Gordon Merrick and the Great Gay American Novel is the first biography of Gordon Merrick, the most commercially successful writer of gay novels in the twentieth century. This book shows how Merrick’s novels were largely based on his own life and time as a Princeton theater star, a Broadway actor, a New York reporter, an OSS spy, and the friend of countless artists and celebrities as an expatriate in France, Greece, and Sri Lanka. He lived much of his life as an openly gay man with his longtime partner, Charles Hulse. His 1970 novel, The Lord Won’t Mind, broke new ground by showing that an affirming, explicitly gay novel could be a bestseller. His subsequent gay novels were both a cultural phenomenon and a lightning rod for literary critics. This book also examines the complex, often conflicting responses to Merrick’s novels by gay readers and critics, and it thus recovers the early post-Stonewall debates over the definition of “gay literature.” By reconstructing Merrick’s life and critical fortunes, this book expands our understanding of what it means to be a gay man in the twentieth century.

The Strumpet Wind, first published in 1947, is a fictional account of espionage during the later days of World War II. Set in southern France, the novel revolves around a French family (the husband is a collaborator with the Vichy government and the German army), and an American intelligence agent, whose mission is to transmit false messages to the Nazis. Mercanton, the collaborator, attempts to switch allegiance to the Allied cause, but his actions, although helpful, do not prevent the tragic consequences brought about by his earlier activities. Author Gordon Merrick (1916-1988), served in the O.S.S. in France during World War II, reaching the rank of captain. The Strumpet Wind was his first novel.

In the follow-up to the gay romance bestseller The Lord Won’t Mind, Peter and Charlie’s marriage is put to the test when a young Frenchman enters their lives After a decade together in a steady, happy relationship, a trip to the sun-baked Mediterranean is exactly what Peter and Charlie need. Peter, now an art dealer, and Charlie, an artist, travel to the Riviera to attend to some business. However, once there, they meet a man who pushes their fidelity to the breaking point—and past it. In this, the second novel of the bestselling Peter & Charlie Trilogy, Gordon Merrick picks up with the couple’s lives a few years after The Lord Won’t Mind and in smart and scintillating fashion explores the ways the years can twist and warp a relationship. When their trip continues on a yacht through the Greek islands, Peter creates what he hopes is a good plan to mend their cracked bond, but instead may have created something that will rip them apart forever.

St. Tropez offers all the pleasures a growing boy could want—as well as all the danger After the Wall Street crash and the onset of the Great Depression, Stuart Cosling wants something different than his typical American life, so he takes his sizable fortune and beautiful, young French trophy wife and moves to the undiscovered paradise of St. Tropez. Here he has the home, the vineyard, and the precocious son he has always wanted. Within a few years, his status on the island grows from that of new arrival to local celebrity. Their son, Robbie, grows up. By his teenage years, he has become a terribly handsome man, and while on a cruise, he learns the pleasures that manhood can bring. Now Robbie is impelled to chase that feeling and try to find the love that he deserves. Perfect Freedom has all the hallmarks of Gordon Merrick’s finest work: scenic locales, beautifully rendered characters, and outrageous emotion oozing from every page.

When marriage gets in the way of attraction, something’s got to give Perry Langham grew up an outsider looking in. He wanted to join Manhattan high society, be invited to those parties, wear those clothes, and drive those cars. He is a man with only one endowment, and he pledges to use it to achieve his dream by any means necessary. He finally gets the opportunity he has always wanted when he is swept into the world of millionaire Billy Vernon—a place where anything seems possible. In order to keep the fun going, Perry marries Billy’s beautiful young daughter Bettina. And that’s when the wheels fall off. Billy can’t reconcile his attraction to young men with his new marriage, and he goes down a dark path from which there may be no return. Based on the true story of a high-society murder case that drew international attention to its story of shocking crime and outrageous sex, The Good Life is Gordon Merrick’s posthumous final novel, cowritten with his partner, Charles G. Hulse—a fitting cap to an illustrious career.

“More completely than any author before him, Richard Amory explores the tormented world of love for man by man . . . a happy amalgam of James Fenimore Cooper, Jean Genet and Hudson’s Green Mansions.”—from the cover copy of the 1969 edition Published well ahead of its time, in 1966 by Greenleaf Classics, Song of the Loon is a romantic novel that tells the story of Ephraim MacIver and his travels through the wilderness. Along his journey, he meets a number of characters who share with him stories, wisdom and homosexual encounters. The most popular erotic gay book of the 1960s and 1970s, Song of the Loon was the inspiration for two sequels, a 1970 film of the same name, at least one porn movie and a parody novel called Fruit of the Loon. Unique among pulp novels of the time, the gay characters in Song of the Loon are strong and romantically drawn, which has earned the book a place in the canon of gay American literature. With an introduction by Michael Bronski, editor of Pulp Friction and author of The Pleasure Principle. Little Sister’s Classics is a new series of books from Arsenal Pulp Press, reviving lost and out-of-print gay and lesbian classic books, both fiction and nonfiction. The books in the series are produced in conjunction with Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium, the heroic Vancouver bookstore well-known for its anti-censorship efforts.

A four-month New York Times bestseller: This classic gay love story is as gripping and sexy today as when it was first published. Charlie Mills always played the role of the good grandson, and his grandmother rewarded him for it handsomely in the form of all the gifts, money, and attention a boy could want. Entering college in the late 1930s, Charlie just has to keep doing what his grandmother expects of him in order to continue to receive her gifts. He has to find a nice girl, get married, and have a few kids. Then one summer, he meets Peter Martin. Peter is everything that Charlie has ever wanted. Despite all the obstacles, Charlie immediately craves and pursues Peter, who happily obliges him. As they grow closer, Charlie is forced to choose between two options: complying with the expectations of society and family, or following the call of true love. In this, the first book of the Charlie & Peter Trilogy, Gordon Merrick creates an enduring portrait of two young men deeply in love, and the tribulations they endure to express themselves and maintain their relationship.