Naked in the Promised Land: A Memoir

Lillian Faderman's memoir, Naked in the Promised Land, tells the story of her life as a Jewish woman who left Latvia to seek a better life in America, where she became a pioneering gay and lesbian scholar. Born in poverty, she worked as a pin-up model and burlesque dancer to pay her way through college, where she became a brilliant student and a loving partner and mother.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 480 pages
Publication date: 06 February 2020
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

This modern classic of LGBT writing includes an introduction from Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties, and a new afterword from Lillian Faderman. Born in 1940, Lillian Faderman is the only child of an uneducated and unmarried Jewish woman who left Latvia to seek a better life in America. Lillian grew up in poverty, but fantasized about becoming an actress. When her dreams led to the dangerous, seductive world of the sex trade and sham marriages in Hollywood of the 1950s, she realized she was attracted to women, and that show business is as cruel as they say. Desperately seeking to make her life meaningful, she studied at Berkeley; paying her way by working as a pin-up model and burlesque dancer, hiding her lesbian affairs from the outside world. At last, she became a brilliant student and the woman who became a loving partner, a devoted mother, an acclaimed writer, and a groundbreaking pioneer of gay and lesbian scholarship. Told with wrenching immediacy and great power, Naked in the Promised Land is the story of an exceptional woman and her remarkable, unconventional life.

This modern classic of LGBT writing includes an introduction from Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties, and a new afterword from Lillian Faderman.

Born in 1940, Lillian Faderman is the only child of an uneducated and unmarried Jewish woman who left Latvia to seek a better life in America.

Lillian grew up in poverty, but fantasized about becoming an actress.

When her dreams led to the dangerous, seductive world of the sex trade and sham marriages in Hollywood of the 1950s, she realized she was attracted to women, and that show business is as cruel as they say.

Desperately seeking to make her life meaningful, she studied at Berkeley; paying her way by working as a pin-up model and burlesque dancer, hiding her lesbian affairs from the outside world.

At last, she became a brilliant student and the woman who became a loving partner, a devoted mother, an acclaimed writer, and a groundbreaking pioneer of gay and lesbian scholarship.

Told with wrenching immediacy and great power, Naked in the Promised Land is the story of an exceptional woman and her remarkable, unconventional life.

Weight: 340g
Dimension: 205 x 132 x 31 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781448217533