Queer True Crime: A Reading List at CrimeReads

 
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“Queer people have always had a relationship to crime—often by force rather than choice. Our very existence has been outlawed, criminalized, medicalized. Our status as citizens put into question, or made a subject of legal debate. Which is why the contemporary popularity and evolution of the true crime genre opens up new possibilities to recount queer experiences and histories.

Either recovering long forgotten crimes, or creating inventive forms of storytelling, here are seven contemporary books that unsettle, illuminate, and define a queer aesthetic in true crime.”

Read more at CrimeReads

James Polchin Talks with Allen Warren and John Copenhaver at The House of Mystery True Crime

"A fast-paced, meticulously researched, thoroughly engaging (and often infuriating) look-see into the systematic criminalization of gay men and widespread condemnation of homosexuality post-World War I." ―Alexis Burling, San Francisco Chronicle Stories of murder have never been just about killers and victims. Instead, crime stories take the shape of their times and reflect cultural notions and prejudices.

James Polchin and Carley Moore in Conversation @ Bookforum

 
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CARLEY MOORE: We’ve talked about how, in some ways, Indecent Advances is a collection of grief that you have expertly and vividly stitched together.

JAMES POLCHIN: Yeah, when you said, “It’s really a book of grief,” it made me think about how these cases and these murders have been lost to history and how the book is about making them available. This idea of grief is fascinating because it’s about our own relationship to history. By recovering these cases, we are witnessing them through a contemporary lens that I think is really important, both for the victims, and for the family and friends of these people.

CM: Your book came out around the fiftieth anniversary of Stonewall. Stonewall was a riot and a radical act, but so much of Pride now seems to be about celebration and joy. It strikes me that you can’t always get to joy and celebration until you actually give people a space to mourn or grieve—or, actually, those things could be happening next to each other. But it’s hard sometimes, historically, to do both those things.

JP: For me, in writing this, there was a lot of grief, but also a lot of anger that kind of couples with it. I think you’re right, there is a simmering foundation upon which celebration happens, but I would hope that there’s always a sense of grief and anger underneath. Does this coupling play out in your book?

Read more at Bookforum online

James Polchin Talks with Bill Burton at the Provincetown Local

“Regarding the impact of the book, Polchin says, “It really resonates with folks to recover this history of damage and discrimination. It feels rich, particularly at this political historical moment, for us to think about our past and how queer people were criminalized. We are being made aware right now of how fragile our rights are and of all the work done to accomplish those rights. This history reveals to us what we have accomplished, but also the fragility of what we have achieved.”

Read more of this interview at Provincetown Local.