A Day and a Night at the Baths

The dates are important to mention in order to put the open sensuality in the novel inperspective., that is, pre-AIDS, when male-male sexuality was being liberated from itscenturies-long subterranean hiddenness into a visibility if only, in this instance, of thetwilit and claustrophobic “freedom” of a bath house. (M.R. from the intro)The baths will never be a footnote to our history but rather an integral part of it and what is interestingis that many men who would never set foot in a gay bar would visit the bathhouses. Communicationfor the most part was non verbal and sex ruled. This was our past and long before the internet and email,for many this is how and where we met. Amos LassenRumaker an original prose creator of great shamed heroic sensitivity has taken up his penagain to describe a hidden psychological & physical reality. As an old sex fiend from thebaths myself I’m grateful & relieved to see thru his eyes and feel thru his body. Allen GinsbergRumaker gives us something much more than a well-crafted elaboration on a special moment in time.He looks beyond the twelve hours his character spends at the baths. He imagines man’s lusty tribalpast reawakened into being by a messy mass orgy and offers some possible futures for eros in a culturethat seems determined to harness it for any purpose other than pleasure and rob it of its vitality. A Dayand a Night in the Baths is smart, curious, unsentimental, and yet quite endearing. This reprinted editionis a welcome reminder that even in the era of AIDS, where caution and precaution are advisable,being especially promiscuous can be liberating, instructive, beautiful, invigorating, thrilling, andneed not be tagged as addictive, compulsive behavior. Rob Stephenson, author of Passes Through