-If this book of shocking intelligence and moral hope is read widely and above all well, word for word, it will help the world.- -Peter Schjeldahl
An expanded edition of Hickey-s controversial and exquisitely written apologia for beauty-championed by artists, reviled by art critics, and as powerful as ever 30 years on
The 30th anniversary cloth edition brings back into print Dragon-s four essays on beauty and commingles them with newly discovered essays by the MacArthur Foundation -genius.- Art by Caravaggio, Bellini, Vel-uez, Raphael, Warhol and Mapplethorpe is complemented by Hickey-s tributes to Dolly Parton and Richard Pryor, outing of John Rechy-s gay novel Numbers, essays on the art of writing and witty analysis of paintings by Ed Ruscha. An afterword by Hickey-s friend and Dragon-s editor queers the brash, heterosexual gambler as it situates the creation of Dragon squarely within the AIDS plague. At the time, the
