From the lost generation of Andy Warhol's New York to the cocaine-fueled runways of the top fashion houses of Paris and Milan, "Scary Kisses" captures the tenderness and cruelty of the beautiful people circa 1980, living behind the pages of "Vogue" and "GQ," As a portrait of this time and this place, "Scary Kisses" shares a place with "Bright Lights," "Big City," "Slaves of New York," and "The Bonfire of the Vanities" as a classic portrait of the seductive pull of Manhattan nightlife. The story centers on a menage á trois that drifts listlessly into a spiral of cynicism and nihilistic gratification. With raw, voyeuristic detail, Brad Gooch's precise, snapshot prose re-creates a time unlike any other, and characters that flash with a stark, bright realism.
The author of the acclaimed City Poet returns with a searing memoir of life in 1980s New York City—a colorful and atmospheric tale of wild bohemians, glamorous celebrity, and complicated passions—with cameo appearances by Madonna, Robert Mapplethorpe, William Burroughs, and a host of others legendary artists. Brad Gooch arrived in New York in the late 1970s, yearning for artistic and personal freedom. Smash Cut is his bold and intimate memoir of this exhilarating time and place. At its center is his love affair with film director Howard Brookner, pieced together from fragments of memory and fueled by a panoply of emotions, from blazing ecstasy to bleakest despair. As both men try to reconcile love and fidelity with the irresistible desire to enjoy the freedom of the age, they live together and apart. Gooch works briefly as a model in Milan, then returns to the city and discovers his vocation as an artist. Brookner falls ill with a mysterious virus that soon has a terrifying name: AIDS. And the story, and life in the city, is suddenly overshadowed by this new demon plague that will ravage a generation and transform the creative world. Gooch charts the progress of Brookner through his illness, and writes unforgettably about endings: of a great talent, a passionate love affair, and an incandescent era. Beautifully written, full of rich detail and poignant reflection, recalling a time and a place and group of friends with affection and clarity, Smash Cut is an extraordinary memoir and an exquisite account of an epoch. Illustrated with 30 black-and-white photographs.
The landscape of American literature was fundamentally changed when Flannery O'Connor stepped onto the scene with her first published book, Wise Blood, in 1952. Her fierce, sometimes comic novels and stories reflected the darkly funny, vibrant, and theologically sophisticated woman who wrote them. Brad Gooch brings to life O'Connor's significant friendships -- with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Walker Percy, and James Dickey among others -- and her deeply felt convictions, as expressed in her communications with Thomas Merton, Elizabeth Bishop, and Betty Hester. Hester was famously known as "A" in O'Connor's collected letters, The Habit of Being, and a large cache of correspondence to her from O'Connor was made available to scholars, including Brad Gooch, in 2006. O'Connor's capacity to live fully -- despite the chronic disease that eventually confined her to her mother's farm in Georgia -- is illuminated in this engaging and authoritative biography. Praise for Flannery: "Flannery O'Connor, one of the best American writers of short fiction, has found her ideal biographer in Brad Gooch. With elegance and fairness, Gooch deals with the sensitive areas of race and religion in O'Connor's life. He also takes us back to those heady days after the war when O'Connor studied creative writing at Iowa. There is much that is new in this book, but, more important, everything is presented in a strong, clear light."-Edmund White "This splendid biography gives us no saint or martyr but the story of a gifted and complicated woman, bent on making the best of the difficult hand fate has dealt her, whether it is with grit and humor or with an abiding desire to make palpable to readers the terrible mystery of God's grace."-Frances Kiernan, author of Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy "A good biographer is hard to find. Brad Gooch is not merely good-he is extraordinary. Blessed with the eye and ear of a novelist, he has composed the life that admirers of the fierce and hilarious Georgia genius have long been hoping for."