Fortune's Bastard by Gil Cole

I wasn’t really familiar with the two plays by Shakespeare, The Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice, and so I have never realized the similarities between the two Antonios, both of them willing to help their friends to a level that will put at risk their own lives. But these two Antonios, even if one of them is even the one giving the title to the play, The Merchant of Venice, for a reason or the other are not who most people remember, and maybe that is the reason why Gil Cole decided to give them the center role for once, and imagines they are the same person, moving from town to town and from lover to lover. The author says this is a romance, and well, like in all respectable romances there will be an happy ending only that I bet most of you will not be able to pinpoint which romance will succeed.

Antonio moves from adventures to adventures, changing faces, cities and destinies, but always remaining faithful to himself and his desires; Antonio and his story blends in a perfect way with the times and customs, and even if his story is fiction, that is not the same for the setting, that is well-developed and believable. This is an example of the best historical novel, in which the reader will have the chance to enjoy the fictional story of the characters while experimenting the real history of those times.

Antonio’s first love is Franceschino, but then he will meet Rodrigo and Bassanio, and each one of these men will mark a moment in Antonio’s life; even that is part of the love story, cause in the long life of a man not always the first love will be the forever one… unless this is a romance, and well, the author wanted to preserve at least one of the unwritten rules of romance. So yes, Antonio will have to wait, and going through a lot of perils, but there is an happily ever after waiting for him.

Paperback: 250 pages
Publisher: Chelsea Station Editions (March 7, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1937627012
ISBN-13: 978-1937627010
Amazon: Fortune's Bastard
Amazon Kindle: Fortune's Bastard

Updates: http://www.goodreads.com/user/updates_rss/2156728?key=011e4dd0a1ff993d8c2322e691d6229ed9bbf74b

Adam De Hegedus aka Rodney Garland (December 14, 1906 - 1958)

Adam De Hegedus (Born 14/12/1906 in Budapest, died 1958) was an Hungarian-British writer. His father was a civil servant in Hungary, first as a county official and then in the Treasury. He rose to a high position and retired with a title.

When Adam de Hegedus was 21 in 1927, a year before his university final examinations, he traveled to Britain, partly to learn English for the Hungarian diplomatic service, and partly to read up on international law for his doctoral thesis. He lived in a South Kensington boarding house and spent some of his time at the British Museum Library, but a great deal more time investigating London. He lived in London from June to December, and after those five months he decided to return to Hungary to complete the final examinations, but that he would abandon the diplomatic service and return to Britain to become a writer.

He then abandoned his diplomatic career and decided to go into journalism and he returned to Hungary. He contributed to The Observer, The London Mercury, and other weeklies.

Among his works are: The Golden Cock, 1934, a short story in Lovat Dickson's Magazine, volume 3, number 1, July, page 20. Hungarian Background, 1937, 302 pages. Don't Keep the Vanman Waiting: A Chapter of Autobiography, 1944, published in London by Nicholson & Watson, 246 pages. Mainly a memoir of army life during the Second World War, but also reflects on his earlier life. Patriotism or Peace?, 1947, published in New York by Charles Scribner's Sons, 266 pages. Rehearsal Under the Moon. The state of the world. Home and away, Notes on England after the Second World War, 1951, published in London by Hutchinson, 232 pages. The Heart in Exile, 1953, a novel, as Rodney Garland, published in London by W. H. Allen, 296 pages.

He stayed for a while in Paris and made friends with Andre Gidé. He settled permanently in London in 1939 and took a flat in South Kensington. The landlord, Philibert, and another tennant, Gustave, were interested in the plight of the national minorities in Europe, and Gustave produced political periodicals. Adam de Hegedus got a reduction in the rent in return for editing an English edition. During this time he made his living mostly by sending articles to his newspaper in Budapest.

Source: http://www.circa-club.com/gallery/gay_history_icons_adam_de_hegedus.php

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Amini Fonua (born December 14, 1989)

Amini Fonua (born 14 December 1989) is a Tongan swimmer. Fonua is openly gay. He came out on campus during his freshman year and publicly came out in 2013 in part to defend his school from the perception that it is a hostile environment for LGBT students. The Texas A&M graduate made his announcement in his campus newspaper, The Battalion, where he also defended the school against accusations of homophobia. Fonua says the announcement barely rated a mention on campus and admits he never expected such a big big response. “The article itself was a favour to a friend in my creative writing class and it turned out to be a cover story.... Had no intentions of it getting as big as it was and didn’t really see it as much of a coming out story because I’ve sort of been out to my closest friends and most of my immediate family for about five years now.”

