Butterflies in Heat
Darwin Porter
A compellingly retro softcover expressing some eternal truths about love, hate, greed, and sex.
First published in 1976, Butterflies in Heat caused an immediate sensation. Airlines with streaming banners flew over Fire Island to announce its publication, and Gloria Swanson paid for an ad in Variety to quash rumors that she was planning to star in the film. The film, made shortly after the book's release, starred Earth Kitt playing a transexual cabaret entertainer, and Matt Collins as the blond male hustler. At the time, the actor cast into the hustler's role (Matt Collins, previously famous for his advertizing role as "The Marlboro Man" was voted "the handsomest man in the world."
After nearly 30 years, the novel has been reprinted in its original text, with its controversial epilogue restored, after deletions by the book's original publishers, who found it "objectionable." Over the years, it has been frequently hailed as a cult classic, and it even inspired a song, "Butterflies in Heat," written by the late composer Alex Wilder, author of such famous songs as "I'll Be Around," and "While We're Young."
Although denounced by Publishers Weekly, The Miami Herald, and The New York Times, the novel quickly found an international following. Some of its first readers included Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Tennessee Williams, Joan Blondell, Bette Davis, Alvin Ailey, Anais Nin, Joan Blondell, and many, many others.
The novel whose characters were once denounced as too controversial, but who have now become mainstream icons in fiction and in film.
The blond hustler, the narcissistic drag queen, the rich and embittered John, the aging and profane Duenna, the relentless prosecutor, the lusty and self-involved society matron, the 300-pound "Gin Mamma," the Gucci Carpetbagger, and a host of other corrupt but flamboyant characters, the likes of which haven't been seen since MIDNIGHT COWBOY.
The result is a virtual orgy of narcissism and grotesquerie set in Tortuga, a thinly veiled metaphor for Key West.
"Butterflies is a potboiling revision of Sweet Bird of Youth. Nevertheless, I'd walk the waterfront for Numie any day." -- Tennesse Williams
"Racy and wild, a grotesque but believable world presented with robustly original perception." BURT HIRSCHFELD, author of Fire Island
"How does Darwin Porter's garden grow? Only in the moonlight, and only at midnight, when man-eating vegetation in any color but green bursts into full blooom to devour the latest offerings." JAMES LEO HERLIHY, author of Midnight Cowboy
"Darwin Porter writes with an incredible understanding of the milieu--hot enough to singe the wings off any butterfly." -- James Kirkwood (Co-author of A CHORUS LINE)
"We know from the beginning that we're getting into a hotbed that has morbid fascination for potential readers. The novel evolves, in fact, into one massive melée of malevolence, vendetta, and e-v-i-l, stunningly absorbing alone for its sheer and unrelenting exploration of the lower depths." BESTSELLERS
After nearly 30 years, the novel has been reprinted in its original text, with its controversial epilogue restored, after deletions by the book's original publishers, who found it "objectionable." Over the years, it has been frequently hailed as a cult classic, and it even inspired a song, "Butterflies in Heat," written by the late composer Alex Wilder, author of such famous songs as "I'll Be Around," and "While We're Young."
Although denounced by Publishers Weekly, The Miami Herald, and The New York Times, the novel quickly found an international following. Some of its first readers included Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Tennessee Williams, Joan Blondell, Bette Davis, Alvin Ailey, Anais Nin, Joan Blondell, and many, many others.
The novel whose characters were once denounced as too controversial, but who have now become mainstream icons in fiction and in film.
The blond hustler, the narcissistic drag queen, the rich and embittered John, the aging and profane Duenna, the relentless prosecutor, the lusty and self-involved society matron, the 300-pound "Gin Mamma," the Gucci Carpetbagger, and a host of other corrupt but flamboyant characters, the likes of which haven't been seen since MIDNIGHT COWBOY.
The result is a virtual orgy of narcissism and grotesquerie set in Tortuga, a thinly veiled metaphor for Key West.
"Butterflies is a potboiling revision of Sweet Bird of Youth. Nevertheless, I'd walk the waterfront for Numie any day." -- Tennesse Williams
"Racy and wild, a grotesque but believable world presented with robustly original perception." BURT HIRSCHFELD, author of Fire Island
"How does Darwin Porter's garden grow? Only in the moonlight, and only at midnight, when man-eating vegetation in any color but green bursts into full blooom to devour the latest offerings." JAMES LEO HERLIHY, author of Midnight Cowboy
"Darwin Porter writes with an incredible understanding of the milieu--hot enough to singe the wings off any butterfly." -- James Kirkwood (Co-author of A CHORUS LINE)
"We know from the beginning that we're getting into a hotbed that has morbid fascination for potential readers. The novel evolves, in fact, into one massive melée of malevolence, vendetta, and e-v-i-l, stunningly absorbing alone for its sheer and unrelenting exploration of the lower depths." BESTSELLERS
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Paperback 9780966803-99 $14.95 E-Book 9781936003044 $10.95 -
Category Fiction Imprint Georgia Literary Assn. Publication Date 1998-02-01 -
Publication Status In Print Trim Size 5.5x8.5 Page Count 448
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 | Midnight in Savannah This is the more explicit, and more entertaining, alternative to John Berendt's best-selling MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL. It's a bemused saga of corruption, greed, sexual tension, and murder that gets down and dirty in the Deep Old South. Stylish and fun entertainment, it's loaded to references to the literary lions of the Deep South, and an immobilizing thriller as well. |
 | Rhinestone Country An ironic saga about country music, show biz, stardom, pain, and closeted lives in the Deep South. |
 | Hollywood's Silent Closet The Lusty Saga of America's First Star F*#%er!! A banquet of information about the pansexual intrigues of Hollywood between 1919 and 1926 compiled from eyewitness interviews with men and women, all of them insiders, who flourished in its midst. Not for the timid, it names names and doesn't spare the guilty. If you believe, like Truman Capote, that the literary treatment of gossip will become the literature of the 21st century, then you will love Hollywood's Silent Closet. |
 | Blood Moon An artfully brutal tale of psychosis, sexual obsession, money, power, religion, and love…It will blow your mind! |
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 | Razzle-Dazzle Super-rich Sherry and her boys set out on a gay romp to film Butterflies in Heat in Key West. But an ill wind was blowing north from the Caribbean. |
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K-News Radio, Palm Springs, PRESIDENTIAL SEX: An Interview with Danforth Prince
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What They're Saying in Palm Springs About THE KENNEDYS. Click here for news from California's Desert Gossip Pros
Those permissive hosts at K-News talk radio in gossipy "sin city" (glamorous PALM SPRINGS, California), invited Blood Moon's president, Danforth Prince, to get up front and personal about his company’s newest celebrity exposé, THE KENNEDYS, All the Gossip Unfit to Print.
