Works by
David Leddick
(Writer)

Fiction

• The Millionaire of Love (2006)
  The Millionaire of Love tells a unique story of the depth and beauty of romantic obsession between old and young men.

• The Handsomest Man in the World (2004)
  In the shadow of the 1954 hydrogen bomb tests on the Bikini atoll, two sailors begin a tender, passionate affair. Fred is a tall, blond enlisted man; William is his superior officer, and the love affair that blazes between them will carry them halfway around the world: to San Francisco, Manhattan, Fire Island, and Washington, DC.
  
  The lovers learn, with fumbling hands and lips, how to satisfy one another, but the erotic heat of their sexual explorations is matched by the tension of their dangerous situation. Can their forbidden love withstand the relentless hostility of the Eisenhower years?
  
  On the second night of endless talk he got up from his bed and came to lie across the foot of mine. I was nervous. Cold from nervousness. Cold from fear that some man was finally going to love me. Cold from fear of saying good-bye to a world that was entirely romantic fantasy and boyish sexual experimentation.
  
  Fred pulled himself up beside me and took me in his arms. Very slowly our faces met. . . .
  
  Vividly evoking the mood of a vanished era, this tender love story shows a side of the 1950s that few readers have ever seen. You'll never forget this witty, honest portrait of gay life in pre-Stonewall America.

• Never Eat In (2000)

• The Sex Squad (1999)

• My Worst Date (1996)
  In Miami, where the sun always shines and the people are always fabulous, sixteen-year-old Hugo is ready for something more than school and hanging out. When he meets Glenn Elliot Paul, he thinks that, maybe, he had found something to look forward to. Hugo gets more than he bargained for, however, when he realizes that the man of his dreams is also dating his mother.
  
  My Worst Date is a humorous and insightful novel--an innovative take on the traditional coming-of-age novel.

Non-fiction

• The Nude Male (September 23, 2008 release)

• In the Spirit of Miami Beach (2006) with Ethan Winslow and Petra Mason, photographers

• Dick Sweet Men: Photographs of a Lifetime by Dick Sweet (2004)

• The Secret Lives of Married Men: Interviews With Gay Men Who Played It Straight (2003)
  Why would a man, aware of his attraction to other men, choose to marry a woman and live as a heterosexual? We can understand men from the pre-Stonewall generation deciding to live in accordance with mores of an earlier time, though in today's world, where many gay men live openly and honestly, this choice seems needless. But as author David Leddick points out, our understanding is clouded by our perception of gay men as being either in the closet or out of the closet. "Preconceived notions of why gay men marry must be thrown out the window when you read this book," Leddick reports after having interviewed forty men ranging in age from twenty-nine to eighty-eight. "Each story provides very different and individual insights into why gay men marry and whether they eventually extricate themselves from that arrangement or choose to remain married.
  
  While it is clear that fear, cultural isolation, religion, or family expectations can play a large part in a man's decision to repress his sexuality, many of the men Leddick interviewed express a strong and sincere desire to cultivate and maintain relationships with women-and the reasons underlying their choices are far more heartfelt than society has ever appreciated. The Secret Lives of Married Men is an invaluable addition to the growing body of literature that explores the vast and varied landscape of today's family.

• Male Nude Now (2001) -- Finalist 1998 Lambda Literary Award for Photography/visual Arts
  As images of men's bodies have proliferated in pop culture and advertising during the past decade, many artists and photographers have taken up the male nude as a primary subject. Recent work has sparked controversy as well as praise for its shocking frankness, and the line between art and pornography has become increasingly difficult to define. New digital technologies have brought about new ways of representing the body, and we are now faced with a multiplicity of eroticisms, previously unexplored channels of desire, and more inclusive and varied body ideals.
  
  Male Nudes Now offers an essential guide through this new territory with more than 240 fresh and provocative images. Featuring contemporary work, mostly unpublished, this important sourcebook showcases a dynamic mix of visionaries, from established masters to breakthrough newcomers.

• Big Fun With Billy (2001) with Dianora Niccolini (Photographer)
  Billy has everything: a buff body, a high-powered New York job, even a beach house in Provincetown. But something's missing from this boytoy's fabulous life--a boyfriend. Along comes Carlos, a hunky fireman who shares Billy's passion for pumping up. But can these sculpted studs find true love in such a plastic world? Won't you come out and play with Billy, Carlos, and their friend Tyson?

• Male Nudes (2001)
  The very best and most impressive images from the original klotz of this title are included here- you'll find the likes of Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, David Hockney, George Platt Lynes, Cecil Beaton, Nan Goldin, Wolfgang Tillmans, Pierre et Gilles, and even Chuck Close. For anyone who worships the male body or wants to know why others do...

