Synopses & Reviews
Homosexuality is often seen as a purely urban experience, far removed from rural and small-town life.
Farm Boys undermines that cliche by telling the stories of more than three dozen gay men, ranging in age from 24 to 84, who grew up in farm families in the midwestern United States. Whether painful, funny, or matter-of-fact, these plain-spoken accounts will move and educate any reader, gay or not, from farm or city.
When I was fifteen, the milkman who came to get our milk was beautiful. This is when I was really getting horny to do something with another guy. I waited every day for him to come. I couldn’t even talk to him, couldn’t think of anything to say. I just stood there, watching him, wondering if he knew why.”Henry Bauer, Minnesota
When I go back home, I feel a real connection with the landa tremendous feeling, spiritual in a way. It makes me want to go out into a field and take my shoes off and put my feet right on the dirt, establish a real physical connection with that place. I get homesick a lot, but I don’t know if I could ever go back there and live. It’s not the kind of place that would welcome me if I lived openly, the way that I would like to live. I would be shunned.”Martin Scherz, Nebraska
If there is a checklist to see if your kid is queer, I must have hit every one of themall sorts of big warning signs. I was always interested in a lot of the traditional queen thingsclothes, cooking, academics, music, theater. A farm boy listening to show tunes? My parents must have seen it coming.”Joe Shulka, Wisconsin
My favorite show when I was growing up was The Waltons’. The show’s values comforted me, and I identified with John-Boy, the sensitive son who wanted to be a writer. He belonged there on the mountain with his family, yet he sensed that he was different and that he was often misunderstood. Sometimes I still feel like a misfit, even with gay people.”Connie Sanders, Illinois
Agriculture is my life. I like working with farm people, although they don’t really understand me. When I retire I want the word to get out [that I’m gay] to the people I’ve worked withthe dairy producers, the veterinarians, the feed salesmen, the guys at the co-ops. They’re going to be shocked, but their eyes are going to be opened.”James Heckman, Indiana
Review
“Will Fellows uncovers a remarkable time capsule of how gay folks lived and gathered a half-century ago in a small bar on Melrose in Los Angeles, interweaving the remarkable charm of bar owner Helen Branson’s 1957 memoir with his own deft cultural analysis.”—Tim Miller, performer and author of Body Blows and 1001 Beds
Review
"Few books are unique, but this one comes close. It’s the firsthand, contemporary account by a straight woman, Branson, who owned a gay bar in 1950s Los Angeles. Originally published in 1957, the book shows Branson to be a compassionate and astute observer of gay mores, now providing a rare primary source of gay life in an era from which such information is hard to obtain. Researchers will find material on the relationships between gay men and women, what gay parties were like, and the distinct house rules that Branson set up for patronage of her bar, among other topics. Fellows (Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest) intersperses her narrative with contextualizing historical and political information that greatly aids readers’ understanding. Verdict: Donald Vining’s multivolume A Gay Diary and Ricardo J. Brown’s compelling The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s: A Gay Life in the 1940s are related titles, but these were first published long after the fact. General readers of memoir or LGBT lit, as well as historians, will find Gay Bar to be a charming, informative read."—Library Journal
Review
“By pairing this new edition of Branson’s insightful memoir with a study of 1950s America, Fellows clarifies how ahead of her time Branson was: she believed, for example, that being gay was more than sex and that gay men living together could consider themselves married. This is a stimulating account of support for gay rights pre-Stonewall is an eye-opener.”—Publishers Weekly
Review
"Farm Boys breaks the silence that has fallen on gay rural life."David Bergman, editor of Men on Men 5: Best New Gay Fiction
Synopsis
Vivacious, unconventional, candid, and straight, Helen Branson operated a gay bar in Los Angeles in the 1950s—America’s most anti-gay decade. After years of fending off drunken passes as an entertainer in cocktail bars, this divorced grandmother preferred the wit, variety, and fun she found among homosexual men. Enjoying their companionship and deploring their plight, she gave her gay friends a place to socialize. Though at the time California statutes prohibited homosexuals from gathering in bars, Helen’s place was relaxed, suave, and remarkably safe from police raids and other anti-homosexual hazards. In 1957 she published her extraordinary memoir Gay Bar, the first book by a heterosexual to depict the lives of homosexuals with admiration, respect, and love.
In this new edition of Gay Bar, Will Fellows interweaves Branson’s chapters with historical perspective provided through his own insightful commentary and excerpts gleaned from letters and essays appearing in gay publications of the period. Also included is the original introduction to the book by maverick 1950s psychiatrist Blanche Baker. The eclectic selection of voices gives the flavor of American life in that extraordinary age of anxiety, revealing how gay men saw themselves and their circumstances, and how others perceived them.
About the Author
Will Fellows is author of the pathbreaking, acclaimed books Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest and A Passion to Preserve: Gay Men as Keepers of Culture, both published by the University of Wisconsin Press. He lives in Milwaukee.