The Trouble With Harry Hay

American gay activist Harry Hay (1912-2002) was best known for his leadership in 1950 in co-founding the Mat­tachine Society, the first enduring homosexual organization in the United States, and for his subsequent role in 1978 as cofounder of the Radical Faerie movement.

The Trouble With Harry Hay by biographer Stuart Timmons (1957-2017) draws on Hay's own memories as well as documentary sources to portray the arc of his life from an inter­national boyhood to his longtime involvement in the Communist Party and his visionary contributions to the gay move­ment from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Offered here is a particularly significant association copy: the uncorrected proof owned by Richard Labonté (1949-2022), manager of A Different Light Books, the most important chain of LGBTQ+ independent bookstores in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, with shops in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. Labonté cofounded the first store in Los Angeles in 1979 and subse­quently man­aged the entire chain until it was sold to new owners in 2000.

Labonté also is a noted anthology editor and journalist whose work focused on LGBTQ+ liter­ature and publishing; in addition, he co-organized the first two OutWrite LGBTQ+ literary conferences and several A Different Light Readers and Writers Conferences in San Francisco in the 1990s.

Labonté is thanked in the acknowledgments section of The Trouble With Harry Hay for his ed­i­torial suggestions. This copy includes his penciled proofreaders marks and notes scattered through­out and is inscribed to Labonté by both the subject of the biography and the au­thor.

INSCRIPTION:

On publisher's information page (in place of half-title) in black ink: "Dearest Richard / From whom all the blessings of / A Different Light originally / flows [sic], have all my Fairie Brother / love, / Harry Hay"

On title page in black ink: "Richard — / You made it happen! / [x in a circle] Stuart Timmons"

CONDITION: Wraps somewhat worn; diagonal creases of approximately 3 cm to outside lower corner of front wrap; minor soiling to fore edge; spine slightly slanted; diagonal crease of 4 cm to outside upper corner of title page.