• The Outrageous Animal Record Book (2001) WITH Joanne Mattern

• George Platt Lynes (2000)

• Intimate Companions A Triography of George Platt Lynes, Paul Cadmus, Lincoln Kirstein, and Their Circle (2000)
  From the late 1920's through the early 1950's, photographer George Platt Lynes, painter Paul Cadmus, and critic Lincoln Kirstein helped to create and define the aesthetic and institutions of the American art world. With an overlapping circle of friends, lovers, collaborators, and models, Cadmus, Platt Lynes, and Kirstein created a world of gay esthetics and desire in art that was groundbreaking at the time and remarkable even today. Through hours of conversation with surviving members of their circle as well as unprecedented access to papers, journals, and previously unreleased photographs, David Leddick has brought to vivid life the lives and loves, connections and interconnections, and the inspirations and influences of this now vanished art world. Meticulously researched, completely forthright, and lavishly illustrated, Intimate Companions is a celebration of the art, the lives, and the impact of this groundbreaking circle.

• Naked Men, Too: Liberating the Male Nude, 1950-2000 (2000)
  A remarkable sequel to the Lambda award-winning Naked Men: Pioneering Male Nudes 1900-1950, Naked Men, Too, exposes the breakthrough nude male photography and art that changed the perception of male beauty. Focusing on the work of influential photographers such as George Platt Lynes, Robert Mapplethorpe, Harriet Leibowitz, and Bruce Weber, author David Leddick chronicles the visual revolution that paralleled social and sexual liberation since the late 1950's. With brief biographies of the models, including early renegades like Yves St. Laurent, Joe Dallesandro, Rupert Everett and more-this provocative book features reproductions of the original photos alongside portraits of the models today. This dynamic history of male nudity in art and advertising is for all audiences, gay and straight.

• Scavullo Nudes (2000)
  Francesco Scavullo is one of the leading image-makers of the last half century-a photographer whose celebrity portraits and glamorous fashion work helped create the look of an entire era. Along the way, he has also shot many nudes-striking, sensuous images that are inimitably Scavullo. Now, for the first time, a group of these nudes are presented in one stunningly designed volume.
  
  Scavullo's subjects include both men and women and range from supermodels (Linda Evangelista, Stephanie Seymour, Jerry Hall) and movie stars (Rene Russo, Sylvia Miles) to dancers, musicians, denizens of the demimonde, and personal friends of the photographer. Affordably priced yet glamorous, this book will be irresistible for anyone attuned to fame, fashion, and the human form.

• The Homoerotic Art of Pavel Tchelitchev (1999)
  Pavel Tchelitchew' was one of the most accomplished figurative artist's of his generation. Considered a member of the Neo-Romantic school of painting, his works reflect a sophisticated attention to the mystical forces of nature, especially that of the human body. Although his work is largely out of fashion now, his works were widely acclaimed during the height of his career in the 1940's. His dreamscapes were an evocation of complex metaphysical perspectives and were powerful statements about sexuality oeurve that has been ignored for too long. These images, completed during a ten year span from 1929-1939, reflect the artist's passion for the male form and his vision of uninhibited sexuality. Tchelitchew's male nudes live in a dream world, a dream of fulfillment, a dream free of guilt, where the body exists for beauty and has its purpose. These are dreams that were an important part of the artist's development- visions that deserve to be seen.

• Male Nude (1998) -- Co-winner 1998 Lambda Literary Award for Photography/visual Arts

• Naked Men: Pioneering Male Nudes 1935-1955 (1997) -- Co-winner 1997 Lambda Literary Award for Photography/visual Arts
  This extraordinary book documents a fascinating moment in the history of American culture--a period in the 1930's, 40's, and 50's that gave birth to new notions of male beauty and desire, and to a new type of male icon. Long before Stonewall and the gay pride movement, there was a small group of daring men--both photographers and the models who sat for them--who helped pave the way for male sexual liberation. Led by the photographer George Platt Lynes, the painter Paul Cadmus, and the arts patron Lincoln Kirstein, this group shattered taboos surrounding the artistic presentation of the male figure. The young subjects of these photographs--who often posed after-hours in studios officially used for fashion shoots--were in essence the first true male models. In a perfect complement to the intimacy of these early nudes, photographs are included of these men today. The pictures and stories in Naked Men are as relevant and evocative today as they were a half a century ago.

Other

• Men in the Sun (1999), David Leddick, ed.
  This exciting collection gives a whole new meaning to "beach reading." Paired with some of the most exciting contemporary photographs of the male nude are reflections paying homage to the beauty, sensuality, and raw masculinity of men by celebrated writers including Quentin Crisp, Brad Gooch, Alan Helms, Mary Ellen Hannibal, Paul Roche, and David Leddick.
  Hot off the beaches of Miami, the book features fresh photography from some well-known artists as well as exciting newcomers, including Ali, Salvatore Baiano, Andy Devine, and Dianora Niccolini.
  
  Divided thematically into chapters like Men on the Beach, Men in the Surf, Men Cooling Off, and Men in the Shade, this celebration of men sans clothes al fresco is a treasure for those who like to look at some good, fresh flesh.