Not only that, but Steward was a compulsive record-keeper - hence the title, Secret Historian. Not only did he save piles of personal stuff and engage in extensive journaling, he also kept a lifelong record of every time he had sex. But Justin Spring stumbled onto a historian’s wildest dream: an entire attic full of Steward’s papers, saved by his will’s executor. It’s actually really a remarkable book, because without it Steward might have been forever a historical footnote, an odd character occasionally mentioned in relation to the more famous figures above, or mentioned only by his pseudonyms. The biography is 414 pages plus endmatter, but it’s readily accessible for public audience and definitely not boring. Steward wasn’t just Andros, but was also close friends with Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, a major correspondent of Alfred Kinsey, and an important link in the apprenticeship chain of tattoo history (plus he was the semi-official tattooist for the Hell’s Angels)!Check it out if any of those things are relevant to your interests, but after finishing it I think the biography’s main value is its detailed portrait of a gay life through the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s all together. Fortunately a blogging acquaintance ( Jesse of Queer Modernisms) wrote an article about him and mentioned this biography. That’s my area of historical research, hence the relevance to me, but I hadn’t been aware of Steward because I only knew him by the name Phil Andros. He had a number of pseudonyms and alter egos, one of which was Phil Andros, a gay pulp author of the Sixties. Secret Historian is the biography of Samuel Steward, a gay writer, academic, and tattoo artist who lived most of the 20th century. I guess nonfiction books can seem more specialized, and even if I think a book is great or suitable for any interested parties, I don’t always feel qualified to comment on the content. This one, though - Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegadeby Justin Spring - is right up my alley, and I think y’all will be interested too. I like reading it, I often make a particular effort to include it in lists, and y’all seem to enjoy reading my term papers, but I haven’t done many reviews for some reason. I don’t review much nonfiction on this blog.
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