Berkeley Coll.) has assembled essays, chiefly by up-and-coming writers, that explore the symbiotic relationship between the gay male and the diva—those beloved, larger-than-life ladies who have served as role models, muses, and even therapists. Sounds like a hoot, but this is more than a camp fest. The essays, mostly three to five pages, are touching and thoughtful as well as funny, as they lovingly detail what each author's personal diva has meant to him. Show business and popular culture icons abound, with most of the usual suspects present (Liza, Marlene, Cher, both Bettes, and Joan), as well as choices from history and politics (Elizabeth I, Eva Perón), the culinary arts (Julia Child, Jennifer Patterson), and even fictitious figures (Auntie Mame, Princess Leia, Endora). VERDICT This is one of those delightful books you can open at random and be amused, enlightened, or moved by. The concept seems too rich to be confined to one volume; don't be surprised if a sequel appears in a year or two. Highly recommended for all LGBT readers.—Richard J. Violette Special Libs. Cataloguing, Inc. & Greater Victoria P.L., Victoria, B.C.

—Richard J. Violette

Library Journal

Gay male writers-including Mark Doty, Wayne Koestenbaum, Cyrus Cassells and others-pay homage to their divas. In the introduction to this revealing study of secular devotion, fanatic fandom, heroine-worship-call it what you will-poet Montlack (English/Berkeley Coll.) says that within two weeks of announcing his idea, more than 40 contributors had signed on. The list is quite a cornucopia of female cultural icons, ranging from Sappho to Princess Leia. "[T]here seems still to be a particular type of fandom, or devotion, that only gay guys can deliver," writes the author. "[W]e show up for the ladies like no one else and usually stick with them for life." Such fervor and steadfast loyalty blaze through these diverse accounts, whether in depicting an icon, admitting what she means to the devotee or exploring the nature of devotion itself. Poignant and colorful description dominates: Queen Elizabeth I, "undeniably a nerd's diva," that "crusty, white-faced Gloriana"; Nina Simone, with her "velvety voice" so "slow, so full, so processional it could pull a ship of lonely sailors to shore"; Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, whose "disheveled hair falling onto her bloated face and into those famed eyes physically transformed her to a gorgon"; Julia Child, "crowned everlastingly in a brown helmet of bedroom hair." Such splendid portraiture traces the outlines of the writer's immediate, breathless relation to his diva, for whom she may have paved a route out of repression or a confining home life (Joan Sutherland, Auntie Mame), acted as a tangential, sympathetic witness to the author's budding sexuality or take-no-prisoners attitude (Kate Bush, Sade, Bjork) or continues to serve asa catalyst for an evolving sense of self (Lucille Ball, Mahalia Jackson). A delightful essay collection.

Kirkus Reviews