AmosL
11-18-2006, 11:50 AM
Warren, Patricia Nell, “The Lavender Locker Room: 3000 Years of Great Athletes Whose Sexual Orientation Was Different”. Wildcat Press, 2006
Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride
The name Patricia Nell Warren is a magic one in the field of gay literature. She wrote the groundbreaking beautiful love story between a coach and his student, “The Front Runner”. With that book she earned a well deserved place in our cannon. Her new book, “The Lavender Locker Room” is quite different in approach. It is non fiction and it is wonderful. Ms. Warren takes us through the history of sport and gives us people like us. She has researched the stories of sports heroes well and serves us a feast of wonderful chapters. This is a book to make you proud and I personally thank Ms. Warren for it.
Gay men and women have always loved to speculate on who is gay and who isn’t. Gossip columnists also love to out people and the public loves to read and hear the news. “The Lavender Locker Room” supplies those needs for us to know (although I never understood why it mattered so much). This is an encyclopedia spanning three thousand years and it gives us the inside story of who is “a friend of Dorothy”. It is almost as if you were sitting in a room with the author and discussing the matter over coffee and banana bread. You learn about the history of gays in sports and you are entertained by it.
I found the book to be a series of thoughts and then reflections on the great gays in sports. Going back to the Greeks and the Romans to the Amazons as a starting point we get a mini course in history peppered with delightful anecdotes. Moving onto Richard the Lionhearted who was a great swordsman in bed and out of it, We then come to others along the course of history stopping along the way to visit—James I, Joan of Arc and other historical greats that now we can legitimately claim.
Most of these names will be familiar to you but there are some we don’t recognize and those were the stories I relished (except for David Kopay, who I knew when I lived in New Orleans and he played for the New Orleans Saints. I will never forget that whenever he walked into the place where I hung out and which was always filled with wonderful men, a hush came over the room and he stood there like a symbol that anyone can be gay).
Ms. Warren mentions the Olympics a lot and she takes a good hard look at the gender typing policy of the International Olympic Committee. She also spends time on the sport that seems to beckon so many gays—figure skating. She provides no answers and she really asks no questions. What she gives us is a delightful look into the world of athletes and does so clearly and beautifully. She is often thought provoking but she entertains throughout the book I feel lucky to have an autographed copy of the book and it is one that will look at again and again just as I have done and still do with “The Front Runner”. In fact, I am getting ready to write up a review of “The Front Runner” so that the youngsters of today that aren’t familiar with it will have a chance to be.
“The Lavender Locker Room” is a book you will want to keep and to treasure. Look for it or order it directly from Wildcat Press. You will not be sorry.
Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride
The name Patricia Nell Warren is a magic one in the field of gay literature. She wrote the groundbreaking beautiful love story between a coach and his student, “The Front Runner”. With that book she earned a well deserved place in our cannon. Her new book, “The Lavender Locker Room” is quite different in approach. It is non fiction and it is wonderful. Ms. Warren takes us through the history of sport and gives us people like us. She has researched the stories of sports heroes well and serves us a feast of wonderful chapters. This is a book to make you proud and I personally thank Ms. Warren for it.
Gay men and women have always loved to speculate on who is gay and who isn’t. Gossip columnists also love to out people and the public loves to read and hear the news. “The Lavender Locker Room” supplies those needs for us to know (although I never understood why it mattered so much). This is an encyclopedia spanning three thousand years and it gives us the inside story of who is “a friend of Dorothy”. It is almost as if you were sitting in a room with the author and discussing the matter over coffee and banana bread. You learn about the history of gays in sports and you are entertained by it.
I found the book to be a series of thoughts and then reflections on the great gays in sports. Going back to the Greeks and the Romans to the Amazons as a starting point we get a mini course in history peppered with delightful anecdotes. Moving onto Richard the Lionhearted who was a great swordsman in bed and out of it, We then come to others along the course of history stopping along the way to visit—James I, Joan of Arc and other historical greats that now we can legitimately claim.
Most of these names will be familiar to you but there are some we don’t recognize and those were the stories I relished (except for David Kopay, who I knew when I lived in New Orleans and he played for the New Orleans Saints. I will never forget that whenever he walked into the place where I hung out and which was always filled with wonderful men, a hush came over the room and he stood there like a symbol that anyone can be gay).
Ms. Warren mentions the Olympics a lot and she takes a good hard look at the gender typing policy of the International Olympic Committee. She also spends time on the sport that seems to beckon so many gays—figure skating. She provides no answers and she really asks no questions. What she gives us is a delightful look into the world of athletes and does so clearly and beautifully. She is often thought provoking but she entertains throughout the book I feel lucky to have an autographed copy of the book and it is one that will look at again and again just as I have done and still do with “The Front Runner”. In fact, I am getting ready to write up a review of “The Front Runner” so that the youngsters of today that aren’t familiar with it will have a chance to be.
“The Lavender Locker Room” is a book you will want to keep and to treasure. Look for it or order it directly from Wildcat Press. You will not be sorry.