Bristol Bookstore Hosted Writer on Art

Storysmith Books, the independent and LGBTQIA+ friendly bookstore on North Street in Bristol's Bedminster district, will be hosting writer Ralf Webb who will be profiling his newly published work of non-fiction, "Strange Relations:  Masculinity, Sexuality and Art in Mid Century America".  Ralf appears on Thursday 31st July.  In October 1960, James Baldwin and John Cheever spoke on a panel together at San Francisco State College. The troubled state of American society was under discussion, which Baldwin incisively diagnosed as a ‘failure of the masculine sensibility’. Strange Relations explores this crisis in mid-century masculinity and the lives and works of four bisexual writers who fought to express and embody alternate possibilities.  Building on Walt Whitman’s philosophy of the love between men, Ralf Webb considers the ways in which Tennessee Williams and Carson McCullers, as well as Cheever and Baldwin, resisted in their art, as well as in their relationships, the damaging expectations of contemporary gender and sexuality. With a curious, intelligent and sensitive gaze, Ralf Webb sheds new light on each writer. Together, these artists offer a powerful and moving argument for a transformative new masculinity, grounded in fluidity, love and intimacy.  For further information, and to book tickets to the presentation, visit https://storysmithbooks.com/.