Overview

WINNER! INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD - GOLD MEDAL LGBT NonfictionWINNER! INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARD - BRONZE MEDAL LGBT Nonfiction A lively memoir of West Hollywood author-activist-influencer Larry Townsend whose signature Leatherman's Handbook was a founding text for gay men worldwide in the 20th century. Celebrating Townsend's 90th birthday and the 50th anniversary of his Handbook, this homage to Townsend written by his close friend of 40 years is vivid as a screenplay. Like a biographical film comedy sauced with honest realism, it stars the best-selling author of nearly 80 books who, long before the glitter bomb of Stonewall, helped found the new world of gay publishing, politics, and popular culture. The propulsive text, based on the testimony of intimate friends, especially his "Leather Wife" Jeanne Barney, reveals the rise and fall of the private man in all his unvarnished glory struggling behind his public persona even...