Widescreen Dreams: Growing Up Gay at the Movies (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies) Book

"In Widescreen Dreams, Horrigan allows us to witness,identify with and to join with his own youthful rollercoaster of ecstatic highs and tormented lows of being a fervent fan."-Felice Picano In 1973, a sweet-tempered, ferociously imaginative ten-year-old boy named Patrick Horrigan saw the TV premiere of the film version of Hello, Dolly! starring Barbra Streisand. His life would never be the same. Widescreen Dreams: Growing Up Gay at the Movies is a funny, poignant coming-out story of a generation Xer who came of age in the 1970s. In many ways it is also the story of every young gay man who grew up in suburban America, propelled by bigger dreams. Horrigan's dreams revolved around the movies, and this chronicle of his coming out focuses on five Hollywood films that were touchstones of his personal evolution. Ranging from The Sound of Music to Hello, Dolly!, The Wiz, The Poseidon Adventure, and Dog Day Afternoon, these films, for all their low comedy and high drama, reflect Horrigan's sense of isolation and sexuality, as well as his complex relationship with his large Irish Catholic family. Widescreen Dreams is an emotionally charged autobiography as well as a perceptive work of cultural criticism. Horrigan offers us a soulful, many-sided exploration of what it has meant to be young, gay, and alive within the mind-altering movie palace of American culture.Read More