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On Christopher Street: Life, Sex, and Death After Stonewall
Through the eyes of publishing icon Michael Denneny, this cultural autobiography traces the evolution of the US’s queer community in the three decades post-Stonewall.
The Stonewall Riots of 1969 and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s have been captured in minute detail, and rightly memorialized in books, on tv, and in film as pivotal and powerful moments in queer history. Yet what about the moments in between—the tumultuous decade post-Stonewall when the queer community’s vitality and creativity exploded across the country, even as the AIDS crisis emerged?
Michael Denneny was there for it all. As a founder and editor of the wildly influential magazine Christopher Street and later as the first openly gay editor at a major publishing house, Denneny critically shaped publishing around gay subjects in the 1970s and beyond. At St. Martin’s Press, he acquired a slew of landmark titles by gay authors—many for his groundbreaking Stonewall Inn Editions—propelling queer voices into the mainstream cultural conversation. On Christopher Street is Denneny’s time machine, going back to that heady period to lay out the unfolding geographies and storylines of gay lives and capturing the raw immediacy of his and his contemporaries’ daily lives as gay people in America. Through forty-one micro-chapters, he uses his journal writings, articles, interviews, and more from the 1970s and ‘80s to illuminate the twists and turns of a period of incomparable cultural ferment.
One of the few surviving voices of his generation, Denneny transports us back in time to share those vibrant in-between moments in gay lives—the joy, sorrow, ecstasy, and energy—across three decades of queer history.
The Stonewall Riots of 1969 and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s have been captured in minute detail, and rightly memorialized in books, on tv, and in film as pivotal and powerful moments in queer history. Yet what about the moments in between—the tumultuous decade post-Stonewall when the queer community’s vitality and creativity exploded across the country, even as the AIDS crisis emerged?
Michael Denneny was there for it all. As a founder and editor of the wildly influential magazine Christopher Street and later as the first openly gay editor at a major publishing house, Denneny critically shaped publishing around gay subjects in the 1970s and beyond. At St. Martin’s Press, he acquired a slew of landmark titles by gay authors—many for his groundbreaking Stonewall Inn Editions—propelling queer voices into the mainstream cultural conversation. On Christopher Street is Denneny’s time machine, going back to that heady period to lay out the unfolding geographies and storylines of gay lives and capturing the raw immediacy of his and his contemporaries’ daily lives as gay people in America. Through forty-one micro-chapters, he uses his journal writings, articles, interviews, and more from the 1970s and ‘80s to illuminate the twists and turns of a period of incomparable cultural ferment.
One of the few surviving voices of his generation, Denneny transports us back in time to share those vibrant in-between moments in gay lives—the joy, sorrow, ecstasy, and energy—across three decades of queer history.
405 pages, Paperback
First published March 17, 2023
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328 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 2, 2023
Author writes his biographical history of gay publishing focused on the years following Stonewall, the beginning of gay community, recognition, and growing acceptance. He’s wrong about the response of medicine and healthcare to AIDS—it was not ignored and care of patients then and now was by doctors, nurses, healthcare providers, and scientists courageous and caring in the face of disease and death.
October 13, 2023
This book centers on "The Christopher Street Reader" and not on life as lived on the street.
April 11, 2023
Denneny who was a student of Hannah Arendt & understand theoretical debates has collected his writings updated with brief introductions to each piece. An editor of Christopher Street magazine, Denneny's work addresses queer literature, theory, culture & identity from the 1970s through to the present day. Denneny who is an important writer on his own mirrors the larger struggles of the LGBTQ community.
