Strange Relations

Masculinity, Sexuality and Art in Mid-Century America

By: Ralf Webb

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Hardcover | 25 January 2024 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
352 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.2 x 14.3 x 3.3

Hardcover

RRP $55.00

$43.75

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*SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2025*

'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

Industry Reviews

Textured literary portraits of the masculine mind and body. Webb has skilfully blended narratives of maleness, queer desire and gender norms with mid-century American cultural critiques. If you're a fan of Judith Butler, Hilton Als, Mark Doty, you will love Webb's Strange Relations

A compassionate, imaginative, inquisitive book about men, how American authors like Carson McCullers, Tennessee Williams, and James Baldwin wrote about masculinity, and how they imagined relationships between men-and women. 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

Impressive . . . tender, unflinching - Guardian, on ROTTEN DAYS IN LATE SUMMER

Brilliant . . . heralds the arrival of a frank and vital poetic voice

Frank and alert . . . an important voice in British poetry

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