Why did Fonzie hang around with all those high school boys? Is the overwhelming boy-meets-girl content of popular teen movies, music, books, and TV just a cover for an undercurrent of same-sex desire? From the 1950s to the present, popular culture has involved teenage boys falling for, longing over, dreaming about, singing to, and fighting over, teenage girls. But Queering Teen Culture analyzes more than 200 movies and TV shows to uncover who Frankie Avalon’s character was really in love with in those beach movies and why Leif Garrett became a teen idol in the 1970s. In Top 40 songs, teen magazines, movies, TV soap operas and sitcoms, teenagers are defined by their pubescent discovery of the opposite sex, universally and without exception. Queering Teen Culture looks beyond the litany to find out when adults became so insistent about teenage sexual desireand whyand finds evidence of same-sex desire, romantic interactions, and identities that, according to the dominant ideology, do not and cannot exist. This provocative book examines the careers of male performers whose teenage roles made them famous (including Ricky Nelson, Pat Boone, Fabian, and James Darren) and discusses examples of lesbian desire (including I Love Lucy and Laverne and Shirley). Queering Teen Culture examines: Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, and Leave It to Beaver: Were Ricky, Bud, and Wally sufficiently straight? the juvenile delinquent films of the 1950s: Why weren’t the rebel-without-a-cause bad boys interested in girls? horror, sci-fi, and zombies from outer space: Body of a boy! Mind of a monster! Soul of an unearthly thing! teen idolspretty, androgynous, and feminine: No wonder they were rumored to be funny beach movies: She wants to plan their wedding but he wants to surf, sky-dive and go drag racing with the guys Biker-hippies boys of the late 1960s: I know your scenedon’t think I don’t! the 1950s nostalgia of the 1970s: Why does Fonzie spend all his time with high school boys? teen gore: What makes the psycho-killer angry? and much more, including Gidget, the Brat Pack, buddy dramas, nerds and operators, Saved by the Bell, The Real World, and the incredible shrinking teenager Queering Teen Culture is an essential read for academics working in cultural and gay studies, and for anyone else with an interest in popular culture.

From a Harvard historian, this riveting portrait of four trailblazing American journalists highlights the power of the press in the interwar period. In the fragile peace following the Great War, a surprising number of restless young Americans abandoned their homes and set out impulsively to see the changing world. In Fighting Words, Nancy F. Cott follows four who pursued global news -- from contested Palestine to revolutionary China, from Stalin's Moscow to Hitler's Berlin. As foreign correspondents, they became players in international politics and shaped Americans' awareness of critical interwar crises, the spreading menace of European fascism, and the likelihood of a new war -- while living romantic and sexual lives as modern and as hazardous as their journalism. An indelible portrayal of a tumultuous era with resonance for our own, Fighting Words is essential reading on the power of the press and the growth of an American sense of international responsibility.

After we had selected the heroes and the villains, decided what powers to give them over several cups of Heavenly coffee that tastes remarkably like Starbucks, we figured that we should power them all up at the exact same time, for maximum fairness. That date was Saturday, October 4th, at midnight. As it turned out, all we were really doing was turning Salt Lake City, Utah into a powder keg. The spark that blew everything to hell? Her name was Amanda.

Michael Norton has been seeing ghosts. Not the romantic or friendly variety, of course. These are the Ghostbusters kind, creating chaos whenever they appear. They keep him up at night and his ambitions down at his low-end retail job in lovely and scenic Vermont. Mostly, they keep his social calendar empty as he pines over wasted years and lost loves. Lots and lots of pining. Piles of pine, even. Enough to build a nice end table with. As Michael stumbles towards his 40th birthday, he creates a Facebook account. While everyone else uses it as a social hub, it serves as his daily reminder that he’s getting older, less photogenic, and more anti-social. Before he’s able to delete his account, he’s contacted on the site by an old roommate, a fellow “Matador” from college, and before he knows it he has an actual social engagement. As the drink count rises, what starts out as a night of catching-up quickly spirals out of control as decades-old secrets are revealed, militant vegans go on the attack, boxes are opened and then quickly closed, stoners philosophize about videogames, and Michael finds himself in the arms of a pierced college student. It’s a night that will either save him or expose the boiling sea of crazy that he’s always trying to suppress. Matadors is a humorous and heartbreaking novel about reconnecting with your past and trying to maintain some measure of dignity, even when you had none in the first place.

