States of Liberation: Gay Men Between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany (University of Toronto Press) is the first book by Samuel Clowes Huneke ’11, an assistant professor of history at George Mason University. Drawing on U.S. and German archival sources as well as oral histories, Huneke tells the stories of politicians and bureaucrats, scientists and spies, to make the case that, on some queer issues, communist East Germany was actually more progressive than democratic West Germany. Huneke is now at work on two more books about the Nazi and postwar eras.
Wesley Straton ’11’s debut novel, The Bartender’s Cure (Flatiron Books), follows Sam, a troubled young woman who defers law school for a year to work at Joe’s Apothecary and then finds herself torn between different possible futures. Tapping into her own years of bartending experience, Straton has written about international bar culture for Roads & Kingdoms, GQ and Difford’s Guide. She has also received the Himan Brown Award in Creative Writing at Brooklyn College and served as an editor for The Brooklyn Review.
First Consonants (Jaded Ibis Press), by John Whittier Treat ’75, tells the fictional tale of Brian, a boy who struggles with a stutter, suffers abuse from those around him and fights back with his fists. In adulthood, his rage drives him to seek isolation in Alaska, but that’s not all he finds there. Treat’s previous publications include the novel The Rise and Fall of the Yellow House and the nonfiction book The Rise and Fall of Modern Japanese Literature, as well as a novella and numerous short stories and opinion pieces.
Illustration by Sophia Foster-Dimino