Strange Relations

Regular price €17.50
Quantity:
In stock with our UK publisher. 14-28 days
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
14 days return policy Shipping & Delivery
A01=Ralf Webb
American literature
American poetry
Andrea Wulf
At The Existentialist Cafe
Author_Ralf Webb
award-winning poet
biographical
bisexuality
Carson McCullers
Category=DNBL
Category=DNL
Category=JBSF2
Category=NHTB
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Forward Prize
Francesca Wade
gender identity
history
history of ideas
James Baldwin
John Cheever
LGBTQ+ History Pride 2026 gay queer bi literature
Marlon Brando
masculinity
Olivia Laing
queer history
Sarah Bakewell
sexuality
Square Haunting
Tennessee Williams
The Lonely City
Walt Whitman

Product details

  • ISBN 9781399713252
  • Weight: 246g
  • Dimensions: 128 x 196mm
  • Publication Date: 05 Jun 2025
  • Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
Secure checkout Fast Shipping Easy returns

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2025*

'Remarkable... entertaining... deft... moving... refreshing'
Daily Telegraph

'A richly rewarding account of a resonant cultural moment'
Guardian


'Textured literary portraits of the masculine mind and body'
Raymond Antrobus, author of The Perseverance


In 1960, James Baldwin decisively diagnosed the troubled state of American society as a 'failure of the masculine sensibility'.

Strange Relations explores this mid-century crisis through the lives and works of four bisexual writers: Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, John Cheever, and James Baldwin.

In a mesmerising blend of biography and cultural criticism, Ralf Webb examines how these writers challenged the damaging restrictions of contemporary gender and sexuality, and how, through both their art and relationships, they sought a transformative new masculinity - one grounded in fluidity, love and intimacy.

'Webb's writing is of a quality rarely seen, and his book returns you to the world slightly changed, equipped with another angle of vision on the quiddity of man'
Diarmuid Hester, author of Nothing Ever Just Disappears

'Impeccably well researched and hugely enjoyable'
Nicole Flattery, author of Nothing Special

'Wise, hopeful, and exquisitely written'
Will Tosh, author of Straight Acting

Ralf Webb is the author of Rotten Days in Late Summer, which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize. His poems, essays, and short fiction have appeared in Fantastic Man, Granta, the Guardian and the London Review of Books. He tutors in creative writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. Strange Relations is his first nonfiction book.

More from this author