"Ever since I first heard that Lionel Richie and Diana Ross song, 'Endless Love,' all I've wanted is to find The One. Someone to love. Who will love me back." September, 1982. John Cougar's "Jack and Diane" is on endless radio rotation, and Dallas and Dynasty rule the ratings. Jack Paterno is a straight-A student living in the Detroit suburb of Hazel Park, with his own Atari 5200, a Beta VCR, and everything a seventh-grader could ask for. The only thing he has in common with foul-mouthed Brad Dayton, who lives on the gritty south side near 8 Mile, is that both are in Varsity Band. Or maybe that's not the only thing. Because Jack is discovering that while hanging around with girls in elementary school was perfectly acceptable, having lots of girl friends (as opposed to girlfriends) now is getting him and Brad labeled as Band Fags. And Jack is no fag. Is he? As Jack and Brad make their way through junior high and then through Hazel Park High School, their friendship grows deeper and more complicated. From stealing furtive glances at Playgirl to discussing which celebrities might be like that, from navigating school cliques to dealing with crushes on girls and guys alike, Jack is trying to figure out who and what he is. He wants to find real, endless love, but he also wants to be popular and "normal." But, as Brad points out, this is real life--not a John Hughes movie. And sooner or later, Jack will have to choose. Filled with biting wit and pitch-perfect observations, Band Fags is an exhilarating novel about lust and love, about the friendships that define and sometimes confine us, and about coming of age and coming to terms with the end of innocence and the beginning of something terrifying, thrilling, and completely unpredictable.

A bodybuilder is charged with superhuman energy and an ability to make lightbulbs explode. A grieving father tries to communicate with his dead son via a tape recorder. A high school girl claims to have her uncle's nipple in an envelope. A thirtysomething woman is fired from her dead-end job at Manpower and comes to understand her life through the experience of a German shepherd. Four ornery squirrels, tied together by their tails, struggle to maintain their sanity. Ten stories in all, the highly original PHONE CALLS FROM THE DEAD pulses with meaning. Alive and odd and needy, the characters in Wendy Brenner's stories grapple with the extraordinary and the ordinary, searching for answers from unlikely sources, striving to connect with each other and with something greater than themselves. Amidst a world of technological, natural, and possibly supernatural phenomena, they struggle with the most human of losses and longings. Named one of twenty-five fiction writers to watch by Writer's Digest (along with Allegra Goodman, Jhumpa Lahiri, and William Gay), Brenner has been paving a new path through American fiction ever since her first collection, Large Animals in Everyday Life. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, described that collection as "chock-full of pitch-perfect dialogue and dead-on descriptions . . . intoxicatingly original." In PHONE CALLS FROM THE DEAD, the stories do just that, and then go a step farther. Whether it moves you to uncontrollable laughter or to tears, you won't soon forget Wendy Brenner's work.

Braden Clark quits his job as an Ohio police officer and moves across the country to Los Angeles, where he takes a job for a Southern crime boss named Lucas Mullins. Lucas, who runs a lucrative call girl business and preforms armed robberies, plans to open a luxury beachfront saloon in Santa Monica. Braden helps Lucas with his quest. Braden also begins an affair with a mysterious Salvadoran named Luisa Alfaro who is the keeper of a great secret.

Everyone Has Something To Hide. . . The virile, all-American husband. The brainy golden girl. The happily-wed bi-coastal couple. Someone Is Watching. . . Someone who has uncovered their darkest secrets. Someone who is hell-bent on making them pay for their sins. . . No One Suspects The Truth. . . Now there is no escaping the shadowy jury that watches their every move. Infiltrates every part of their lives. Stalking. Judging. Condemning. Punishment will be swift. . .severe. . .final. . .death.". . .surprisingly engaging. . ." --Publishers Weekly "Fast-paced. . .powerful. . .full of surprises. . ." --Detroit Free Press