The Handsomest Man in the World

“. . . a love that had no place in those suburban homes and shiny cars and kitchen appliances.” In the shadow of the 1954 hydrogen bomb tests on the Bikini atoll, two sailors begin a tender, passionate affair. Fred is a tall, blond enlisted man; William is his superior officer, and the love affair that blazes between them will carry them halfway around the to San Francisco, Manhattan, Fire Island, and Washington, DC. The lovers learn, with fumbling hands and lips, how to satisfy one another, but the erotic heat of their sexual explorations is matched by the tension of their dangerous situation. Can their forbidden love withstand the relentless hostility of the Eisenhower years? On the second night of endless talk he got up from his bed and came to lie across the foot of mine. I was nervous. Cold from nervousness. Cold from fear that some man was finally going to love me. Cold from fear of saying good-bye to a world that was entirely romantic fantasy and boyish sexual experimentation. Fred pulled himself up beside me and took me in his arms. Very slowly our faces met. . . . Vividly evoking the mood of a vanished era, this tender love story shows a side of the 1950s that few readers have ever seen. You’ll never forget this witty, honest portrait of gay life in pre-Stonewall America.