Wed. January 5, 2011
Chicago, IL -
As the military gay ban known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell nears its end, a new novel about life as a lesbian in the military is now available from lesbian author and journalist Tracy Baim.
The Half Life of Sgt. Jen Hunter takes paces during the first Gulf War, in the early 1990s, prior to the compromise DADT law. The military banned all gays and lesbians from service, but tens of thousands bravely served their country.
During the Gulf War, many of those soldiers were kept in service under a "stop loss" order, only to be discharged upon their return home. Now that DADT has been struck down, this novel is perfectly timed to give a closer look at the lives of people impacted by any policies or laws that ask them to compromise who they are.
Chicago author Baim, who is publisher and executive editor of Windy City Times newspaper, offers a romance and mystery novel about this era in our nation's history, when gays and lesbians served proudly, but quietly, risking their lives for a country that disrespected and attacked who they were.
This fictional story was adapted for the Chicago stage as Half Life, in 2004.
Baim has covered military gay and lesbian issues since 1984. She is the author of the non-fiction book Obama and the Gays: A Political Marriage and Out and Proud in Chicago: An Overview of the City's Gay Movement.
The book, published by Prairie Avenue Productions, is available as a print book at Amazon.com and as an ebook on Kindle: $12.99 for print, $9.99 for Kindle. (Soon available on iPad.) ISBN-13: 978-1456461928. See http://amzn.to/e5EQHN.
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