Outlaw Marriages

February 6, 2012
Cultural historian and American University professor Streitmatter (Mightier Than the Sword) absorbingly details the public and private lives of notable same-sex couples, deftly examining affairs, betrayals, and disappointments, as well as the enabling power that the right marriage, recognized or not, provides. Many of the pairs comprised a famous and not-so-famous member: Walt Whitman’s much younger partner and muse, Peter Doyle, sold streetcar tickets and worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad, while Greta Garbo’s upper-crust partner, Mercedes de Acosta, taught the star, who came from a poor family, rules of etiquette and style. The thoroughly researched, lovingly rendered joint histories—including Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Tennessee Williams and Frank Merlo, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns—share a common thread that is less about gender than partnership-as-catalyst. Toklas championed Stein’s writing and became her literary agent; Rauschenberg encouraged Johns to act on the content of a bizarre dream and paint the American flag; Merlo “single-handedly stabilized Tennessee Williams’s life and career.” When James Baldwin seemed “on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” his partner, artist Lucien Happersberger, whisked him off to a Swiss village where he could focus on his work. The volume will have particular appeal to readers of gender studies, but these stories ultimately prove that true partnership is gender blind. Agent: Howard Yoon, Ross Yoon.

April 1, 2012
A selective glimpse at prominent same-sex nuptials. Streitmatter (Communication/American Univ.; From Perverts to Fab Five: The Media's Changing Depiction of Gay Men and Lesbians, 2008, etc.) considers the cases of 15 couples from a time when such unions were scandalous. In the households of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns and James Ivory and Ismail Merchant, both parties were famous. Typically, though, just one member of the outlaw marriage was celebrated. The less well-known, long-suffering partner was muse to his or her famous spouse. That was the case with Walt Whitman and his beloved streetcar conductor, Jane Addams and her financial supporter, J.C. Leyendecker and his Arrow Collar model, Greta Garbo and her social advisor and Tennessee Williams and his loyal caretaker. These notable subjects were not ordinary folk; they were social reformers, poets, playwrights and painters. The author begins each story with thumbnail bios, followed by a short section titled "Creating an Outlaw Marriage" and then some information on how they worked together. The tales continue with the ebb and flow of romance, faithfulness and loyalty, infidelity and betrayal. Finally, each story draws on newspaper obituaries that generally omitted mention of the spouse who figured so largely in the life of the deceased. While his topic undeniably interesting, journalist Streitmatter adheres to his journeyman's formula too much; however, his book might be a nice gift for just the right couple, for he clearly loves his story. In the epilogue, the author proudly announces that he and his partner are now husband and husband. Joint biographies, rendered in mostly artless prose, of successful and influential gay and lesbian couples who married before it was allowed.

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July 1, 2012

Streitmatter (journalism, American Univ.; Mightier Than the Sword: How the News Media Have Shaped American History) demonstrates that, legality aside, same-sex relationships are not a recent by-product of political correctness gone awry, as opponents aver. The 15 couples whom he chronicles here forged not just strong, loving, and committed, if imperfect and occasionally impermanent, relationships, but enduring social and cultural legacies. Among the "outlaws" are some iconic names, including Walt Whitman, Jane Addams, Tennessee Williams, and Greta Garbo, whose partners, with a few notable exceptions (e.g., Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas; filmmakers Ismail Merchant and James Ivory) were less famous. Each chapter covers one couple and highlights how the pair's personal lives synergistically developed and came to influence their work, whether as muse (Whitman and Peter Doyle), emotional stability and support (Williams and Frank Merlo), or a fully evolved working partnership (Merchant and Ivory). VERDICT An engaging and well-researched volume with broad appeal to the LGBTQ crowd (especially couples) as well as social historians.--Richard J. Violette, Greater Victoria P.L., B.C.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2012
Walt Whitman, the father of free verse, had a 25-year relationship with his muse, the significantly younger railroad worker Peter Doyle. Jane Addams, the most admired woman in America in the 1900s, and who became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, had a 40-year marriage with Mary Rozet Smith, whose financial backing kept Hull House afloat. Painter Lucien Happersberger provided James Baldwin with the emotional security he desperately sought throughout his life, despite Lucien's dalliances. Even in the mid-1980s, Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, remembered for sumptuous film adaptations of iconic novels, went public with their 25-year, same-sex relationship only after A Room with a View's acclaim guaranteed financing for future productions. Smooth and rocky, 15 love marriages that dared not speak their name defied laws and mores, flouted conventions, and live today in Streitmatter's essential, well-documented history, which includes rare photographs.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)