The deviant's war :

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Title :

The deviant's war : the homosexual vs. the United States of America / Eric Cervini.

Title:

The deviant's war :

Author:

Cervini, Eric, 1992-

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

494 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

ISBN:

9780374139797

Production / Publication Information:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.

Summary:

"A biography of gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny"--

Bibliography note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Language:

English

Personal Subject:

Kameny, Frank, 1925-2011.

Subject Term:

Gay people -- United States -- Biography.

Gay rights -- United States -- History.

Gay people -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- United States.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Item Barcode	Location
Book	Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library	306.76 CER	31330008941647	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Boxford Town Library	306.76 CER	32115002102935	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Dracut - Moses Greeley Parker Memorial Library	306.76/CER	31482002919846	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Hamilton-Wenham Public Library	306.76 CER	30470001836203	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Middleton - Flint Public Library	306.76 CERVINI	32126001745350	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... North Andover - Stevens Memorial Library	306.76 CERVINI	31478010147875	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Tewksbury Public Library	SOCIAL ISSUES / LGBTQ+ / CER	32132005181733	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Wilmington Memorial Library	306.76 CER	32136003535808	Searching... Unknown

FINALIST FOR THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY. INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER.

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Winner of the 2021 Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction. One of The Washington Post 's Top 50 Nonfiction Books of 2020.

From a young Harvard- and Cambridge-trained historian, and the Creator and Executive Producer of The Book of Queer (coming June 2022 to Discovery+), the secret history of the fight for gay rights that began a generation before Stonewall.

In 1957, Frank Kameny, a rising astronomer working for the U.S. Defense Department in Hawaii, received a summons to report immediately to Washington, D.C. The Pentagon had reason to believe he was a homosexual, and after a series of humiliating interviews, Kameny, like countless gay men and women before him, was promptly dismissed from his government job. Unlike many others, though, Kameny fought back.

Based on firsthand accounts, recently declassified FBI records, and forty thousand personal documents, Eric Cervini's The Deviant's War unfolds over the course of the 1960s, as the Mattachine Society of Washington, the group Kameny founded, became the first organization to protest the systematic persecution of gay federal employees. It traces the forgotten ties that bound gay rights to the Black Freedom Movement, the New Left, lesbian activism, and trans resistance. Above all, it is a story of America (and Washington) at a cultural and sexual crossroads; of shocking, byzantine public battles with Congress; of FBI informants; murder; betrayal; sex; love; and ultimately victory.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Historian Cervini's ambitious and exhaustive debut recounts the life of astronomer and gay rights activist Frank Kameny (1925--2011) and the campaign to end federal discrimination against homosexuals. Dismissed from the U.S. Army Map Service in 1957 for allegedly lying about his 1956 arrest for "lewd conduct" in a San Francisco restroom, Kameny was living on 20 cents per day ("enough for two or three frankfurters and a half a pot of mashed potatoes," he claimed) when an ACLU-affiliated lawyer agreed to represent him pro bono. Cervini tracks Kameny's case against the U.S. government through the court system (the Supreme Court denied his appeal in 1961), as he became more and more involved in gay rights activism--cofounding the Washington, D.C., branch of the Mattachine Society, making TV appearances to combat negative stereotypes against homosexuality, and advising other government employees in their own discrimination cases. Weaving the Kinsey report, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's "Sex Deviates" program tracking homosexual arrests and allegations, and the 1969 Stonewall riots into his portrait, Cervini provides essential context, but occasionally overstuffs the narrative with undigested material, including trial transcripts and interviews. Readers interested in the origins of the LGBTQ rights movement will be deeply informed by this meticulous account. (June)

