"For over 100 years, the Santa Fe/Taos region of Northern New Mexico has nurtured a rich gay culture, yet most people have no idea what an enormous impact lesbians and gay men play, and have played, in shaping the art and cultural mecca of the American Southwest. Cooper’s unbridled memoir takes you behind adobe walls and plunges you into the queer world that was Santa Fe artistic life in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. It’s packed with LGBT history, camp humor, fascinating anecdotes, 80 photographs, and the author’s personal encounters with such cultural icons as Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Norman Rockwell, Buckminster Fuller, Tennessee Williams, Shirley MacLaine, and Elizabeth Taylor. But the heart of Cooper’s story spotlights the regional painters, potters, writers, poets, photographers, designers, tastemakers, and opera people he’s known and loved for 40 years. Cooper gives voice to a dynamic LGBTQ community that helps make “the City Different” truly different.

And who better to write an inside look at an untold story than a closeted copywriter who left a 10-year career in New York and Tokyo with advertising giant J. Walter Thompson, then bid adios to the ad biz, packed up his dreams, headed West, kicked open the closet door, and became a full-time painter and printmaker. Cooper’s artwork has been exhibited in major galleries and private and corporate collections. His work in graphic design includes book and record album covers, opera posters, wool rugs, greeting cards, and postage stamps. 

• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.71 x 9 inches