Not only Remnick

[Mark Yoffe]

Dear Colleagues,

In view of the recent SEELANGS discussions concerning the nature of
Russian Friendship and other mysteries of Russian character I would like
to bring to your attention a book by the San Francisco Chronicle
reporter, David Tuller, entitled "Cracks in the Iron Closet: Travels in
Gay and Lesbian Russia." Last year Faber and Faber published the
hardcover and the University of Chicago will be publishing the paperback
version in September.
The people in this book are the kind you will never read about in a David
Remnick opus. They are the members of Moscow's bohemian gay subculture.
This is the "other" Russia, almost unknown but equally as exciting as any
other Russian subculture depicted in the books of Western scholars and
journalists; (i.e. Andrew Solomon's "The Irony Tower," Thomas Cushman's
"Notes from Underground," Hilary Pilkington's "Russia's Youth and its
Culture," and John Bushnell's "Moscow Graffiti") It also is a book that
shows profoundly what an ever humbling experience Russia can be to a
friendly Western observer...
Tuller is an elegant and uncannily insightful writer. His analysis of the
Russian concept of privacy pertaining to the issues of sexual idenity is
as unique as it is brilliant.
For the sceptics let me say, this book is about much more then just
stories of Russian gay people. For all of you fascinated with the enigma
of "Russian frindship" this book is "a must."
Take it from its non-gay admirer.

Here, for the record, is what the New Yorker said about Tuller's book in
its August 12th'96 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."

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

Mark Yoffe
--
Mark Yoffe, Ph.D. Curator, International Counterculture Archive
Slavic Librarian, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
HTTP://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~yoffe
E-mail: yoffe at gwis2.circ.gwu.edu   Phone: 202 994-6303