The Life and Times of the Legendary Larry Townsend

About this book

A lively memoir of West Hollywood author-activist-influencer Larry Townsend whose signature Leatherman’s Handbook was a founding text for gay men worldwide in the 20th century. This homage to Townsend written by his close friend of 40 years is vivid as a screenplay. Like a biographical Hollywood comedy sauced with honest realism, it stars the best-selling author of nearly 80 books who, long before the glitter bomb of Stonewall, helped found the new world of gay publishing, politics, and popular culture. The propulsive text, based on the testimony of intimate friends, especially his “Leather Wife” Jeanne Barney, reveals the private man in all his unvarnished glory struggling behind his public persona, even as he fights for the rights of other independent authors, and against politically-correct censors condemning as pornography the consensual sadomasochism he championed as an empowering analgesic ritual for men trying to cope with PTSD caused by homophobia.