Boomtown USA Book

Sinfield is one of the more balanced authors in queer theory. He doesn't make claims so vast as to be untenable, and doesn't make claims so defensible as to be unimportantly intuitive. It's true, one would expect this text to deal more with Oscar Wilde's trail; however, the text deals with the century the developed Wilde and was influenced by Wilde. Most importantly the text deconstructs the notion of the effeminate gay man, and shows clearly how the separate notions of same-sex passion and effeminacy were conflated through the trials of Oscar Wilde to form the modern gay identity. This alone solidifies this text in queer theory as an important study in the hermeneutics of an aspect of modern identity. It doesn't stop there though, the text offers a "Subcultural Strategies" section at the end that is a valuable look at queer politics and the ways Sinfield sees it as able to move forward and maintain previous gains. None of the suggestions are as proactive and groundbreaking as one could hope for, but they are valuable nonetheless.