The Deviants War, Eric Cervini
The Deviants War, Eric Cervini
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The Deviant's War
The Homosexual vs. the United States of America

Author: Eric Cervini

Narrator: Vikas Adam

Unabridged: 15 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/02/2020


Synopsis

"Vikas Adam draws the listener in, expertly narrating Cervini's work, which charts the beginning of the gay rights movement in the United States...Vikas Adam does an excellent job lending unique voices to real historical figures." -- AudioFile Magazine

A Publishers Weekly most anticipated spring book

From a young Harvard- and Cambridge-trained historian, the secret history of the fight for gay rights that began a generation before Stonewall.

In 1957, Frank Kameny, a rising astronomer working for the U.S. Defense Department in Hawaii, received a summons to report immediately to Washington, D.C. The Pentagon had reason to believe he was a homosexual, and after a series of humiliating interviews, Kameny, like countless gay men and women before him, was promptly dismissed from his government job. Unlike many others, though, Kameny fought back.

Based on firsthand accounts, recently declassified FBI records, and forty thousand personal documents, Eric Cervini's The Deviant's War unfolds over the course of the 1960s, as the Mattachine Society of Washington, the group Kameny founded, became the first organization to protest the systematic persecution of gay federal employees. It traces the forgotten ties that bound gay rights to the Black Freedom Movement, the New Left, lesbian activism, and trans resistance. Above all, it is a story of America (and Washington) at a cultural and sexual crossroads; of shocking, byzantine public battles with Congress; of FBI informants; murder; betrayal; sex; love; and ultimately victory.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

About Eric Cervini

Eric Cervini is an award-winning historian of LGBTQ+ culture and politics. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar. He is the Creator and Executive Producer of The Book of Queer, which airs on Discovery+. The Deviant’s War is his first book.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Eric

A+++++ would write again.......more

Goodreads review by Alok

I'm a big queer history buff and I really appreciate how Eric chose to publish this in a popular press rather than academic press, and write it in a way that makes it more accessible to people outside of the academy. At times the text is cinematic and reads like a movie script. Translating this much......more

Goodreads review by Erik

Eric Cervini uses "The Deviant's War" to shine a spotlight on a gay figure, and a gay era, lost to history. Frank Kameny was a Harvard educated astronomer working for the US government in Washington, D.C. when an old arrest came back to haunt him, making him yet another victim of the federal governme......more

Goodreads review by Meg

This book makes me so thirsty for LGBTQ+ history, and I didn’t think I could be any thirstier!! As someone who specializes in LGBTQ+ history professionally, it is incredibly fulfilling to see LGBTQ+ history being told well, and told in a way that is not only accessible, but incredibly enjoyable and......more


Awards

  • Triangle Awards - Nominee
  • Pulitzer Prize - Finalist
  • Triangle Awards - Winner