Kirkus Review

An account of the decadeslong struggle for civil rights for gay people, a story that begins at the height of the Cold War. "After World War II," writes historian Cervini, "homosexual arrests…occurred at the rate of one every ten minutes….In sum, one million citizens found themselves persecuted by the American state for sexual deviation." One was Franklin Edward Kameny, a budding astronomer pressed into Army service in 1943, who, come peacetime, fell in love with another man. Arrested for "lewd conduct," he was dismissed from his civilian post with the Army Map Service in 1957. It took him years to find regular employment, time in which he advocated for gay civil rights, speaking before audiences as a member of the Mattachine Society. None other than J. Edgar Hoover took a personal role in suppressing Kameny, among many others; meanwhile, Kameny organized demonstrations against the State Department, which, according to Secretary Dean Rusk, did not "employ homosexuals knowingly, and…if we discover homosexuals in our department, we discharge them." It would take many years--in fact, into the presidency of Barack Obama--before some of the goals Kameny advocated for were reached. Cervini is wide-ranging in his coverage of such topics as the medical classification of homosexuality as deviance and the government's justification for not hiring gay workers for fear that they would be security risks. In the latter case, just before World War I, a gay Austro-Hungarian officer sold military secrets to the Russians, and when CIA Director Allen Dulles went to work at the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, he found "everyone still whispering about the homosexual spy who had lost the First World War for the empire." While insightful on such big-picture issues, the author also focuses on individuals who made their identities known in order to protest such misguided policies. A solid contribution to LGBTQ history--and that of civil rights generally. (23 b/w illustrations) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

It is widely believed that the struggle for gay rights began with the 1969 Stonewall Riots, but Cervini argues that it actually began more than a decade earlier when a government astronomer named Dr. Frank Kameny, revealed to be homosexual, was summarily fired by his government employer and stripped of his security clearance, which made him virtually unemployable. Kameny decided to fight back, something that was almost unheard of in its time. Indeed, he fought his case all the way to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear it. That was hardly the end of Kameny's struggles, however. In a short period of time he became an almost Zelig-like character in the campaign for gay rights, leading the fight in countless ways. Although not a lawyer, he began representing others, who like him, had been fired by the government. He founded MSW, the Washington, DC, chapter of the Mattachine Society and led it for many years He began lecturing widely and, in due course, became known, according to a Philadelphia newspaper, as "the unofficial high priest of Gay Power." His is a fascinating story, and Cervini does it more than ample justice in this insightful, meticulously detailed book. He has clearly done a remarkable job of research, creating an absolutely indispensable, highly readable work of history that belongs in every library.

Library Journal Review

In his debut work, historian Cervini uses the life of astronomer and activist Frank Kameny (1925--2011) as a lens to bring postwar, pre-Stonewall homosexual organizing into focus. He also makes the case for Kameny's pivotal role in formulating a strategy of resistance that would emerge as a core ethic and aesthetic of gay liberation: pride. Kameny was the son of Jewish parents who were recent immigrants, an army veteran, and a first-generation college graduate who was poised to work for the infant U.S. space program when he was fired in 1957 because of his homosexuality. In contesting the underlying logic of his dismissal--that as a homosexual he was vulnerable to blackmail and a threat to national security--Kameny helped create a new homosexual citizen, a figure who demanded an end to class-based discrimination. In arguing for Kameny's influence, Cervini introduces many people, places, events, and organizations that were key to building toward what would become an increasingly loud and proud struggle for gay rights. VERDICT A meticulously-researched deep dive into the life and times of a man whose personality and persistence left an indelible mark on midcentury gay activism, this title is a welcome addition to the history of sexuality bookshelf. [See Prepub Alert, 12/9/19.]--Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Massachusetts Historical Soc., Boston

Introduction: The Ritual	p. 3
1 The Astronomer	p. 7
2 The Letter	p. 18
3 The Panic	p. 30
4 The Union	p. 48
5 The Mattachine	p. 67
6 The Bureau	p. 80
7 The Crusader	p. 94
8 The Alliance	p. 114
9 The Congressman	p. 136
10 The March	p. 156
11 The Bouquet	p. 181
12 The Picket	p. 197
13 The Student	p. 215
14 The Illustrator	p. 231
15 The Floor Plan	p. 245
16 The Chaos	p. 262
17 The Riots	p. 281
18 The Liberation	p. 303
19 The Pride	p. 326
20 The Candidate	p. 352
Epilogue: The White House	p. 371
Sources and Acknowledgments	p. 385
Notes	p. 391
Index	p. 477

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