Tales from the Levee - Tapa blanda

This title offers a highly entertaining and historically accurate look at Midwestern gay life in the 60s and 70s. When the Orpheum Theater in Springfield, Illinois, was demolished in 1965, it marked the end of one era and the beginning of another. On the street where it stood, lesbians and gays found a haven in a strong, caring community, built from the need to separate from a society unwilling to accept them. "Tales From The Levee" tells these peoples' stories, spanning the years 1965 through 1976, when the Fifth Street Levee emerged as a thriving Midwestern centre for the lesbian and gay culture of that time. "Tales From The Levee" centres on Casey, a masculine, part Apache lesbian born and raised in a small Midwestern town. Always knowing inside herself that she was not like others she knew, she escaped and moved to Springfield where she discovers an area known as the Levee. The street, infamously sprinkled with several gay bars, a massage parlour, a hamburger stand and apartments, becomes her new home. There, she befriends and lives and loves with lesbians, drag queens, prostitutes and gays also seeking a place they too can call home. The book recounts stories about the now-legendary characters that live there, such as: the tale of the Cajun dancer, and the firestorm she caused; how Casey discovered the Levee; the Halloween party that ended in murder; how Little Red and Queenie finally broke up; how Tinkerbelle got her black eye; and Babe's "specialty" at the massage parlor. Smoothly written with a constant eye on entertaining the reader, "Tales From The Levee" recounts these stories and many more that are sad, funny and at times disturbing.

Martha Miller is also the author of Skin to Skin, Nine Nights on the Windy Tree and Dispatch to Death.