gays/lesbians in Russia

[David Tuller]

    Hi--My name is David Tuller. I'm a reporter at the San Francisco
Chronicle. Sorry for this little bit of self-promotion, but I wanted to
let people know about a book of mine that Faber and Faber published a few
months ago--"Cracks in the Iron Closet: Travels in Gay and Lesbian Russia."

    I have a web page with a few chapters on-line. The URL:
    www.sfgate.com/~dtuller/ironcloset

    I'm interested in doing readings/talks on campuses. I gave a paper at
the recent "private life in Russia" conference at the University of
Michigan about differences between American and Russian notions of
sexual identity. In a couple of cases, Slavic studies departments and/or
anthropology departments are hooking up with gay/lesbian campus groups
to invite me to speak.

    Please feel free to forward this post to other lists that might be
interested.

    Here's what Robert Conquest said about my book in his jacket blurb:
    "An outstanding book that brings illumination not only to its
particular theme but also to our general understanding of modern Russia.
It should be of great interest to a broad readership."

    And here's what the New Yorker said about the book in its August
12th issue:
    "The writer travelled to post-Communist Russia expecting to encounter
brutal, Stalinist-era conditions for gay men and lesbians, and instead
found a society that upended his American-bred notions of sexual
categories...Tuller's observant reporting and personal experiences make
for absorbing reading: the human comedy rendered in unexpected ways."

    Here's my own boiler-plate spiel about the book:

    "Cracks in the Iron Closet" is part travel memoir, part social
history, part journalistic exploration. Though the book focuses
primarily on lesbians and gays, I have tried to use the theme as a
prism through which to explore many issues pivotal to an understanding
of Russia and the former Soviet Union: strategies for survival in a
totalitarian society; concepts of friendship and community; ideas about
gender and family relations; the role of sex, love and passion;
attitudes toward individual rights, personal responsibility and fate;
relations between East and West; the notion of privacy in a society
that forced everyone--not just gays--into political and ideological
closets.
    The book is also an off-beat love story: part of it revolves around
my quasi-romance with Ksyusha, a charismatic Russian lesbian who became
my closest friend in Moscow. In describing how my experiences in Russia
challenged my (very American) preconceptions and biases about my own gay
identity, the book examines--in an entertaining and provocative
fashion--controversies  that have roiled the American gay and lesbian
movement: How does culture influence the expression of sexual identity?
What are the limits of American models of gay and lesbian identity? Is
bisexuality a "closeted pose" or a genuine orientation? What "causes"
homosexuality, anyway?

    Well, that's it. If you read down this far, thanks for your
interest!

    Dave Tuller
    San Francisco Chronicle

    Telephone: 415-777-7132