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Gay life in New York City in the 1950s and '60s was an entirely different world from today. Intensely secretive and desperately determined to stay that way, its action took place behind the unmarked doors of bars and in apartments where the shades were always drawn. Underlying the frenetic living and high hilarity was a sense of shame that was inevitable during a time when shock treatment and lobotomies were considered acceptable "cures" for homosexuality.
In Young Man from the Provinces, Alan Helms tells his story of those times. Escaping from a painful midwestern adolescence to the scholarly refuge of Columbia University, Alan threw himself headlong into New York's gay world.
Denied a Rhodes scholarship because of his sexual orientation, he turned his back on academia and became a successful model and stage actor, moving in glamorous circles whose members included Anthony Perkins, Stephen Sondheim, Marlene Dietrich, Noel Coward, Leonard Bernstein, and Edward Albee. Alan attended glittering parties, traveled around the world with his lover, and spent summers on Fire Island immersed in the company of young, beautiful men.
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After starting a new life in Boston in the early 1970s, Alan realized that the gay social world was changing drastically and that he was facing middle age by himself. He subsequently battled drug abuse and severe depression, but his biggest battle was his struggle for self-acceptance and his attempt to build a better life.
His success helped him remain strong as he faced his mother's death from cancer in the 1980s and the deaths of many of his friends and former lovers from AIDS - more than eighty and still climbing.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
Biography, Actors, Gay communities, Gay men, Male models, History, Gay community, Gays, identity, LGBTQ biography and memoirPeople
Alan HelmsPlaces
New York (State), New YorkTimes
20th centuryShowing 3 featured editions. View all 3 editions?
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1
Young man from the provinces: a gay life before Stonewall
2003, University of Minnesota Press
in English
- 1st University of Minnesota Press ed.
0816642680 9780816642687
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2
Young Man from the Provinces: A Gay Life Before Stonewall
February 1997, Avon Books
in English
0380729008 9780380729005
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3
Young man from the provinces: a gay life before Stonewall
1995, Faber and Faber
in English
0571198805 9780571198801
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