Category: Projects

Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of "The Cult of Alien Gods"

10/31/2025

My first and most influential book, The Cult of Alien Gods: H. P. Lovecraft and Extraterrestrial Pop Culture, was published twenty years ago this coming week. If I felt old when I heard music from my college years playing in on the local “oldies” station, I feel doubly old realizing that I wrote my first book half a lifetime ago. I started writing it two years before its publication, when I was half as old as I am today. Soon enough, I will have been an author longer than I was not, and that still strikes me as absurd. Has so much time passed? It was so long ago that I sent out manuscripts on paper and received page proofs in a cardboard box marked up with a proofreader’s red pen!

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Marking the 70th Anniversary of James Dean's Death: His Final Days

9/30/2025

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In commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of James Dean’s death, I am publishing an excerpt from my biography of James Dean, Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean (Applause, 2024) on the final days of the Hollywood legend.

The last picture of James Dean, taken on the morning of his death.

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Read My New TNR Piece: "The James Dean Deification of Charlie Kirk"

9/27/2025

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Ahead of the 70th anniversary of James Dean's death, my new piece for The New Republic, "The James Dean Deification of Charlie Kirk," looks at the uncanny parallels between the personality cults surrounding Charlie Kirk and James Dean and, crucially, the important way they differ. Be sure to compare and contrast my rather sour take on Kirk's attempted deification as a far-right James Dean with Mark Whitaker's more laudatory piece in The Atlantic claiming Kirk will be the new Malcolm X.

Whitaker believes that Kirk will grow in stature and popular acceptability over time, as Malcolm X was, but I see some key building blocks missing from the creation of a true cult of personality--namely, the personality, but also the works of lasting substance that exist beyond the man's memory. Malcolm X was a powerful rhetorician and created a compelling personal mythology and image. His speeches are still studied today. James Dean, too, created a powerful and iconic image for himself, and he left behind powerful films still watched today. But Kirk does not have the substantive body of work, the distinctive image, or even the kind of rhetorical fireworks that would sustain interest over the long term.

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Read My New Piece on the GOP's Attack on the Smithsonian in "The New Republic"

8/21/2025

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My new piece for The New Republic out today looks at the super-weird origins of the Right's hatred of the Smithsonian, tying in the Enola Gay, Bible Giants, the History Channel, and racism. I also take a moment to point out the dark side of Rep. Eric Burlinson's close connection to Timothy Alberino and the "Nephilim hunters."

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"Jimmy" Audiobook Now Available!

7/8/2025

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"A BOMBSHELL book." — Daily Mail.

Today is the release day for the audiobook of Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean, read by Daniel Henning! Get it wherever you buy your audiobooks or direct from the publisher.

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Actor Brandon Flynn to Play James Dean in New Movie About Gay Romance

6/24/2025

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Actor Brandon Flynn will take on the role of James Dean in a new film exploring the rocky and sometimes romantic friendship between Dean and his best friend William Bast, according to the film’s director, Guy Guido. Willie and Jimmy Dean is based on Bast’s 2006 memoir, Surviving James Dean, a revision of his 1956 biography James Dean, in which Bast restored sections on Dean’s same-sex relationships and Bast’s own homosexuality that he self-censored in the first book.

Actor Brandon Flynn in a Calvin Klein campaign.

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Listen to Me Discuss "Jimmy" on WNYM AM 790

1/27/2025

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On Sunday night, I appeared on I appeared on Shake It Off with Mert & Lucas, Live! on WNYM AM 970 to discuss Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean. You can listen here or below. I'm the second half of the first hour. To be honest, when the publicist booked this appearance, the station only told me it was a local New York City-area radio show that did a weekly book chat. I assumed it would be something like NPR. I was not expecting it to be a conservative talk show, but aside from a couple of howlers, the conversation went smoothly. I remained shocked and surprised that the conservative media have been more interested in my book and more open to discussing the substance of it than any of the so-called mainstream liberal media, which one might think would be interested in celebrating a queer icon.

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Watch Me on Fox News!

12/19/2024

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It's been a quiet week as we head into the holidays. If you haven't seen it, Fox News Digital interviewed me about my book, Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean, and the segment ran this week. Be sure to check it out here!

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"Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean" Now Available!

11/19/2024

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Today is the publication day for Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean. It’s been a long road to publication, from the first inklings of an idea for the book in the pandemic spring of 2020 to the finished product, hitting retailers today. I am immensely proud of this book, and I am excited for all of you to have the opportunity to read it.

As I celebrate my book’s release, I want to extend my thanks to my agent, Lee Sobel, who believed in Jimmy when no one else did; to Chris Chappell and Emily Burr, my editors at Applause Books, whose insightful editing and tireless work on behalf of this project made it possible; to Dave Holmes and Kelly Stout at Esquire, who allowed me to write about James Dean for the magazine as proof of concept; and to everyone else who contributed in ways large and small to the research that went into Jimmy.

To help launch the book, I’ve made the introduction available for free on my website in the new Jimmy section of the site. I have also compiled a page which I will continue to update with media coverage of the book, including recent stories in The Daily Mail, The New York Post, and more.

You can buy your copy of Jimmy at your favorite retailer or by using the links below.

B U Y T H E B O O K
Applause Books | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org

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My Copies of "Jimmy" Arrived

11/7/2024

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It's finally here! After four years of research, writing, revising, and editing, this week I received two boxes of Jimmy: The Secret Life of James Dean from my publisher. The book looks beautiful, and I am excited for all of you to be able to buy copies on November 19!

The inspiration for the Jimmy dust jacket was an homage to, but not an exact copy of, William Bast's original 1956 James Dean biography. My first edition is a bit faded, but it was originally the same shade of red. Bast's cover showed Dean draped in shadow, mine bathed in light, symbolizing the difference between his biography, which hid the truth and mine, which exposes it.