-Joel Conarroe, President Emeritus, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Smash Cut, Flannery, and City Poet delivers the first popular biography of Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet revered by contemporary Western readers. Ecstatic love poems of Rumi, a Persian poet and Sufi mystic born over eight centuries ago, are beloved by millions of readers in America as well as around the world. He has been compared to Shakespeare for his outpouring of creativity and to Saint Francis of Assisi for his spiritual wisdom. Yet his life has long remained the stuff of legend rather than intimate knowledge. In this breakthrough biography, Brad Gooch brilliantly brings to life the man and puts a face to the name Rumi, vividly coloring in his time and place—a world as rife with conflict as our own. The map of Rumi’s life stretched over 2,500 miles. Gooch traces this epic journey from Central Asia, where Rumi was born in 1207, traveling with his family, displaced by Mongol terror, to settle in Konya, Turkey. Pivotal was the disruptive appearance of Shams of Tabriz, who taught him to whirl and transformed him from a respectable Muslim preacher into a poet and mystic. Their vital connection as teacher and pupil, friend and beloved, is one of the world’s greatest spiritual love stories. When Shams disappeared, Rumi coped with the pain of separation by composing joyous poems of reunion, both human and divine. Ambitious, bold, and beautifully written, Rumi’s Secret reveals the unfolding of Rumi’s devotion to a "religion of love," remarkable in his own time and made even more relevant for the twenty-first century by this compelling account.
The definitive biography of Frank O’Hara, one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, the magnetic literary figure at the center of New York’s cultural life during the 1950s and 1960s. City Poet captures the excitement and promise of mid-twentieth-century New York in the years when it became the epicenter of the art world, and illuminates the poet and artist at its heart. Brad Gooch traces Frank O’Hara’s life from his parochial Catholic childhood to World War II, through his years at Harvard and New York. He brilliantly portrays O’Hara in in his element, surrounded by a circle of writers and artists who would transform America’s cultural landscape: Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Helen Frankenthaler, Jackson Pollock, Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones, and John Ashbery. Gooch brings into focus the artistry and influence of a life “of guts and wit and style and passion” (Luc Sante) that was tragically abbreviated in 1966 when O’Hara, just forty and at the height of his creativity, was hit and killed by a jeep on the beach at Fire Island—a death that marked the end of an exceptional career and a remarkable era. City Poet is illustrated with 55 black and white photographs.
“It’s all here: the grade school Walt Disney and Dr. Seuss; the adolescent acid trips; the fondness for Post-it notes and flying saucers; the long tails of Dubuffet and Burroughs; the encounters with Madonna, Warhol, and one game-changer of a subway Johnny Walker Red poster. Brad Gooch takes us deep into Keith Haring’s imagination while somehow managing to fix the aura and energy of the 1980s New York art scene to the page. A keen-eyed, beautifully written biography, atmospheric, exuberant, and as radiant as they come.”—Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Revolutionary: Sam Adams A stunning life of the iconic American artist, Keith Haring, by the acclaimed biographer Brad Gooch. In the 1980s, the subways of New York City were covered with art. In the stations, black matte sheets were pasted over outdated ads, and unsigned chalk drawings often popped up on these blank spaces. These temporary chalk drawings numbered in the thousands and became synonymous with a city as diverse as it was at war with itself, beset with poverty and crime but alive with art and creative energy. And every single one of these drawings was done by Keith Haring. Keith Haring was one of the most emblematic artists of the 1980s, a figure described by his contemporaries as “a prophet in his life, his person, and his work.” Part of an iconic cultural crowd that included Andy Warhol, Madonna, and Basquiat, Haring broke down the barriers between high art and popular culture, creating work that was accessible for all and using it as a means to provoke and inspire radical social change. Haring died of AIDS in 1990. To this day, his influence on our culture remains incontrovertible, and his glamorous, tragically short life has a unique aura of mystery and power. Brad Gooch, noted biographer of Flannery O’Connor and Frank O’Hara, was granted access to Haring’s extensive archive. He has written a biography that will become the authoritative work on the artist. Based on interviews with those who knew Haring best and drawing from the rich archival history, Brad Gooch sets out to capture the magic of Keith Haring: a visionary and timeless icon.
