Good As You
  • Published: 15 July 2018
  • ISBN: 9781785032936
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $42.99

Good As You

From Prejudice to Pride – 30 Years of Gay Britain

Formats & editions
EBook
27 Apr 2017
Paperback
15 Jul 2018
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From 'Smalltown Boy' to same-sex marriage, this is the first definitive pop-cultural history of gay Britain


‘One of the most important books about gay culture in recent times’ The Quietus
Long-listed for the Polari First Book Prize
In 1984 the pulsing electronics and soft vocals of Smalltown Boy would become an anthem uniting gay men. A month later, an aggressive virus, HIV, would be identified and a climate of panic and fear would spread across the nation, marginalising an already ostracised community. Yet, out of this terror would come tenderness and 30 years later, the long road to gay equality would climax with the passing of same sex marriage.

Paul Flynn charts this astonishing pop cultural and societal U-turn via the cultural milestones that effected change—from Manchester’s self-selection as Britain’s gay capital to the real-time romance of Elton John and David Furnish’s eventual marriage. Including candid interviews from major protagonists, such as Kylie, Russell T Davies, Will Young, Holly Johnson and Lord Chris Smith, as well as the relative unknowns crucial to the gay community, we see how an unlikely group of bedfellows fought for equality both front of stage and in the wings.

This is the story of Britain’s brothers, cousins and sons. Sometimes it is the story of their fathers and husbands. It is one of public outrage and personal loss, the (not always legal) highs and the desperate lows, and the final collective victory as gay men were final recognised, as Good As You.
  • Published: 15 July 2018
  • ISBN: 9781785032936
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $42.99
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About the author

Paul Flynn

Paul Flynn has worked as a journalist for over two decades. He began writing at City Life magazine in Manchester and is currently the Senior Contributing Editor at Love and a columnist for Attitude and Grazia. He has previously been a contributing editor and writer at i-D, Pop, Dazed, Fantastic Man, The Gentlewoman and GQ Style and has written for the Guardian and Observer, Sunday Express and the Sunday Times newspapers. He lives in London.

Praise for Good As You

An essential testament that needs to be read by anyone who came of age during the last three decades: gay, straight, parent, child, sister, brother, politician, policy maker, celebrity, commentator - all of us who are trying to make sense of where we came from and where we are now

John Tiffany

Whether it's the bittersweet recollections of a former London Lighthouse AIDS nurse, the unexpected moral fortitude of a former tabloid editor, or the Grindr confessions of a pop idol, Flynn finds the heroism in the everyday and the exceptional...an ambitious and inspiring work

Adam Mattera, former Attitude editor

Insightful and engaging look at the past 30 years of gay social history in Britain

Attitude

One of civilisation’s great pop-cultural writers…tells the story of some of the most amazing decades in British history

GQ Style

As fascinating as it is laugh out loud funny, and proves, quite brilliantly, that there's nowt so queer as folk

Antony Cotton

Lively, timely and lovingly researched: thoroughly gay, in both the old and the new senses of the word

Louis Wise, The Sunday Times

Wonderful book...sensitively written and well researched. I'm honoured to be included

David Furnish

Fascinating and entertaining...as incisive about gay culture as Caitlin Moran's books are about feminism

Boyd Hilton, Heat

Important and insightful

The Pool

One of the most important books about gay culture in recent times

Andy Thomas, The Quietus