Ethan Mordden

"What unites us, all of us, surely is brotherhood, a sense that our friendships are historic, designed to hold Stonewall together," muses on character in Ethan Mordden's Buddies. This need for friendship, for nonerotic affection, for buddies, shines forth as an American obsession from Moby-Dick through Of Mice and Men to The Sting. And, American gay life has built upon and cherished these relationships, even as it has dared-perhaps its most startling...

From the 1920s to the early 1960s, Manhattan was America's beacon of sophistication. From the theatres of Broadway to the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel to tables at the Stork Club, intelligence and wit were the twinned coins of the realm. Alexander Woolcott, Irving Berlin, Edna Ferber, Arturo Toscanini, Leonard Bernstein, Cole Porter, Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, the Lunts and Helen Hayes presided over the town. Their books, plays, performances,...

After a hiatus of eight years, Ethan Mordden returns to the fictional universe for which he is most beloved in this latest, possibly last, volume in his much lauded "Buddies" cycle. Following the exploits of his best-loved characters, Dennis Savage, J. (who was once Little Kiwi), Carlo, the slowly maturing 'elf-child' Cosgrove, and narrator Bud - as he lays bare the changed emotional landscape of the city within a city that is Gay Manhattan. Blending...

Some Men Are Lookers, Ethan Mordden's much lauded fourth volume in his "Buddies" cycle, follows the exploits of his best-loved characters-Dennis Savage, Little Kiwi, Carlo, the 'elf-child' Cosgrove, and narrator Bud. Mordden lays bare the emotional landscape of the city within a city that is Gay Manhattan. Blending the comic, the sexy, and the at once idealistic and realistic, these stories represent Ethan Mordden at his very best.

A gay ghost, a talking dog, and a street kid who thinks he's an elf-child join our narrator Bud, best friend Dennis Savage, eternally young Little Kiwi, devastating hunk Carlo, and the other characters from I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore and Buddies in this final volume in Mordden's trilogy on gay life in the big city. And there's trouble in paradise: Dennis Savage is suffering midlife crisis; his lover little Kiwi who uses sex as a weapon,...

From the late 1920s to late 1950s, the Broadway theatre was America's cultural epicenter. Television didn't exist and movies were novelties. Entertainment took the form of literature, music, and theatre. During this golden age of Broadway, actors and actresses became legends and starred in now classic plays. Laurence Olivier, Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontaine were names to remember, etching plays into memory as they brought the words of Tennessee Williams...

Hollywood in the years between 1929 and 1948 was a town of moviemaking empires. The great studios were estates of talent: sprawling, dense, diverse. It was the Golden Age of the Movies, and each studio made its distinctive contribution. But how did the studios, “growing up” in the same time and place, develop so differently? What combinations of talents and temperaments gave them their signature styles? These are the questions Ethan Mordden answers,...

When Florenz Ziegfeld started in theater, it was flea circus, operetta and sideshow all rolled into one. When he left it, the glamorous world of "show-biz" had been created. Though many know him as the man who "glorified the American girl," his first real star attraction was the bodybuilder Eugen Sandow, who flexed his muscles and thrilled the society matrons who came backstage to squeeze his biceps. His lesson learned with Sandow, Ziegfeld went on...

How Long Has This Been Going On? Brings together a rich and varied cast of characters to tell the tale of modern gay America in this remarkable epic novel. Beginning in 1949 and moving to the present day, Mordden puts a unique and innovating spin on modern history. An adventurous, adroit, and fascinating novel by one of the finest gay writers of our time.

In 1975, the Broadway musical Chicago brought together a host of memes and myths-the gleefully subversive character of American musical comedy, the reckless glamour of the big-city newspaper, the mad decade of the 1920s, the work of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon, and the Wild West gangsterville that was the city of Chicago itself. The tale of a young woman who murders her departing lover and then tricks the jury into letting her off, Chicago seemed too...