Strange Relations

In 1960, James Baldwin decisively diagnosed the troubled state of American society as a ‘failure of the masculine sensibility’. ‘Strange Relations’ explores this mid-century crisis through the lives and works of four bisexual writers: Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, John Cheever, and James Baldwin. In a mesmerising blend of biography and cultural criticism, Ralf Webb examines how these writers challenged the damaging restrictions of contemporary gender and sexuality, and how, through both their art and relationships, they sought a transformative new masculinity – one grounded in fluidity, love and intimacy.