Reproduction of the original: Ben ́s Nugget by Horatio Alger

After rejecting job offers from condescending and exploitative employers, sixteen-year-old Ben Stanton, a resourceful and self-reliant orphan, ventures out West to California to seek his fortune.

"This collection of original essays confronts the assumption that queer desires depend upon urban life for meaning. By considering rural queer life, the contributors challenge readers to explore queer experiences in ways that give greater context and texture to modern practices of identity formation. The book's focus on understudied rural spaces throws into relief the overemphasis of urban locations and structures in the current political and theoretical work on queer sexualities and genders. It highlights the need to rethink notions of 'the closet' and 'coming out' and the characterizations of non-urban sexualities and genders as 'isolated' and in need of 'outreach'"--Provided by publisher.