"What I propose, therefore, is very simple; it is nothing more than to think what we are doing," Arendt says at the end of her prologue to The Human Condition." xiii
"As an old friend said, "There was a moment when we thought we could make the world the way we wanted it to be." And for a while we did, we created a gay world, and a gay culture became a reality, if only a transitory reality, a bubble of shared consciousness that floated on the riptides of history, a bubble that may now be a memory." xvii
"But it's often forgotten that the first impact of Stonewall was one of liberation, sexual liberation. The gay movement had its roots in the sexual liberation and feminist movements of the Sixties, and its first result was an absolute explosion of gay sexual activity.: 2
"We're intimately aware of 'the havoc wrought in the souls of people who aren't supposed to exist' (Ntozake Shange)." 8
"But this oasis was not a place of relaxation, like the Hamptons for our straight colleagues; rather it was a discipline, as one of my roommates there used to say, "boot camp for gay men." Though another roommate chortled and said, "more like gay high school, if you ask me. We're just learning all the stuff about romance and sexual entanglement that straights learned in high school and college." 27
"It is sexuality that makes us homosexuals; it is the affirmation of ourselves as homosexuals that makes us gay. Sexuality is not the same as love. Homosexuality is not the same as "men loving men,' though it sounds good as a slogan to make us respectable in the eyes of the straight world." 87
"As an identity, being gay is today a cultural opportunity. Finding ourselves already labeled, we have been engaged in a modern alchemy, transmitting a perversion into an existential theme. As Ed White noted in States of Desire, "gay life...is obligatory existentialism forced on people who must invent themselves." 123
"It is the absolute peculiarity of homophobia, what seems to distinguish it from other forms of social domination, that it denies the existence of the object of its oppression." 130
"More precisely, an epidemic is the occurrence of death as a social event. Usually death is one of the most individualizing and private experiences a person can undergo. But death is sometimes a social event, a shared reality; it was so in the trenches of World War I, in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, in the killing fields of Cambodia. When death becomes a social event, the individual death is robbed of its utter privacy and uniquely individual meaning and simultaneously amplified with the resonance of social significance and historical consequence. When death is a social event, both the individual and the community are threatened with irreparable harm.
An epidemic is a shared social disaster played out on the bodies of the afflicted. AIDS, of course, is not a gay disease. But given the means of transmission, AIDS managed to gain momentum and achieve epidemic force first in the gay community....
It is clear now that history of the liberated gay community in America is divided into two phases.
First was the original act of constitution as a self-acknowledged community, initiated by the Stonewall Riots in June 1969 and unfolded in the Seventies when a vast act of social transformation reshaped the lives and attitudes of millions of Americans-a social event of such magnitude that it can only be compared to the half-century-old civil rights movement....The second phase commenced with the advent of the AIDS epidemic at the beginning of the Eighties, an event that threatened to destroy this community both physically and spiritually." 238-239
"What distinguishes this AIDS writing from other literary production in our time is not only the writers' intention but the unique situation in which the act of writing occurs. This is not strong emotion recollected in tranquility; these are reports from the combat zone. AIDS writing is urgent; it is engaged and activist writing: it is writing in response to a present threat; it is in it, of it, and aims to affect it. I can think of no good parallel for this in literary history.." 249
"A comparison may make clear the unparalleled circumstances in which this work is being written. Anne Frank's diary, which might first be thought a good literary parallel, has its own special beauty; but on the one hand, it was written without her really knowing what would happen, and, on the other hand, we read it knowing there is nothing we can do about the course of events. But AIDS writings is about something we know is happening, now, and about which we must in fact do something." 250
"What I propose, therefore, is very simple; it is nothing more than to think what we are doing," Arendt says at the end of her prologue to The Human Condition." xiii
"As an old friend said, "There was a moment when we thought we could make the world the way we wanted it to be." And for a while we did, we created a gay world, and a gay culture became a reality, if only a transitory reality, a bubble of shared consciousness that floated on the riptides of history, a bubble that may now be a memory." xvii
"But it's often forgotten that the first impact of Stonewall was one of liberation, sexual liberation. The gay movement had its roots in the sexual liberation and feminist movements of the Sixties, and its first result was an absolute explosion of gay sexual activity.: 2
"We're intimately aware of 'the havoc wrought in the souls of people who aren't supposed to exist' (Ntozake Shange)." 8
"But this oasis was not a place of relaxation, like the Hamptons for our straight colleagues; rather it was a discipline, as one of my roommates there used to say, "boot camp for gay men." Though another roommate chortled and said, "more like gay high school, if you ask me. We're just learning all the stuff about romance and sexual entanglement that straights learned in high school and college." 27
"It is sexuality that makes us homosexuals; it is the affirmation of ourselves as homosexuals that makes us gay. Sexuality is not the same as love. Homosexuality is not the same as "men loving men,' though it sounds good as a slogan to make us respectable in the eyes of the straight world." 87
"As an identity, being gay is today a cultural opportunity. Finding ourselves already labeled, we have been engaged in a modern alchemy, transmitting a perversion into an existential theme. As Ed White noted in States of Desire, "gay life...is obligatory existentialism forced on people who must invent themselves." 123
"It is the absolute peculiarity of homophobia, what seems to distinguish it from other forms of social domination, that it denies the existence of the object of its oppression." 130
"More precisely, an epidemic is the occurrence of death as a social event. Usually death is one of the most individualizing and private experiences a person can undergo. But death is sometimes a social event, a shared reality; it was so in the trenches of World War I, in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, in the killing fields of Cambodia. When death becomes a social event, the individual death is robbed of its utter privacy and uniquely individual meaning and simultaneously amplified with the resonance of social significance and historical consequence. When death is a social event, both the individual and the community are threatened with irreparable harm.
