Swish

As emotional as it is funny, Swish is the moving account of one man's journey from stereotype to truth. Joel Derfner is a knitter, an aerobics instructor, a cheerleader, a go-go dancer, and a musical theater composer, but when he realizes one day that he's a walking gay cliché, he embarks on a quest for deeper meaning. Confronting the demons of his past at an LGBT summer camp, using the Internet to "meet" men (many, many men), or going undercover to a conference of ex-gays, he discovers that what he's looking for—and sometimes even finds, hidden under the surface of everyday life—is his own identity.

As emotional as it is funny, Swish is the moving account of one man's journey from stereotype to truth. Joel Derfner is a knitter, an aerobics instructor, a cheerleader, a go-go dancer, and a musical theater composer, but when he realizes one day that he's a walking gay cliché, he embarks on a quest for deeper meaning. Confronting the demons of his past at an LGBT summer camp, using the Internet to "meet" men (many, many men), or going undercover to a conference of ex-gays, he discovers that what he's looking for—and sometimes even finds, hidden under the surface of everyday life—is his own identity.

JOEL DERFNER graduated from Harvard with a degree in linguistics. His work for the musical theater has been produced in London, New York, and various cities in between. The author of Gay Haiku, Swish, and Lawfully Wedded Husband, he lives in New York City. He can be reached at joelderfner.com.