 I am proud to share the cover of my new book Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean, out this fall from Applause Books, and imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. It was a long, challenging road to develop an attractive cover that captured the feel of the book, but I think this one more than succedeed. 
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It was a busier week for me than for pyramids and flying saucers. I spent the week finalizing art for my book, negotiating the cover design, and arranging for my next major magazine feature. Meanwhile, the Salt Conference of financial investors in New York City announced David Grusch would be a featured speaker, the second year in a row that wealthy nerds turned their gathering over to their adolescent sci-fi fantasies. We should all be disturbed that the self-described masters of the universe take their faux-honorific so literally and think space aliens are the next financial frontier. Similarly, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced her intention to hold a Senate UFO hearing this summer, in the middle of the presidential election campaign. With Democrats trying to make the case that they are the sober, responsible alternative to a venal thug and his caravan of kooks, maybe putting the party’s UFO obsessives front and center for another flying saucer hearing when there are serious and immediate issues at stake affecting every American isn’t the best look.
This week, various editions of Vogue magazine published a lengthy piece on the failed romance of James Dean and Pier Angeli, born Anna Maria Pierangeli. The original Italian article by journalist Giacomo Aricò, published on Wednesday, and the truncated English adaptation published on Friday contain a number of misrepresentations and errors that came from the telephone game of repetition and PR that passes for “celebrity” coverage in our media. But the broader purpose of the piece, as the author writes in Italian, is to deny that Dean was either homosexual or bisexual, a remarkable claim for a major magazine in 2024. Let’s take a look at some of the ways the Vogue pieces went wrong.
I am happy to announce that my forthcoming book now has its official title. Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean will be published this fall by Applause Books. I am excited to see the book moving its way toward publication!
It's been a bit of a difficult week for me. Unfortunately, I have been swamped with work, family issues, prior commitments, and book publishing obligations, and this has left me no time for writing blog posts this week. Truthfully, it will likely be a couple of weeks before things calm down enough for me to do any substantive writing that I’m not getting paid for. I’ve been burning the candle at both ends to keep up with the volume of obligations, but something has to give. There are only so many hours in the day.
In the meantime, my publisher has asked my for suggestions for titles for my James Dean book. They are looking for something that is resonant and intriguing and somehow incorporates the concept of masculinity without using that word. I have never been any good at titles, and I have no idea what to suggest.  I am delighted to announce that I have partnered with Applause Books to publish my biography of James Dean next year. I am deeply appreciative of the tireless work of my agent, Lee Sobel, in helping to find my book the best possible home, and for the support and enthusiasm of my editor at Applause, Chris Chappell. Publication of the book is the culmination of a years-long journey that began when I happened upon Rebel without a Cause on Turner Classic Movies one day during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 and involved the largest and most comprehensive literature and archival research into James Dean’s life and legacy ever conducted. I am so thankful to have found a team that believes in my book and my work and wants to help me share with the world a story that needs to be told.
Note: This article is cross-posted from my Substack because Twitter is limiting links to Substack. I think you'll find the historical content interesting. Nearly seven decades after James Dean died, I would have thought that everything that could be known about him was known. All but a small handful of people who knew him in life are now dead, and those left alive have had nothing new to say in decades. The magazine and newspaper articles have been raked through many times, and the scraps of archival materials picked clean. Then, to my amazement, Nate D. Sanders Auctions announced the sale later this month of more than 500 pages of James Dean’s business, legal, and personal correspondence and papers from the estate of his New York talent agent, Jane Deacy, who died in 2008. These papers, never before seen, are, frankly, astounding in what they reveal.
Over the last year, my former literary agent sent me outlandish descriptions of the various reasons publishers gave for rejecting my book. Frankly, I always had it in the back of my mind that he was making them up. When publishers told him that in “this political climate” a book about a queer topic was inadvisable, or when an editor claimed that there was no reason to ever mention James Dean’s sexuality again because it had been discussed in 1975, I wondered if this could possibly be serious. Then this week I received the most dispiriting of rejections, one that left me flabbergasted.
This week, I took the difficult step of separating from my literary agent after he was unable to place my book with a publisher and had fallen out of a communication with me since late last year. I did not take this step lightly, but going forward, I realize that I need more aggressive and supportive representation for my manuscript if I am to make a success of it. My now-former agent said, in his parting message, that he surveyed other agents who agreed that publishers are not interested in the “Americana” field and have difficulty seeing a book about celebrity as “serious,” which tells me that my agent was probably not selling my book on its strongest or most relevant points. I have some potential plans and options for moving forward, but in the meantime, I will be taking some time to revise the manuscript to make it the best-documented book about James Dean every written, not least so no one can challenge my conclusions on the facts.
Note: This blog post also appears in this week's weekly newsletter. |
AuthorI am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab. 
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