Books by Lawrence D. Mass
Jewish Wagnerism
The Jewish Wagnerism series forms a narrative of consciousness and experience in the author’s life as a gay Jewish man, as a physician, and as a writer. Via the trajectory of his own struggles with and specialist work in addiction, Mass explores interfaces of culture, social tolerance, health and spirituality.
Confessions of a Jewish Wagnerite
Being Gay and Jewish in America (Jewish Wagnerism Book 1)
Available on Amazon
In 1981, Lawrence Mass was a 35-year-old physician, writer, and gay activist living in New York City. On his living room wall, among other opera memorabilia, there were five pictures of Richard Wagner, one of them a drawing by Mass himself. While researching what would become the first feature article on the epidemic that later became known as AIDS, the author had the first confrontation of his adult life with overt anti-Semitism, an incident he was completely unprepared to deal with psychologically. As AIDS spread, and every sexually active gay man was forced to confront his own mortality, the need to understand the even greater depths of fear touched by the incident became urgent, and Mass began to face the reality that his life had been dominated by internalized anti-Semitism, even as he came to grips with his gay identity. A series of self-contained autobiographical essays, CONFESSIONS examines a vast panorama of events, issues, and personalities in the worlds of identity politics, AIDS, and the arts. As it probes the interconnectedness of gay, Jewish, and musical cultures in post-World War II America, against a backdrop of resurgent anti-Semitism, it reveals one human being's quest for personal and spiritual identity. From his adolescent infatuation with Wagner to his friendship with the great-grandson of the composer and his life-partnership with a fellow gay activist and Jewish-American writer, Confessions of a Jewish Wagnerite is the story of that voyage of discovery.
On the Future of Wagnerism
Art, Intoxication, Addiction, Codependence and Recovery (Jewish Wagnerism Book 2)
Available on Amazon
Kirkus Review
On The Future of Wagnerism: Art, Intoxication, Addiction, Codependence and Recovery is the sequel to Lawrence Mass’s memoir, Confessions of a Jewish Wagnerite: Being Gay and Jewish in America. Together, they form a narrative of consciousness and experience in the author’s life as a gay Jewish man, as a physician, and as a writer. Via the trajectory of his own struggles with and specialist work in addiction, Mass explores interfaces of culture, social tolerance, health and spirituality. How do such seemingly disparate phenomena as Wagnerism and AIDS, and such different figures as Richard Wagner and Larry Kramer, come to reflect on one another and the ways we live now? As we attempt to navigate an uncertain course in our voyage forward, On the Future of Wagnerism inspires us to glimpse broadening horizons.
Also by Lawrence D. Mass
