Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera
by: Fritscher, Jack

Hardcover. NY, Hastings House, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 316 pages, b&w illustrations. Written by his ex-lover, business associate, and close friend, an explicit memoir offers a new perspective on the renowned celebrity photographer with a taste for kinky sex and drugs who died of AIDS in 1989. Fritscher's brutally frank memoir of his ex-lover, confidant, and colleague, drawn from the author's personal documents, seeks to strip away the notoriety surrounding the defiant photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. As editor and writer for the gay magazine Drummer, Fritscher was the first to publish Mapplethorpe's highly charged camera shots depicting a seamy world of "leathersex," sadomasochism, taboos, and fetishes. Here, Fritscher graphically portrays the masculine subculture of the homosexual community that Mapplethorpe inhabited until his death from AIDS in 1989, at age 42. He also discusses the censorship of Mapplethorpe's work within the mainstream gay community. Clean copy.