Fonua was born and raised in Ponsonby, Auckland, New Zealand to Tongan lawyer Sione Fonua and British-born mother Julie. He holds dual Tongan and New Zealand citizenship. His family includes two other sisters.

Fonua's swimming career began at the Roskill Swimming Club based at Cameron Pool in Auckland, coached by Sandra Burrow from 1999-2007. He broke numerous Auckland and New Zealand Age Group Records under Burrow's tenure. He then moved to West Auckland Aquatics in 2007, and was coached by Donna Bouzaid. In the Fall of 2008, Fonua enrolled at Texas A&M on a swimming scholarship. He graduated with a Telecommunication and Multi-Media degree, with a Minor in Creative Writing in May 2013.

He was "the first Tongan swimmer to win a gold medal in international competition", when he took gold in the 50 metre breaststroke at the 2010 Oceania Swimming Championships.



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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amini_Fonua

Copi (November 20, 1939 – December 14, 1987)

Raúl Damonte Botana (November 20, 1939, Buenos Aires – December 14, 1987, Paris), better known by the nom de plume Copi (for "copito de nieve", Spanish for "little snowflake"), was an Argentine writer, cartoonist, and playwright who spent most of his career in Paris.

Damonte spent most of his youth in Montevideo. His maternal grandfather was the journalist Natalio Félix Botana and his father was the journalist Raúl Damonte Taborda, an antiperonist Radical politician and director of the journal Tribuna Popular. Raúl showed an early talent for drawing and, from his adolescence, contributed caricatures to his father's publication and to the satirical magazine Tía Vicenta.

His father's political activities forced the family into exile in Uruguay, Haiti, and later New York. He finally settled in Paris, where he embarked on a career as a cartoonist for such newspapers as Le Nouvel Observateur. His most notable character during this period was La Femme assise, The Sitting Woman.

He was a member of Tse, an association of Franco-Argentine artists with whom in 1969 he staged a biographical play about Eva Perón. His theatrical works, influenced by Samuel Beckett, are characterized by the failure of characters to communicate.

Copi also collaborated with the avant-garde group Pánico, which included Fernando Arrabal, Roland Topor, and Alejandro Jodorowsky.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copi

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Bob Paris, Rod Jackson & Brian LeFurgey

Bob Paris (born Robert Clark Paris on December 14, 1959) is an American-Canadian writer, actor, public speaker, civil rights activist and former professional bodybuilder. Paris was the 1983 NPC American National and IFBB World Bodybuilding Champion, Mr. Universe. In the July 1989 issue of Ironman, Paris came out in the media as a gay man. He was the world’s first male professional athlete, in any sport, to come out in the media while still an active competitor in his sport. Today, Paris lives with his spouse, Brian LeFurgey, on an island near Vancouver, British Columbia. Together since 1996, Bob and Brian were legally married after Canada equalized the marriage laws in 2003.

In 1989, Bob Paris, at the time a former Mr. Universe and Mr. America bodybuilder, married (in a Unitarian service) Rod Jackson, an amateur bodybuilder and Playgirl model. They even hyphenated their names. It was in 1989, when same-sex marriage was basically unheard of. Bob and Rod’s public announcement, their minor celebrity, and the fact that they were not stereotypically gay, all blended together to create a media frenzy. They even appeared on Oprah. They split in 1996 and after that, no one knows, neither Paris, what is of Rod Jackson.

Paris was born and grew up in Southern Indiana. He was both an artistic and athletic young man. He won National Scholastic awards for his drawings and paintings, was active in his school’s theater group and debate team and he wrote short stories in his spare time. From an early age, he was an avid outdoorsman who dedicated a large portion of his time to hiking and backpacking through the wooded hills of Indiana’s Hoosier National Forest and other nearby wilderness areas. He was also a dedicated bicyclist. He played high school football and was active in both track and field and golf. Paris often said that it was this blending of his artistic and athletic sides that initially lead him to pursue bodybuilding.

