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Review

440 pages, paperback

In the decade following the 1969 clashes at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, the emergence of communities among southern lesbians, bisexuals, gay men, and transgendered persons gained new vibrancy and visibility. Where isolation and accommodation had characterized queer southern life since World War II, the seventies were marked by networking and organizing, discoing and marching. In Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones, award-winning writer James T. Sears tells the stories of queer history in the South through characters who shaped, and were shaped by, the events ushered in by the antiwar, civil rights, women's liberation, and gay movements following Stonewall. Sears builds upon his own earlier acclaimed book, Lonely Hunters, which details the post-World War II generation of southern homosexuals.

Sears interweaves stories of people and places to chronicle a distinctly southern panorama of queer life in a time of transformation. He brings to light unforgettable people and events whose effect on America is still with us: A psychedelic queer wedding. Drag pageants. Motorcycle runs. Dyke softball. Faery gatherings. Gay prison life. Sears follows a dozen characters as they build communities of desire and the heart, work for social change, construct sexual identities-and muster the political clout to take on Anita Bryant and march on Washington. He describes the evolution of music and literature, the bar and disco scenes, and gay spirituality in cities and towns from Virginia to Texas.

In rich, novelistic fashion, Sears explores how southern queer communities emerged from a region and culture uniquely contoured by the divisions of race, social class, religion, and gender, showing how the newly constructed communities of the seventies both owed a debt to their precursors and looked hopefully to the future.