Coming Unbuttoned

Coming Unbuttoned

In his memoir Coming Unbuttoned (1993), Broughton recounts his childhood, reflects on his work, and remarks on his love affairs with both men and women. Among his male lovers were gay activist Harry Hay and publisher Kermit Sheets.? In 1962, Broughton married Suzanna Hart. The couple was divorced in 1978. On Christmas Eve 1976, Broughton celebrated his relationship with artist Joel Singer in a marriage ceremony. Eschewing the labels homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual, the poet and filmmaker describes himself as a "pansexual androgyne."This witty and impudent confession is the work of a cultural pioneer whose adventures among the famous and the infamous extend from New York circles of the '30s to the avant-garde antics of San Francisco in the '60s and '70s. Born a gleeful poet in a solemn family, James Broughton survived military school, Stanford University, the merchant marine and journalism before his passion for cinema and his dedication to poetry crystallized in 1948 with his first book and the first of his many films. In the '50s he worked in London and Paris; and for many years he occupied a special place in the San Francisco Bay Area as a performer, playwright and professor. In "Coming Unbuttoned" Broughton shares intimate memories of Anais Nin, Alan Watts, Robert Duncan, Maya Deren, Jean Cocteau, W.H. Auden, Pauline Kael, Kenneth Rexroth, Robinson Jeffers, and the poets of the Beat Generation. From Publishers Weekly The first four chapters of this autobiography are unassuming and sensitive as Broughton ( The Androgyne Journal ) writes of his early life. Readers learn that the octogenarian poet and experimental filmmaker enjoyed dressing up in his mother's clothes, adored the father who died when Broughton was in kindergarten, was constantly at odds with his social-climbing mother and detested the stepfather who shipped him off to military school. It's easy to sympathize as he talks of school friendships, his college years at Stanford ("I had requested the Sorbonne or Oxford or Columbia. My mother only wanted me to learn how to get rich and meet the right people.") and his early adulthood (sailing on a passenger cargo ship, then settling in New York City). But the larger portion of this volume is devoted to the postwar years, which he spent in San Francisco and Europe. Having met many notable people, Broughton forsakes introspection for literary gossip and name-dropping: Kenneth Rexroth, Pauline Kael, Dylan Thomas, Anais Nin. The birth of a daughter is dispensed with in two sentences. Broughton's insistence on making himself the center of attention increasingly intrudes. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Not widely known to general audiences, Broughton is a poet and a pioneer in the world of avant-garde film. Now in his eighties, Broughton looks back on his life in this slim volume and finds surprisingly little of interest to say. Beyond some off-handed remarks on the making of his films, the reader is left with Broughton's portrait of an unhappy life at home that reads like an act of vengeance, some name-dropping of famous types he's come across, and an account of seemingly every sexual episode of his youth. Though sometimes gracefully written, the book offers little in the way of worthwhile content, and it's unlikely that many readers will share Broughton's self-absorption. Not recommended.- David C. Tucker, DeKalb Cty. P.L., Decatur, Ga.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews Merry confessions of a cheerful poet and filmmaker who's had his bouts with anxieties and ulcers but has come through all smiles. Broughton writes with disarming frankness about his 80 years as an artist and as a human being seeking wholeness. Much of his life was spent overcoming memories of a humorless, demanding mother who never grasped the nature of his free spirit. His parents- -shocked by his favorit