Samuel M. Steward

Recounts the life of Sir Arthur Lyly, protege of Gertrude Stein, who divides his time between his painting and his dangerous, desperate homosexual loves

A Novel

Parisian Lives

Morð er morð er morð

After a bloody battle between royal cousins squabbling over the English throne, Brother Cadfael, performing funeral rights, discovers an extra body, that of a murder victim, and sets out to find the murderer

Murder is Murder is Murder

The most unlikely detectives since Miss Marple are back. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas step out of the literary haut monde and into the Parisian underworld to track down a murderer and art thief. As they sift for clues in literary salons and art exhibitions, gay American writer Johnny McAndrews takes the reader on a wicked romp through the decadent side of Parisian life.

The Caravaggio Shawl

Wardell Baxter Pomeroy

John DeCecco, PhD

Explore the dark subculture of 1950s tattoos! In the early 1950s, when tattoos were the indelible mark of a lowlife, an erudite professor of English--a friend of Gertrude Stein, Thomas Mann, Andre Gide, and Thornton Wilder--abandoned his job to become a tattoo artist (and incidentally a researcher for Alfred Kinsey). Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos tells the story of his years working in a squalid arcade on Chicago's tough State Street. During that time he left his mark on a hundred thousand people, from youthful sailors who flaunted their tattoos as a rite of manhood to executives who had to hide their passion for well-ornamented flesh. Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos is anything but politically correct. The gritty, film-noir details of Skid Row life are rendered with unflinching honesty and furtive tenderness. His lascivious relish for the young sailors swaggering or staggering in for a new tattoo does not blind him to the sordidness of the world they inhabited. From studly nineteen-year-olds who traded blow jobs for tattoos to hard-bitten dykes who scared the sailors out of the shop, the clientele was seedy at best: sailors, con men, drunks, hustlers, and Hells Angels. These days, when tattoo art is sported by millionaires and the middle class as well as by gang members and punk rockers, the sheer squalor of Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos is a revelation. However much tattoo culture has changed, the advice and information is still sound: how to select a good tattoo artist what to expect during a tattooing session how to ensure the artist uses sterile needles and other safety precautions how to care for a new tattoo why people get tattoos--25 sexual motivations for body art More than a history of the art or a roster of famous--and infamous--tattoo customers and artists, Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos is a raunchy, provocative look at a forgotten subculture.

Samuel M. Steward

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