In 2006, Flex Magazine ranked Bob Paris the most aesthetic athlete in the history of bodybuilding. Renowned for both his aesthetics and artistic approach toward the sport, he was also a dedicated advocate for the rights of athletes and an outspoken voice in the push for drug testing at the professional level. He retired from bodybuilding in 1991.




@Herb Ritts. Bob Paris and Rod Jackson

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Paris

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More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Robert J. Kadel (December 14, 1927 - 1987)

Robert J. Kadel was born December 14, 1927. He attended the Lawrenceville Preparatory School in Lawrenceville, N.J. (1941-1945), obtained a bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1950) and a bachelor of law degree from New York University in 1957. He graduated first in his class at Officers Candidate School and served in the Air Force from 1950 to 1955. From 1958 to 1979, he practiced law with the firm of Pennie and Edmonds at 330 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. (Picture: Mennen's Skin Bracer Italian ad, 1959)

He recalled suffering vision problems as a child and compensating by excelling in physical fitness pursuits (weight-lifting and running). He later realized that he had a photographic memory which allowed him to cram on the night before tests or trials and leave much other time free for travel.

He modelled for the John Robert Powers agency during law school and was featured in Mennen's Skin Bracer advertisements internationally in 1957.

He traveled frequently to Italy, Puerto Rico and elsewhere.

He became a full partner in Pennie and Edmonds in 1966, and represented numerous large corporations, doing litigation and interference type legal work. He resigned from the firm in March, 1979 to take a "mid-life sabbatical".

Datebook entries in 1987 indicate he suffered frequent fever and many illnesses and a concern regarding HIV infection. Final entry is dated September 16, 1987. Date of death is not indicated. The donor indicated in an interview on June 20, 1996, that Mr. Kadel died of AIDS. He recalled Mr. Kadel as being an "amazing man" -- very good-looking, having an intuitive quality that allowed him to get close to others with great ease. He retired early and lived simply, taking enjoyment in small things, hence notes of satisfaction regarding things eaten, etc. He took great pleasure in his ability to calm people down. He further remembered Mr. Kodel as being very active sexually, sometimes having assignations by appointment at half-hour intervals, yet without alienating any of his partners over the years.

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Source: http://www.gaycenter.org/community/archive/collection/050

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Chris Bull

As a slick-fielding Little Leaguer in Marin County, California, CHRIS BULL dreamed of being a baseball player until he realized that he couldn’t get around on a good fastball. Trading his bat for a pen, he became a journalist, so he could instead cover the game—as well as many of his other interests. Washington correspondent for The Advocate, Bull is co-author of The Accidental Activist and Perfect Enemies. He is editor of the nonfiction anthologies Come Out Fighting, Witness to Revolution, While the World Sleeps, and co-editor of At Ground Zero. An Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellow, he lives in Washington, D.C., where he roots for his beloved San Francisco Giants from the other side of the country.

Further Readings:

Come Out Fighting: A Century of Essential Writing on Gay & Lesbian Liberation by Chris Bull
Series: Nation Books
Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Nation Books; First Edition edition (December 14, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1560253258
ISBN-13: 978-1560253259
Amazon: Come Out Fighting: A Century of Essential Writing on Gay & Lesbian Liberation

Gays and lesbians have spent much of the last 100 years as outcasts and pariahs in their own families, communities, and nation. In Come Out Fighting, Chris Bull -- Washington correspondent for The Advocate magazine -- has assembled a collection of the most important and influential writing, taken from both the gay and straight press, which forms the basis of the political movement which has reached its zenith only recently. Come Out Fighting contains essential writing on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues from U.S. independent and alternative progressive journals. From Walt Whitman and Sigmund Freud, to Michael Foucault and Elizabeth Birch, this volume is a collection of the best and brightest authors on gay life, politics and culture, from the earliest days of the liberation movement. The essays provocatively illuminate the remaining obstacles to full gay and lesbian equality, and point the way toward a future where there will truly be liberty and justice for all, regardless of sexual orientation.

More Spotlights at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Lists/Gay Novels