Alkarim Jivani has fashioned a lively introduction to our queer brothers and sisters across the Atlantic. -- Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco, CA
An interesting primary source for comprehensive gay and lesbian collections. -- Library Journal
It's Not Unusual is a lively, anecdotal account of lesbian and gay Britain told through the testimony of those who lived through it all. What it was like to attend West End premieres in the Twenties with a monocled, cross-dressed Radclyffe Hall. What signs and signals lesbians and gay men used to recognize each other in the Thirties. How London became a vast double bed during the blackout. Why camp humor defused tension among soldiers under fire during the Second World War. What it felt like to undergo treatment at the hands of psychiatrists armed with injections and emetics during the repressive Fifties. How, in the Sixties, the long battle for law reform was fought and won. How gay men and lesbians partied through the Seventies and rallied together in the Eighties, and what issues concern them in the Nineties.
The clothes they wore, the books they read, the music they enjoyed, the slang they used, the people they loved, the things that made them laugh, and the things that made them cry are all vividly recalled. The result is a poignant and powerfully told history that casts a new light on Britain in our century.
