Robert Reynolds

This is the first Australian book to question the decline of gay life. It studies the changing face and purpose of the Mardi Gras, which has always attracted thousands of gay visitors to Sydney. Employing a strong narrative, powerful and often moving and written for a general audience, it includes interviews and the real life stories of 10 gay men and includes the author's reflections on his own journey. This book spans a generation of gay life, from the early activist origins of Mardi Gras to the confident, perhaps even tired, gay Sydney of today. Charting the life stories of ten very different gay men, Robert Reynolds asks whether gay life has contemporary relevance, or if being gay has lost its air of transgression and simply become another lifestyle niche. The answer may surprise you.

From Camp to Queer traces the history of a group of Australians in the 1970s who posed some radical questions. Who are we as homosexuals? Who might we become? How are we to act politically? In short, how are we to live? In lively prose, Reynolds looks at how these men and women undertook what is now a universal task: the re-invention of the self in an era of uncertainty and change, where old answers no longer suffice, and sexuality is a core preoccupation.