By George Whitmore. Introduction by Michael Bronski.
Whitmore's semi-autobiographical novel about a young boy and his uncle is a provocative yet essential narrative of queer repression in postwar America
First published in 1987 by Grove Press and long out of print, Nebraska is a classic underground novel by the gay writer and activist George Whitmore. Craig Mullen, a young boy in Nebraska, gets hit by a car on the way to buy groceries. After having his leg amputated, he is bedridden, lonely, bored and addicted to painkillers. His rare interactions with kids his own age, specifically with a neighbor boy who often spends the night, awaken his feelings to further explore. When Craig's uncle moves into the family home, a world of hope, pain, mystery and despair descends upon the Mullen family, giving the reader glimpses into how gay lives were secretly lived and horrifically extinguished in 1950s rural America. With an unforeseen ending that can only be described with the delicately complicated touch of Whitmore's enigmatic prose, Nebraska will stay in your mind long after finishing it. George Whitmore (1945–89) was an American playwright, novelist and poet. He was a member of a literary group known as the Violet Quill, whose seven authors are regarded as the strongest voices of the gay male experience in the post-Stonewall era.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The Paris Review
Paul McAdory
Whitmore’s twangy, understated style occasionally erupts into fevered lyricism.
Full Stop
Nate Lippens
[Whitmore] wrote a classic queer book that has fortunately been given a new life and retains all its powerful weirdness.
New York Magazine: Vulture
Isle McElroy
Whitmore’s depiction of rural, working-class life is strange but never surreal or exploitative. He brings attention and care to the Mullen family, creating a nuanced portrait that never withholds the humanity of his characters. Nebraska is a complicated, gripping, and honest depiction of rural gay life in mid-century America
The Baffler
Dale Peck
['Nebraska'] is one of the few literary works to extend the queer legacy of earlier writers into the post-Stonewall era, de-emphasizing neoliberal statements about rights and self-expression in favor of a broader, less teleological inquiry into the nature of identity and personality and the mutually warping mirrors of consciousness and culture.
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Like so many who died of AIDS-related complications in the 1980s, the powerful and economical work of writer and activist George Whitmore has largely been forgotten. Now, with The Song Cave’s prescient reissue of the Velvet Quill member’s 1987 underground masterpiece, some small aspect of justice has been restored. Set in rural 1950s America, the novel tracks a young boy from childhood accident through the loneliness of amputation, addiction, and then coming of age as a gay man. “Vacillating between Denis Johnson’s deadpan realism and Joe Brainard’s acerbic longing, Nebraska is a rare achievement in American letters,” acclaimed novelist Ocean Vuong writes, “wherein Queer rurality is not a site of deprivation or estrangement—but power, capacity, and collective reckoning. Nearly lost to history, the novel—and its author—is now mercifully salvaged, a book ahead of its time brought back to life.” continue to blog
FORMAT: Pbk, 5.5 x 7.5 in. / 153 pgs. LIST PRICE: U.S. $18.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $26.95 GBP £14.99 ISBN: 9798991298889 PUBLISHER: The Song Cave AVAILABLE: 9/30/2025 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by The Song Cave. By George Whitmore. Introduction by Michael Bronski.
Whitmore's semi-autobiographical novel about a young boy and his uncle is a provocative yet essential narrative of queer repression in postwar America
First published in 1987 by Grove Press and long out of print, Nebraska is a classic underground novel by the gay writer and activist George Whitmore. Craig Mullen, a young boy in Nebraska, gets hit by a car on the way to buy groceries. After having his leg amputated, he is bedridden, lonely, bored and addicted to painkillers. His rare interactions with kids his own age, specifically with a neighbor boy who often spends the night, awaken his feelings to further explore. When Craig's uncle moves into the family home, a world of hope, pain, mystery and despair descends upon the Mullen family, giving the reader glimpses into how gay lives were secretly lived and horrifically extinguished in 1950s rural America. With an unforeseen ending that can only be described with the delicately complicated touch of Whitmore's enigmatic prose, Nebraska will stay in your mind long after finishing it.
George Whitmore (1945–89) was an American playwright, novelist and poet. He was a member of a literary group known as the Violet Quill, whose seven authors are regarded as the strongest voices of the gay male experience in the post-Stonewall era.