An epidemic is a shared social disaster played out on the bodies of the afflicted. AIDS, of course, is not a gay disease. But given the means of transmission, AIDS managed to gain momentum and achieve epidemic force first in the gay community....
It is clear now that history of the liberated gay community in America is divided into two phases.
First was the original act of constitution as a self-acknowledged community, initiated by the Stonewall Riots in June 1969 and unfolded in the Seventies when a vast act of social transformation reshaped the lives and attitudes of millions of Americans-a social event of such magnitude that it can only be compared to the half-century-old civil rights movement....The second phase commenced with the advent of the AIDS epidemic at the beginning of the Eighties, an event that threatened to destroy this community both physically and spiritually." 238-239
"What distinguishes this AIDS writing from other literary production in our time is not only the writers' intention but the unique situation in which the act of writing occurs. This is not strong emotion recollected in tranquility; these are reports from the combat zone. AIDS writing is urgent; it is engaged and activist writing: it is writing in response to a present threat; it is in it, of it, and aims to affect it. I can think of no good parallel for this in literary history.." 249
"A comparison may make clear the unparalleled circumstances in which this work is being written. Anne Frank's diary, which might first be thought a good literary parallel, has its own special beauty; but on the one hand, it was written without her really knowing what would happen, and, on the other hand, we read it knowing there is nothing we can do about the course of events. But AIDS writings is about something we know is happening, now, and about which we must in fact do something." 250
November 10, 2025
(2.5 stars) I should be a bullseye audience member for this book. When Denneny started publishing gay fiction at St. Martin's Press in 1977, I was 21 and hungry for gay literature, and I read most of the books he had a hand in publishing. I also subscribed for a few years to Christopher Street, a gay literary magazine he co-founded. The title of this book leads one to believe that it's a history of gay life after 1969. It's not. It's not even a history of gay literature or publishing. And it's not a memoir in any substantive way. It's a collection of unrelated essays and speeches that Denneny made, mostly while working in publishing. A handful of the essays are interesting (a couple on Larry Kramer, one called "Hymn to the Gym" about gay men and physical beauty) and there is some good history about the beginnings of the AIDS catastrophe.
But though Denneny may have been a great editor, he is not a particularly talented stylist and his writing is unexceptional. Because he made the choice not to do any real editing of these pieces, there is a lot of repetition, of facts and names--and not just gay ones; he rarely goes many pages without dropping names like Hannah Arendt (with whom he worked) and Ntozake Shange (whom he edited). There are almost no references to the art of editing or what it was like to have edited so many important gay books, though he does talk about the sad situation of gay critics in the 1970s who always seemed to have specific agendas that made them see the books under review as flawed. This disappointing volume is just tantalizing enough to make me think it's a damn shame that Denneny never wrote an actual memoir.
But though Denneny may have been a great editor, he is not a particularly talented stylist and his writing is unexceptional. Because he made the choice not to do any real editing of these pieces, there is a lot of repetition, of facts and names--and not just gay ones; he rarely goes many pages without dropping names like Hannah Arendt (with whom he worked) and Ntozake Shange (whom he edited). There are almost no references to the art of editing or what it was like to have edited so many important gay books, though he does talk about the sad situation of gay critics in the 1970s who always seemed to have specific agendas that made them see the books under review as flawed. This disappointing volume is just tantalizing enough to make me think it's a damn shame that Denneny never wrote an actual memoir.
February 19, 2024
4.5 ⭐️
took me so long to read because it’s quite dense and a bit repetitive at times but i still really enjoyed it and found it very interesting; there’s a real sense in the essays of what it was like during the time periods he’s writing during—and of course i love any book that makes me want to read about a billion more books on the subject (yay for sticky notes!)
