Shortlisted for the Polari Book Prize 2023
Best Books of 2022, New Yorker
Best Books of 2022, BBC Culture
New York Times "Editor's Pick"
An Advocate Best LGBTQ+ Book of 2022
A groundbreaking account of New York's Fire Island, chronicling its influence on art, literature, culture and queer liberation over the past century.
PRESS & REVIEWS: New York Times, New Yorker, NBC, Newsday, USA Today, Washington Post, New York Daily News, BBC Culture, TLS, The Observer, AnOther, Esquire, The Advocate, Buzzfeed, Culture Whisper, Jezebel, BookRiot, The Quietus, Autostraddle, Hero, Attitude
“A thoughtfully researched and rigorous examination of the literary pleasures of sex in public across two centuries. Jack Parlett explores the poetics and politics of cruising, a queerly ekphrastic practice, at the intersections of gender, race, and class. Moving between past and present, words and images, close reading and close looking, The Poetics of Cruising explores the enduring appeal of cruising without nostalgia.” Fiona Anderson, author of Cruising the Dead River: David Wojnarowicz and New York’s Ruined Waterfront
REVIEWS: The Gay and Lesbian Review, Arts Fuse