Madder Love: Queer Men and the Precincts of Surrealism

Dreams, desire, darkened streets and the sudden miracles that appear there, the deep places of the mind. Two groups made these the heart of a radical project of liberation: queers and surrealism. Better than many others, queers understand the power of these dark areas. The rich, complicated culture we’ve created for ourselves is constantly ready to allow us to follow our dreams and fantasies, carried by the surging waves of sexuality into some pretty and magical places. It’s just as clear that the surrealists were chasing similar adventures as far back as the ‘Twenties and ‘Thirties. Given the similarity of their motivations, why have the two so often been in violent opposition to each other? Madder Love is an anthology of cutting-edge writing that wants to look at that a little closer. It opens up the surreal possibilities of queer literature while simultaneously displacing the historic homophobia of Surrealism. From dream states to erotic obsessions, from the muttering of the unconscious to parallel worlds (and the weirder cracks in this one) Madder Love tackles why surrealism can be so queer, and why being queer can be so surreal.