Love In A Dark Time: Gay Lives From Wilde To Almodóvar

Condition remarks:
Secondhand book: generally 'Very Good' to 'Excellent'. These are books which may have some slight wear and tear or sun fading on the edges. There may be an inscription at the front.

From the shimmering drawing rooms of Victorian London to the sun-drenched studios of contemporary cinema, Love in a Dark Time charts the lives and works of artists whose sexuality shaped — and was shaped by — a world that sought to silence them. Colm Tóibín presents a series of penetrating biographical essays on gay artists including Oscar Wilde, Roger Casement, Elizabeth Bishop, Thom Gunn, and Pedro Almodóvar, each portrait illuminating the tension between creative genius and social suppression with remarkable clarity and precision. Tóibín writes with the cool authority of a literary historian and the emotional intelligence of a novelist, uncovering the ways in which secrecy, shame, and desire have functioned as engines of artistic production across more than a century. The collection argues persuasively that the experience of living in a dark time — of concealing one's identity under threat of ruin or imprisonment — did not diminish these artists but instead forged work of singular intensity and enduring power. Each essay stands as both a masterful biographical study and a broader meditation on art, identity, and the cost of authenticity, leaving the reader to wonder what else history has forced into silence.