His experience in the Navy was the inspiration for his book, the groundbreaking novel, Quatrefoil, first published in 1950. Written under the pseudonym, James Barr, Quatrefoil is hailed as one of the first novels to present a frank and positive depiction of same-sex love. Following the success of Quatrefoil, he published a volume of short stories, Derricks (1951), and the play, Game of Fools (1955).
During the Korean War, Fugaté reenlisted in the U.S. Navy, but he was discharged when a background check by Naval Intelligence revealed him to be the author of Quatrefoil. Following the incident, he moved to Los Angeles where he became aware of ONE, Inc., the Mattachine Society and the early gay rights movement. As an early activist, he contributed a number of articles to homophile periodicals--such as ONE Magazine, Der Kreis ( The Circle) and Mattachine Review--throughout the 1950s. By the mid-1960s, however, he lost touch with the gay rights movement and returned to the Midwest, where he earned a living in a variety of jobs, including laborer in oil fields and reporter for the Kansas City Star. He eventually settled in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he died on March 28, 1995.
His papers are held at ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives: Manuscripts, correspondence, clippings and photographs relating to gay author James W. Fugaté (1922-1995), who under the pseudonym James Barr, wrote the groundbreaking novel, Quatrefoil (1950), as well as other gay-themed works, including a volume of short stories, Derricks (1951), and a play, Game of Fools (1955). The collection also includes manuscripts of short stories and of articles he contributed to homophile periodicals such as ONE Magazine, Der Kreis and the Mattachine Review; correspondence with his publishers and homophile organizations such as ONE, Inc.; and photographs of Fugaté dating back to 1952.
Source: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt129029kt/
Further Readings:
Hardcover: 372 pages
Publisher: Twelve; 1 edition (February 2, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446563137
ISBN-13: 978-0446563130
Amazon: Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America
In the years following World War II a group of gay writers established themselves as major cultural figures in American life. Truman Capote, the enfant terrible, whose finely wrought fiction and nonfiction captured the nation's imagination. Gore Vidal, the wry, withering chronicler of politics, sex, and history. Tennessee Williams, whose powerful plays rocketed him to the top of the American theater. James Baldwin, the harrowingly perceptive novelist and social critic. Christopher Isherwood, the English novelist who became a thoroughly American novelist. And the exuberant Allen Ginsberg, whose poetry defied censorship and exploded minds. Together, their writing introduced America to gay experience and sensibility, and changed our literary culture.
But the change was only beginning. A new generation of gay writers followed, taking more risks and writing about their sexuality more openly. Edward Albee brought his prickly iconoclasm to the American theater. Edmund White laid bare his own life in stylized, autobiographical works. Armistead Maupin wove a rich tapestry of the counterculture, queer and straight. Mart Crowley brought gay men's lives out of the closet and onto the stage. And Tony Kushner took them beyond the stage, to the center of American ideas.
With authority and humor, Christopher Bram weaves these men's ambitions, affairs, feuds, loves, and appetites into a single sweeping narrative. Chronicling over fifty years of momentous change-from civil rights to Stonewall to AIDS and beyond-EMINENT OUTLAWS is an inspiring, illuminating tale: one that reveals how the lives of these men are crucial to understanding the social and cultural history of the American twentieth century.
More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Gay Classics
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