Fire Island

Fire Island: a slim strip of land off the coast of New York, and a place of hedonism, reinvention, liberation.Arriving on the island after a break-up back home in England, scholar and poet Jack Parlett was beguiled by what he found. Here were the halcyon scenes of Frank O'Hara's poetry; the bars where Patricia Highsmith got drunk; the infamous cruising sites; and the dazzling beaches where couples had fallen in and out of love, free for a sun-kissed moment to be themselves in the time before gay liberation.Tracing Fire Island's rich history, Parlett leads the reader through the early days of the island's life as a discreet home for same-sex love, to the wild parties of the post-Stonewall disco era, to the residents' confrontation with the AIDS epidemic, and into a present where a host of new challenges threaten the island's future.Lyrical and vivid, Fire Island is a hymn to an iconic destination, and to the men and women whose ardour and determination spread freedom across its shores.

Fire Island features in the following genres: Biographies & Autobiographies, Social and cultural history, History of the Americas, Memoirs, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, History: specific events and topics, History, History and Archaeology

Paperback, Hardback, Ebook. £10.99. Digital. Available Immediately. Country restrictions apply..

Fire Island was written by Jack Parlett and published by Granta Publications

£10.99. Digital. Available Immediately. Country restrictions apply..