In the tradition of the perennial bestseller I'm OK, You're OK, noted author Brad Gooch offers single and coupled gay men a provocative, sophisticated, and inspirational guide that addresses the big issues of love, romance, and being alone. Part memoir, part self-help, Finding the Boyfriend Within is a remarkably practical and helpful guide in the quest for self-discovery for the thousands of gay men who despair of ever being in a committed relationship. Filled with anecdotes, romantic advice, problem-solving suggestions, and humor -- as well as wisdom from both the East and West -- Finding the Boyfriend Within offers simple self-awareness exercises to help discover the respect, happiness, and love that come first, and most enduringly, from within.
Primera gran biografía de la escritora norteamericana Flannery O’Connor –un verdadero clásico por sus relatos y novelas, en particular Sangre sabia–, que descubre las claves de su universo literario: su origen católico y sureño, su vitriólica ironía, su enfermedad, y, sobre todo, su hondo compromiso con el trabajo de creación.
This illustrated biography follows the life of the rock superstar from the phenomenal success of his first solo album to his current status as a sexy teen idol
Murder hornets were all the rage. Until COVID-19 took the stage. 2020 should have been your glow up year. Terrorizing people with your unique brand of fear. Stories of your sprees of murder. Replaced with exhausted health care workers. Everyone stayed home this year. Preventing you from spreading fear. Out shined by another Asian invasion. Covid-19 became the big occasion. In the beginning, fear was evoked. Now you have become a joke.
The landscape of American literature was fundamentally changed when Flannery O'Connor stepped onto the scene with her first published book, Wise Blood, in 1952. Her fierce, sometimes comic novels and stories reflected the darkly funny, vibrant, and theologically sophisticated woman who wrote them. Brad Gooch brings to life O'Connor's significant friendships -- with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Walker Percy, and James Dickey among others -- and her deeply felt convictions, as expressed in her communications with Thomas Merton, Elizabeth Bishop, and Betty Hester. Hester was famously known as "A" in O'Connor's collected letters, The Habit of Being, and a large cache of correspondence to her from O'Connor was made available to scholars, including Brad Gooch, in 2006. O'Connor's capacity to live fully -- despite the chronic disease that eventually confined her to her mother's farm in Georgia -- is illuminated in this engaging and authoritative biography. Praise for Flannery: "Flannery O'Connor, one of the best American writers of short fiction, has found her ideal biographer in Brad Gooch. With elegance and fairness, Gooch deals with the sensitive areas of race and religion in O'Connor's life. He also takes us back to those heady days after the war when O'Connor studied creative writing at Iowa. There is much that is new in this book, but, more important, everything is presented in a strong, clear light."-Edmund White "This splendid biography gives us no saint or martyr but the story of a gifted and complicated woman, bent on making the best of the difficult hand fate has dealt her, whether it is with grit and humor or with an abiding desire to make palpable to readers the terrible mystery of God's grace."-Frances Kiernan, author of Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy "A good biographer is hard to find. Brad Gooch is not merely good-he is extraordinary. Blessed with the eye and ear of a novelist, he has composed the life that admirers of the fierce and hilarious Georgia genius have long been hoping for."-Joel Conarroe, President Emeritus, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
This guide helps lighting designers with the creative and operational challenges they face in their rapidly evolving industry. Providing respected and clear coverage of the process of programming automated lighting fixtures, the author brings the designer from basic principles to preproduction preparations. Concepts, procedures, and guidelines to ensure a successful production are covered as well as troubleshooting, much needed information on work relationships, and technology including LED lighting, console networking, digital lighting, and more. Chapters are peppered with advice and war stories from some of the most prominent lighting designers of today.
With energy and commitment born of professional experience and a deep love for graphic novels, Goldsmith provides the first guide to the genre aimed specifically at readers advisors, while presenting an abundance of resources useful to every librarian.
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