Charles Kaiser

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Charles Kaiser is an American author and journalist best known for his nonfiction books (1988), The Gay Metropolis (1997), and (2015). A former reporter for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek, he is currently a nonfiction book critic for The Guardian.

Biography[]

Kaiser was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Philip Mayer Kaiser, a United States diplomat, and Hannah Greeley Kaiser; he has two brothers.[1] He grew up in Washington, Albany, New York, Dakar, Senegal, London, England, Windsor, Connecticut, and New York City.[2] Kaiser graduated from Columbia University in 1972,[3] and subsequently worked as a reporter for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek.[citation needed] As a freelance journalist, he has contributed to The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Observer, New York magazine, and Vanity Fair. His first book, , was published in 1988.

Kaiser's second book, The Gay Metropolis (1997), is a social history that traces the cultural accomplishments and increased social acceptance of gay people in America between the years 1940 and 1996.[4] Kaiser later said that he wrote the book out of "an obligation to bear witness to what we had all lived through [during the AIDS epidemic]," explaining, "I wanted to write a book that would include AIDS, but not be overwhelmed by it".[5] In 2007, an updated edition of The Gay Metropolis was published, and Kaiser appeared on The Colbert Report to promote the book.[6] In 2019, The Guardian described The Gay Metropolis as "one of the key popular studies of American social history [and] among the first accounts that sought to provide an extended history of gay life (admittedly mostly male) before and after Stonewall."[7] Kaiser's book has also been cited for popularizing the theory that Judy Garland's funeral was one of the motivating factors behind the Stonewall riots.[8]

From 2007 to 2011, Kaiser wrote Full Court Press, a blog about the media that appeared on Radar Online, the Columbia Journalism Review, and the Sidney Hillman Foundation website.[9][10][11]

In 2012, Kaiser wrote the afterword for a new edition of Merle Miller's landmark 1971 work On Being Different: What it Means to Be a Homosexual.[12]

Kaiser's third book, The Cost of Courage, follows the story of the Boulloches, a family who participated in the French Resistance. To research the book, Kaiser lived in France for two and a half years, interviewing surviving members of the Boulloche family and studying newly declassified documents from British intelligence agencies.[13] The Cost of Courage was published in 2015 to enthusiastic reviews from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor.[14][15][16] In 2015, Kaiser said that his next project would be "a big book about New York since 1970."[13]

Kaiser has taught journalism at Columbia University and Princeton University; in 2018, he was named Acting Director of the LGBTQ Public Policy Center at Hunter College.[citation needed] He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with his partner, the artist Joe Stouter.[13][17]

Bibliography[]

  • (1988)
  • The Gay Metropolis (1997)
  • (2015)

Honors[]

  • 1997 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Studies (for The Gay Metropolis)[18]
  • 2015 Award for General Non-Fiction (for The Cost of Courage)[19]
  • 2015 Inducted into the LGBTQ Journalists Hall of Fame[20]

References[]

  1. ^ "Philip M. Kaiser, 93; longtime U.S. diplomat," Los Angeles Times 26 May 2007.
  2. ^ "Charles Kaiser: Author of The Gay Metropolis," Gay Today 3 Nov. 1997.
  3. ^ http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_events/symposia/history_vid_archive/mccaughey.pdf
  4. ^ Lopate, Phillip. "Rapid Transit: How 'America's most despised minority' gained acceptance in record time," The New York Times 9 Nov. 1997.
  5. ^ Kranzky, Kyle. "A Landmark Book on Gay History Has Been Updated and Re-Released for a New Generation," Los Angeles Magazine 23 Jul. 2019
  6. ^ "The Colbert Report - Series | Comedy Central Official Site | CC.com". Colbertnation.com. 2016-09-30. Retrieved 2021-02-07.
  7. ^ Turner, Mark. "The Gay Metropolis review: if we can survive Aids, we can survive Trump," The Guardian 18 Aug. 2019.
  8. ^ Waxman, Olivia B. "Some People Think Stonewall Was Triggered by Judy Garland’s Funeral. Here’s Why Many Experts Disagree," Time 23 Jun. 2019.
  9. ^ "Search Results". Archived from the original on 2008-10-11. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  10. ^ "Charles Kaiser Archive - Columbia Journalism Review". Cjr.org. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  11. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-07-17. Retrieved 2010-07-26.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  12. ^ Kaiser, Charles. "When The New York Times Came Out of the Closet," The New York Review of Books 25 Sept. 2012.
  13. ^ Jump up to: a b c Kalb, Deborah. "Q&A with Charles Kaiser," Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb 16 Jun. 2015.
  14. ^ Kirsch, Jonathan (2015-06-19). "Unraveling a long-suppressed mystery of French Nazi resistance". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  15. ^ Rosbottom, Ronald C. (2015-06-16). "Paris's Secret Garden". Wsj.com. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  16. ^ "'The Cost of Courage' profiles a heroic family of French Resistance fighters". CSMonitor.com. 2015-06-17. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  17. ^ "About Joe Stouter," joestouter.com.
  18. ^ "Lambda Literary". Lambda Literary. 1998-07-14. Retrieved 2016-11-23.
  19. ^ "Paris Book Festival".
  20. ^ "NLGJA Hall of Fame - NLGJA".

External links[]

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