Volume 48, Number 19 · November 29, 2001
The Sad Tale of Newton Arvin
By Benjamin DeMott
The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin: A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal
by Barry Werth
Nan A. Talese/Doubleday,325 pp., $26.00
Trust popular culture and you would believe—despite continuing outbreaks of murderous gay-baiting savagery—that enlightenment about sexual identity has been advancing. Movies about gay best friends flourish. Prizes and big box-office success go to a film in which a hero-lawyer, fired for being homosexual and contracting AIDS, sues his firm. The president's men in The West Wing want a strong, explicit stand against a 'defense of marriage' bill just arrived from the Hill, not an evasive pocket veto. Ratings of sitcoms hint at the existence, in millions of fans of Will and Grace, Frazier, et al., of broad affection for homosexuals. And, beyond show biz, elected officials on both the right and left seem discreetly responsive. One of the vice-president's children is widely reported to be out; Dick Cheney indicated during last year's campaign that he wasn't hostile to civil partnership legislation in defense of same-sex unions.
Review, 3824 words
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