'Remarkable... entertaining... deft... moving... refreshing' Daily Telegraph 'A richly
rewarding account of a resonant cultural moment' Guardian '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 'Impeccably well researched and hugely enjoyable'
Nicole Flattery author of Nothing Special 'Wise hopeful and exquisitely written' Will
Tosh author of Straight Acting
