Clayton Delery

Clayton Delery is a Louisiana native who was raised in the New Orleans area. He has a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

For 26 years, he was a member of the faculty at the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts, one of the nation's premier high schools for academically gifted students.

Though he was an English teacher, in the later years of his career he found his interests shifting to LGBT+ history. His book, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson (McFarland, 2014) is a nonfiction account of the deadliest fire New Orleans has ever seen. Until the Orlando Pulse shooting in 2016, this fire was also the largest mass-killing of LGBT people in the nation's history.

His new book: Out for Queer Blood: The Murder of Fernando Rios and the Failure of New Orleans Justice (Exposit, 2017), tells the story of a killing that occurred in New Orleans in 1958 when three young men decided to entertain themselves by beating up a gay man.

Clayton Delery retired from teaching in 2015. He currently lives and writes in New Orleans.

Book Reviews by Clayton Delery

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A Pros and Cons List for Strong Emotions is a memoir full of love, humor, and pain.

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Gay, Catholic and American is a book about both past and ongoing struggles for LGBTQ+ equality, and reminds readers that these battles are important, even, and perhaps especially,

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“In editing and republishing Ethel’s Love-Life, Christopher Looby has demonstrated how profoundly ahead of her time Margaret Sweat could be.

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“Meticulously researched, and deftly written, The Engagement has all the thrill of a suspense novel and manages to discuss many fine points of legal procedure without ever becoming

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“powerful raw material . . . stunningly beautiful prose. [But] it’s a shame that Thomson’s gifts and these women’s lives were not put to better use.”

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“a fascinating book about Whitman, his poetry, and the ways queer life has evolved in America over the last three centuries . . .”

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I Don’t Want to Die Poor is an excellent critique of the way that our society encourages people to try for more, and then punishes them for doing so.”

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Gay Like Me is not just an expression of love, but it is a collection of parental advice many LGBTQ+ youth will never otherwise have.”

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Beautiful on the Outside is a fascinating study in motivation, concentration, and discipline, and one that has lessons for anyone in pursuit of excellence.

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“O’Callaghan has written a gripping and complex examination of the ways in which bigotry and self-hatred walk hand in hand, and the ways in which the snares we set for ourselves are often m

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“‘We are not the first generation of queer people to have found ourselves trapped in a straight marriage,’ he writes, ‘but please God, let us be the last.’ Books like his will help that pra

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Rainbow Warrior is an engaging read. It is funny, poignant, painful, and triumphant. It is never less than entertaining.”

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“Outrages is a fascinating history book with a cast of characters and an epic sweep that make it read like a novel Charles Dickens could have written, if he had ev

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“Headcase is important reading for any LGBTQ persons with mental health and wellness concerns, and is equally important for the therapists who treat such populatio

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“Real Queer America is a fun read in which Allen’s copious research informs, but never overwhelms, the many stories of disparate, fascinating LGBT lives.”

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“One-Dimensional Queer raises provocative and important questions about the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality, and about the extent to which capital

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“All That Heaven Allows is a rich and complex story of Hollywood’s biggest star in its most golden age.”

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“a social history, scrutinizing the complex social, racial, and sexual history of a city already known for its social, racial, and sexual anomalies . . .”

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“The Boys of Fairy Town is an informative, entertaining, and often eye-opening book that examines the complexity of male queer culture in one of the nation’s most

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“Duberman’s book is deliberately uncomfortable. It raises difficult questions, and does not provide easy answers.”