Korri reviewed Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade on + 5 more book reviews
Last night, as I was thinking about my own career trajectory (or lack thereof), I read this line--
'whatever his previous failures as a literary novelist and man of letters, he might yet establish himself as a brilliant writer of homosexual smut.'
--and giggled to myself as I thought, 'That's what I want to do when I grow up!'
Samuel Steward was a fascinating man. It boggles the mind that his life could have stayed an obscure footnote in the biographies of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tolkas or appear only in uncatalogued letters held by university archives were it not for Justin Spring. Samuel Steward was a non-conformist who taught college by day and hosted orgies and a makeshift tattoo parlor in his flat at night. He was friends with literary and artistic luminaries, kept diaries and photographs of his sexual encounters for Alfred Kinsey, and published literary fiction and homosexual erotica.
I'm intrigued by Steward as he's presented through his diaries and letters: self-aware, introspective, erudite, self-depreciating and self-aggrandizing by turns. The sense of loneliness, of Trägheit, that was a constant companion throughout his life was offset by the fact that he lived with a devil may care attitude--submitting a Ph.D. dissertation that tangentially speculated about Cardinal Newman's homosexuality, sending salacious stationary with pornographic stories through the mail in the midst of 1950s repression, teaching by day and tattooing by night, etc. Here is a brash, brave legacy well worth reading.
'whatever his previous failures as a literary novelist and man of letters, he might yet establish himself as a brilliant writer of homosexual smut.'
--and giggled to myself as I thought, 'That's what I want to do when I grow up!'
Samuel Steward was a fascinating man. It boggles the mind that his life could have stayed an obscure footnote in the biographies of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tolkas or appear only in uncatalogued letters held by university archives were it not for Justin Spring. Samuel Steward was a non-conformist who taught college by day and hosted orgies and a makeshift tattoo parlor in his flat at night. He was friends with literary and artistic luminaries, kept diaries and photographs of his sexual encounters for Alfred Kinsey, and published literary fiction and homosexual erotica.
I'm intrigued by Steward as he's presented through his diaries and letters: self-aware, introspective, erudite, self-depreciating and self-aggrandizing by turns. The sense of loneliness, of Trägheit, that was a constant companion throughout his life was offset by the fact that he lived with a devil may care attitude--submitting a Ph.D. dissertation that tangentially speculated about Cardinal Newman's homosexuality, sending salacious stationary with pornographic stories through the mail in the midst of 1950s repression, teaching by day and tattooing by night, etc. Here is a brash, brave legacy well worth reading.
