Robert Ferro
(1941 - 1988) U.S.A.
Writer
Robert Ferro was born in Cranford, New Jersey. He went to college at Rutgers University and received a Master's Degree from the University of Iowa. He later lectured at Adelphi University.
One of the original members of the Violet Quill, a group od seven gay writers who met in New York City in the permissive post-Stonewall era to read and discuss each other's work. Ferro's novels rely heavily on autobiography. They celebrate gay existence within the structure of the heterosexual family, demanding the unconditional acceptance of gay love within that setting.
Being of Italian descent, his novels contrast the machismo of heterosexual Italian men, who find homosexuality difficult to deal with, with the more sympathetic views of moters and female relatives. Ferro's novels, though in the main realist in style, tend to contain seomewhat fantastical elements.
He died at his father's home in Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J. of AIDS-related complications, only three months after his lover, Michael Grumley, had died of the same illness.
Robert Ferro, whose fiction explored issues of homosexuality and family relations, knew he was suffering from AIDS when he wrote his current novel, ''Second Son,'' published by Crown Publishers. It tells of the romance between two men with AIDS.
His work include:
- The Family of Mark Desir (1983)
- The Blue Star (1985)
- Second Son (1988)
Excerpts from: Gabriele Griffin, Who's Who in Lesbian and Gay and Writing, Routledge, London, 2002
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