There's Only One Sin in Hollywood — Rasheed Newson

Early Praise for THERE???S ONLY ONE SIN IN HOLLYWOODDeliciously witty and packing enough erotic heat to make sensitive souls clutch their pearls, Rasheed Newson???s superb second novel brings us Xavier, a rising superstar determined to liberate queer Hollywood from a culture that demands silence and acquiescence. In studio boardrooms and backlots twinkling with VIPs named Poitier and Belafonte, unknowns try to become legends and heroes struggle to be heroic. Newson writes in technicolor???wow, are these pages alive!???and knows where the bodies are buried. Love, fame, war, religion, political freedom, big dreams and big money???There???s Only One Sin in Hollywood is a quintessential Hollywood novel and an LA classic for our times. ???Laura Warrell, author of Sweet, Soft, Plenty, Rhythm???In Rasheed Newson's There???s Only One Sin in Hollywood, inhumane history snares all lovelorn seekers, transforming fixers and actors into potent dreamers who frequent and abandon their fates with disastrous and extraordinary resolve. Propelled by a haunted jaunty narration that makes a lively case for the necessity of memory, There???s Only One Sin in Hollywood illustrates and innervates the queer midcentury. This novel is an erotically-charged, violent masterpiece of love.??????Kyle Dillon Hertz, author of The Lookback WindowLiving up to its provocative title, Rasheed Newson's There's Only One Sin in Hollywood offers a deft and deliciously decadent excavation of Black queer history. Sexy, sly, and with a piquant sense of humor, Newson's prose handily shuttles you between glittering post-war Hollywood backlots and dimly-lit lurid cruising spots in Griffith Park???all while making a period piece about a fixer stuck between two worlds feel impossibly urgent and fresh.???Manuel Betancourt, author of Hello Stranger???Newson???s sophomore novel is a cinematic voyage into the decadence and inherent tragedy of old Hollywood. As characters jockey to Trojan Horse a queer narrative within the undertones of a war hero???s biopic, we the readers are morosely confronted with how little has changed in the past sixty years. Newson anatomizes lesser known cultural history while simultaneously inventing such beloved, gorgeously flawed and veristic characters, one is stunned to remember its fiction. In thematic homage to his debut, There???s Only One Sin in Hollywood mixes readers a salacious cocktail of love, ambition, legacy and activism. This is the story Hollywood hoped would never see the light of day.??????Jason Yamas, author of TweakerworldRasheed Newson delivers another triumph and staple of queer literature with this noir-style, page turning novel that captures both the regretful and hopeful timelessness of the gay struggle. If Hollywood has only one sin, I hope this book is part of its salvation. ???Byron Lane, author of Big Gay WeddingA sharp, glamorous reimagining of Old Hollywood that is as much an examination of race and politics as it is sex and debauchery. There's Only One Sin in Hollywood is equal parts memorial and reclamation???a hard-earned spotlight on an oft forgotten corner of Black queer entertainment history???proving once again that Rasheed Newson writes a historical novel like none other.???Leah Johnson, Lambda Literary Award FinalistUnabashedly erotic, irresistible, and heartbreaking, There???s Only One Sin in Hollywood exposes the hidden gay world of the movies???the connections, dealings, and dramas of its Black figures???with panache and authority. Sparkling with real-life and invented Hollywood stars, and threaded with a complicated love of the movies, Rasheed Newson???s second novel is an American tale of the first order. It will grip you until the last page. ???Richard Mirabella, author of Brother & Sister Enter the ForestThere???s Only One Sin in Hollywood is a study of juxtaposition???an equal parts dark and dazzling drama that's both a celebration of a bygone golden age of film and a memorial for the missing scenes that never made it from the cutting room. And it's a lesson for those unfamiliar with the difficult choices that those of us who identify with its characters have made before, during, and even after their time-capsule tale; a needed reminder that far too often, you can be Black, you can be queer, but the choice of how much safety you're willing to compromise in choosing one or both is, sadly, timeless.???Aaron Foley, author of Boys Come First???I was elated, fascinated, heartbroken, and deeply impressed by this well-wrought novel that takes on the entrenched American way of protecting the powerful and destroying the truth tellers. The story of Xavier C. Barlow???s quest to live and play roles as an openly Black gay man in 1960s Hollywood and the studio fixer who witnesses his struggle speaks directly and eloquently to many of our current injustices and concerns. I will be recommending There???s Only One Sin in Hollywood for a long time to come.??????Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship P