| International Standard Book Number |
9780593654194
|
| International Standard Book Number |
0593654196
|
| Dewey Decimal Classification Number |
940.53185/45
|
| Personal Name |
Whitmire, Ethelene, 1968- author.
|
| Title Statement |
The remarkable life of Reed Peggram : the man who stared down World War II in the name of love / Ethelene Whitmire.
|
| Imprint |
©2026.
|
| Imprint |
New York, NY : Viking, [2026]
|
| Physical Description |
308 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm.
|
| Bibliography, Etc. Note |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-289) and index.
|
| Formatted Contents Note |
Prologue -- "An unusually fine representative of his race" -- Harvard University -- Columbia University -- Harvard redux : "this regrettable incident" -- Bon voyage -- A distinguished scholar in Paris -- Arne -- "Life is very peaceful here in Denmark (so far)" -- The Central Hotel -- "Italy as a whole is very peaceful" -- "We are worn and weary and weak" -- An overly intimate relationship -- "Two men with strange story walk through battle lines" -- Medfield State Hospital -- Dorchester redux -- Endings -- Epilogue.
|
| Summary, Etc. |
On the eve of World War II, a handsome young scholar arrived in Paris. The queer, Black son of a house cleaner, who had nevertheless been decorated in the halls of Harvard and Columbia, Reed Peggram flirted with Leonard Bernstein, sat for portraits by famous artists, charmed minor royalty and became like a little brother to famed researcher and writer Jan Gay. Finally in Europe and on the same prestigious scholarship as literary luminaries Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes before him, he ignored the increasingly alarmed calls to return home to a repressive, segregated America and a constrained life as a second class citizen. And as tensions grew and gas masks were distributed in the City of Lights, Reed turned instead to the new life he'd made: with Arne, a tall and dashing Danish scholar with whom he had formed a deep bond. Award-winning historian Ethelene Whitmire unearthed a trove of Reed's letters when she met one of his descendants at a lecture, awed that she'd heard so little of this charismatic man and his fascinating true story of love and war. In The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram, she introduces us to an unforgettable character who fled from country to country as fighting advanced, was captured by Nazis and outwitted them in a daring escape, and risked it all in a personal fight for a life of love, freedom, beauty and dignity in a world set against him.
|
| Subject-Personal Name |
Peggram, Reed.
|
| Subject-Personal Name |
Peggram, Reed
|
| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
World War, 1939-1945 Concentration camps Italy Bagni di Lucca.
|
| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
World War, 1939-1945.
|
| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
African American gay men Biography.
|
| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
African American gay men.
|
| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
World War, 1939-1945 Prisoners and prisons, Italian Biography.
|
| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Gay people Nazi persecution Biography.
|
| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
African American scholars Biography.
|
| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Black gay men.
|
| Index Term-Genre/Form |
Biographies.
|
| Index Term-Genre/Form |
Gay biographies.
|