Living Behind the Facade: The Memoirs Of George E. Somers - A Gay Man's Journey Through the 20th Century (2019, rev. 2023) by Jaime Jackson [446 pp., perfect bound, B/W]
Living Behind the Façade is a revealing and captivating story about and by a gay man – George E. Somers – whose rich and talented life as an artist spanned most of the 20th Century. Born in the Philippines following the Spanish-American War to an American G.I. from Kansas and a beautiful Spanish girl living in Manila’s Spanish military garrison, George realized early in life that he was “different” from other boys his age – and that being “gay” was never “a choice” but an orientation he inherited from birth.
Long before the term “Gay Rights” was coined and minted in the American vernacular, and before the Gay Liberation Movement brought millions of gays and lesbians out of the closet into a still homophobic society, George’s life mirrored a shadowy era in which virtually all homosexuals were coerced into lives “behind the façade” – an ersatz heterosexual identity. Yet, in the shadows of the façade, George was part of the first gay rights organization in the United States — Society for Individual Rights.
