Through the lives and works of four mid-century writers, poet Ralf Webb explores the ongoing crisis in modern masculinity In San Francisco, 1960, James Baldwin spoke to John Cheever about what he saw as a ''failure of the masculine sensibility''. Strange Relations examines how Baldwin came to this assessment and what may be amiss in our understanding of masculinity. Building on Walt Whitman''s philosophy of the love between men, the book considers the work and lives of Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, Cheever and Baldwin. All four writers wrestled in their art, as well as in their sexual and platonic relationships, with the expectations of masculinity, the pull of queer life and the tensions between the two. With a curious, intelligent and sensitive gaze, Ralf Webb sheds new light on each writer. The cumulative effect is a powerful and essential argument for why masculinity is in crisis, when and where that crisis began, and how we as a society might begin to find our way out of it.

Autorentext

Ralf Webb

Klappentext

'Textured literary portraits of the masculine mind and body'
Raymond Antrobus, author of The Perseverance

In October 1960, James Baldwin and John Cheever spoke on a panel together at San Francisco State College. The troubled state of American society was under discussion, which Baldwin incisively diagnosed as a 'failure of the masculine sensibility'.

Strange Relations explores this crisis in mid-century masculinity and the lives and works of four bisexual writers who fought to express and embody alternate possibilities. Building on Walt Whitman's philosophy of the love between men, Ralf Webb considers the ways in which Tennessee Williams and Carson McCullers, as well as Cheever and Baldwin, resisted in their art, as well as in their relationships, the damaging expectations of contemporary gender and sexuality.

With a curious, intelligent and sensitive gaze, Ralf Webb sheds new light on each writer. Together, these artists offer a powerful and moving argument for a transformative new masculinity, grounded in fluidity, love and intimacy.

'Webb's writing is of a quality rarely seen, and his book returns you to the world slightly changed, equipped with another angle of vision on the quiddity of man'
Diarmuid Hester, author of Nothing Ever Just Disappears