As the author examines the cultural repercussions of Shepard's death, she also provides an objective history of hate crimes and the efforts at legislation, taking both extreme conservatives and extreme liberals to task along the way. School Library Journal This well-written account gets beyond the area's demographics and typical responses to the crime to uncover uncomfortable complexities and contradictions that ... Read morebelie our assumptions about this episode... A good cross-over book for understanding the complexity of peoples'struggle for (and opposition to) gay rights. Library Journal (starred review) Loffreda has crafted a richly layered narrative that encompasses both the deed and the community where it occurred... Losing Matt Shepard is a powerful meditation on the distortions inherent in the ways we comprehend the world.
David L. Kirp The Nation A brilliant book full of cool reason and flashing insight. The Boston Globe Anyone who wishes to really know anything about the present state of queer politics in the U.S. must run
not walk... to purchase a copy of Beth Loffreda's phenomenal book... A stunning blueprint for rethinking queer politics more generally. It is a book in which the poetic language begs readers to savor every syllable. It is a book that skillfully reels readers in and rewards them with profoundly astute analysis and nuanced political engagement with a subject that has affected so many of us. Read this book for its grace, for its politics, for its promise.
Mary Jane Knopf Newman, Assistant Professor of English at Boise State University The Lesbian Review of Books Getting behind the headlines, preconceptions and easy stereotypes, Loffreda has produced a book that mixes intelligence and compassion with crack reporting and sharp insight. Publishers Weekly (starred review) Loffreda crafts a rich and textured insider's account... [and] skillfully uses interviews, media reports, and firsthand accounts that she carefully mediates through the lenses of culture, politics, and religion to move beyond a simple factual retelling of a gay murder to a more complex understanding of what it means to exist and survive as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender person.
Kristopher Wells Adult Education Quarterly Show Less