— i was expecting a more historical book than what it was (which was my fault not the authors); this is more cultural/theoretical(?) or maybe in the veins of societal critique? i’m not describing it perfectly
— also really enjoyed his thoughts and explorations of writing itself
— i do wish there were more interviews; one of my favorite parts was his conversation with felice picano
— paragraph 175 or how dark can it get? was another favorite of mine
took me so long to read because it’s quite dense and a bit repetitive at times but i still really enjoyed it and found it very interesting; there’s a real sense in the essays of what it was like during the time periods he’s writing during—and of course i love any book that makes me want to read about a billion more books on the subject (yay for sticky notes!)
— i was expecting a more historical book than what it was (which was my fault not the authors); this is more cultural/theoretical(?) or maybe in the veins of societal critique? i’m not describing it perfectly
— also really enjoyed his thoughts and explorations of writing itself
— i do wish there were more interviews; one of my favorite parts was his conversation with felice picano
— paragraph 175 or how dark can it get? was another favorite of mine
May 20, 2023
Good, but proceed with caution
The best part of the book is Denneny's introduction: It is exciting and illuminating, and it certainly contributed to the reason why I bought the book.
The individual essays/articles/interviews reveal that Denneny is an uneven writer. His activist writings are very good in their delineation of the politics of the era. Very foundational. But when he writes on love and relationships.... oh dear. The prose turns almost purple and he mines every available cliche. Best avoided. His critique of a Robert Martin essay borders on carping; and although Denneny cites the essay directly, you get the sense he's cherry-picking in order to make his argument work.
Still, as a historical document, it reads very well. And there's that wonderful intro.
The best part of the book is Denneny's introduction: It is exciting and illuminating, and it certainly contributed to the reason why I bought the book.
The individual essays/articles/interviews reveal that Denneny is an uneven writer. His activist writings are very good in their delineation of the politics of the era. Very foundational. But when he writes on love and relationships.... oh dear. The prose turns almost purple and he mines every available cliche. Best avoided. His critique of a Robert Martin essay borders on carping; and although Denneny cites the essay directly, you get the sense he's cherry-picking in order to make his argument work.
Still, as a historical document, it reads very well. And there's that wonderful intro.
May 25, 2023
I think this book is the mirror of an age and the ideas in some more militant articles didn't age well but reflect what was in a specific moments.
The more private or historical parts are brilliant and I loved them
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine
The more private or historical parts are brilliant and I loved them
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine
July 23, 2025
As a gay man, Otis nice to read real history of what our community faced and will continue to face
March 16, 2024
Christopher Street is a place, a street that is at the heart of gay life in New York City. Christopher Street was also a gay publication that opened up life for its gay subscribers. This book is a compendium of essays that Denneny wrote for CS, or speeches he made for various organizations from the 1970s to the 1990s (mostly). Denneny was the first openly gay editor to be hired at a major publishing house: Stonewall Editions at St. Martin’s Press. During his tenure there he was responsible for publishing over one hundred titles by gay authors. Why is this book important? For someone my age (in 1987 Denneny read a novel MS of mine and recommended to me that I should pursue the small presses), it is a good review of history that I lived through (though not in New York). For gay people under the age of forty, it is a history from which they could learn where their gay privileges today come from. Without the courageous acts of civil disobedience in 1969, there would be no Grindr, few LGBTQIA+ films or books. No marriage. Those brave people also taught us that we must remain alert and keep fighting. There are those on SCOTUS and in Congress who would still deprive our hard-won community of its rights. In some sense, unless we at last develop a more inclusive society, there will always be a Stonewall rebellion in the offing. We should be prepared to bear arms at any time.
August 4, 2025
There’s a lot here to intrigue anyone interested in the rise (Denneny didn’t stick around for the fall) of gay literature from about 1978 to the 2010s, but there’s also a tremendous amount of repetition and a thick crust of 80s/90s-style gay-lib rhetoric that is a significant historical fact but which has aged poorly. Except for being queer, one comes to realize, Denneny was as patrician as John Updike and as intellectually conservative as the editors of the New York Times (a comparison he would have detested). He was both a courageous and remarkable trendsetter and a feted taste (and career) maker with more influence than he probably deserved. It’s hard not to read these essays and occasional pieces without ambivalence.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews