Be transported back 70 years. Banned in California is the true story of a 15-year-old gay runaway who finds himself in the 1950s Los Angeles underground world of homosexuals and early queer culture. Experience Jim Foshee’s adventures on the West Coast after hitchhiking from his home 800 miles away from a small Idaho town. Jim lives on the edge. Through his adventures and misadventures, he finds himself among kind-hearted strangers, kindred souls and drag queens as well as con artists, liars and ruthless cops.

At a younger age, Jim is institutionalized:

  • placed in an orphanage by his mother;
  • sentenced to a reform school because he runs away so much; and
  • committed to a mental hospital for diagnosed “sexual deviation and sociopathic personality.”

Jim just wants to break away and live a simple gay life, but his destiny first includes run-ins with authorities, incarceration, and toiling on a prison chain gang. Be ready for a unique and personal journey you won’t soon forget. Jim’s vivid remembrances paint a first-hand intimate portrait of times now gone—times of McCarthyism, government hunts for homosexuals and routine firings; but also times of the beats, the hippies and liberation protests.

Experience this exciting part of history seen through the eyes of this gay American.

This biography is an intimate portrait of gay life in the 1950s and beyond into a new millennium. It takes readers on a unique and personal journey through a part of American history experienced by Jim Foshee.

Read a preview here. Buy a copy here.

Published by Wentworth-Schwartz Publishing Company

Robert C. Steele served as a reporter and producer at various radio and television stations in Colorado and Arizona. He was a broadcaster at the Italian National Broadcasting Company (RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana) in Naples, Italy; was a reporter for Armed Forces Radio and Television along the coast of Vietnam, the Asian Western Pacific and Vicenza, Italy; was a volunteer and activist in the early gay liberation movement with the Gay Coalition of Denver and with two weekly gay radio shows in Colorado. Later, as a federal government public affairs officer, he served as a government spokesperson and managed media relations with reporters who worked for media outlets from across the USA and around the world.

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.