Items

• P.S. your cat is dead
  A darkly comic exploration of the burgeoning relationship between down-on-his-luck actor Jimmy Zoole and a gay cat burglar he finds looting his apartment. This is the third novel from author and playwright James Kirkwood (1924-1989). According to biographer Sean Egan, Kirkwood was inspired by a series of burglaries at his home on West 58th Street, New York. In their 1979-80 catalogue, Philadelphia bookstore Giovanni’s Room described ‘P.S. Your Cat is Dead’ as “our all-time bestselling gay men’s novel”. Kirkwood adapted it into a play in 1975 and in 2002, it was adapted again into a feature film, directed by Steve Guttenberg, which was rather less well-received. Kirkwood’s ‘There Must Be a Pony!’ was also seized in ‘Operation Tiger’.
• There must be a pony!
  Written in a style distinctly reminiscent of J.D. Salinger’s ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ (1951), this is the story of “sensitive” sixteen-year-old Josh, his film star mother Rita Cydney, and her relationship with the mysterious Ben. Its queer content is largely subtextual, but a 1963 write-up in the ‘Mattachine Review’ by Gene Damon (pseudonym of legendary lesbian bibliographer Barbara Grier) noted its “sensitive handling of a boy’s first comprehension of homosexuality, with the aid of an older, well-presented man”. ‘There Must Be a Pony!’ was adapted into a television drama in 1986, starring Elizabeth Taylor as Rita. James Kirkwood (1924-1989) stated in an interview that the book was based on his own relationship with his mother, actress and silent film star Lila Lee, about whom he said, “She should have had puppies or kittens, not a kid”. Kirkwood’s ‘'P.S. Your Cat is Dead’ was also seized in ‘Operation Tiger’.