Here's what the biggest radio mogul in the Coachella Valley, "Bulldog Bill" Feingold, elicited on July 25, 2011, about marital infidelity, the presidency, and the hot new book that assembles into 426 photo-studded pages the embarrassments and indiscretions of seven key members of America's most entertaining (and horniest) political tribe.
Danforth was in Palm Springs in the aftermath of receiving a literary award from the HOLLYWOOD BOOK FESTIVAL for this book. His tour also involved working with a film crew for the production of Blood Moon's newest promotional video, now out and available on YouTube.com: JACKING WITH JFK IN HOLLYWOOD, Where the President Played: a cinematic preview of THE KENNEDYS, All the Gossip Unfit to Print.
Here's what Danforth had to say about the book, Palm Springs, and the brouhaha associated with the Golden (50th) Anniversary of JFK's ascension to power.
Here's what the biggest radio mogul in the Coachella Valley, "Bulldog Bill" Feingold, elicited on July 25, 2011, about marital infidelity, the presidency, and the hot new book that assembles into 426 photo-studded pages the embarrassments and indiscretions of seven key members of America's most entertaining (and horniest) political tribe.
Danforth was in Palm Springs in the aftermath of receiving a literary award from the HOLLYWOOD BOOK FESTIVAL for this book. His tour also involved working with a film crew for the production of Blood Moon's newest promotional video, now out and available on YouTube.com: JACKING WITH JFK IN HOLLYWOOD, Where the President Played: a cinematic preview of THE KENNEDYS, All the Gossip Unfit to Print.
Here's what Danforth had to say about the book, Palm Springs, and the brouhaha associated with the Golden (50th) Anniversary of JFK's ascension to power.
Blood Moon Releases History's First Cinematic Overview of "Gay Life in New York's Forgotten Outer Borough" as its contribution to PRIDE 2011
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See History's First Cinematic Overview of Gay Life on Staten Island, without charge, by clicking HERE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEBlood Moon Productions, a Staten Island-based publishing enterprise that focuses on celebrity biographies and film guides, proudly announces the release of a 27-minute documentary and infomercial it filmed at the June 4, 2011 celebration of Gay Pride in Staten Island. To see the film, click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN00Mw9wQ6E
The project was conceived, scripted, and narrated by Blood Moon's president and founder, Danforth Prince, who was designated in early June as 2011's PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR by the directors of THE BEACH BOOK FESTIVAL, an association of literary critics and booksellers from coastal communities across America.
As stated by Prince, "Blood Moon already has a history of crafting videotaped infomercials and documentaries as a means of advancing public recognition of its literary products. As such, we were intrigued by the cinematic possibilities of a street celebration that included aspects of both a trade fair and a social revolution. And how else could someone not physically present watch an articulate interaction between the Unitarian Church, the winner of the 'Miss New York' beauty pageant, and Dykes on Bikes?"
"Staten Island is the least visible and perhaps the most conservative borough within the otherwise liberal mass of New York City," Prince continued. "But based on this month's battle for marriage equality in New York State, and the extroverted passions of the island's gays and lesbians, this film has implications that go way beyond the borough."
"Insofar as we know," Prince continued, "no one else has ever attempted a coherent cinematic overview of Staten Island's gay subculture. And it was the clearly expressed passion and politicized fervor of the people we interviewed that became the most surprising and most gratifying part about making this film."
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On Friday, March 4, the Awards Committee of the LOS ANGELES BOOK FESTIVAL awarded two Honorable Mentions to Blood Moon Productions for titles released in 2010.
In preparation for this event, Danforth Prince, Blood Moon's president, assembled a Hollywood-based film crew, as directed by the distinguished Independent Filmmaker MS. CRYSTAL CALLAHAN, to videotape the event. Conducted with fanfare from within Hollywood's historic Roosevelt Hotel, the awards ceremony attracted about a thousand distinguished members of L.A.'s publishing and film communities. Blood Moon plans a release of this video, without charge, as part of its ongoing roster of sales promotions, in about two weeks.
As stated by Danforth, "Blood Moon's corporate mission involves the publication of carefully researched new insights into the entertainment industry. The fact that these book awards originate from a panel of judges based in Los Angeles makes them particularly valued and appreciated. We are genuinely honored with these awards, and we thank everyone associated with this event tonight."
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