Men on Men 4

Ray Olson

This may be the last "Men on Men" anthology, for the series' evangelical editor, literary scholar George Stambolian (whose own "In My Father's Car" was a highlight of "Men on Men 3" ), died in December 1991. Perhaps that's okay, for literature by gay men has burgeoned since the initial "Men on Men" , meeting with sufficient critical and popular success to ensure it keen attention from more than gay-specialty publishers. It's not okay, however, when Stambolian's efforts here still bring us first-rate talents who've yet to publish books of their own--Luis Alfaro, for instance, whose "Pico-Union" is a gritty exposure of what it's like to be young and gay in L.A.'s Latino slums, and Norman Wong, whose "Cultural Revolution" is an acute evocation of the multiple cultural conflicts possible when a man and his gay son go to visit the father's home village in 1960s Red China. Editors as perspicacious and as unashamed (there may be more sex more graphically portrayed in this book than in any of its predecessors) as Stambolian are invaluable. As are anthologies like the "Men on Men" collections.