King of Shadows Adventure My 1980s and Other Essays

My 1980s and Other Essays opens with a series of manifestos--or

Body went to hide not just his true name but a second secret

they just had too much of the stuff

Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider

" --Holly Goldberg Sloan

King of Shadows Adventure My 1980s and Other EssaysBased on the author's life as a gay man and a poet, King of Shadows is a collection of twenty one autobiographical essays that circle in and around San Francisco since the 1960s. The three longest pieces deal with Aaron Shurin's coming into poetry and gay identity via a high school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, his deep relationships with poets Denise Levertov and Robert Duncan, and his personal history of venturing into San Francisco gay