Anal Probe: A Penetrating Peek into the Gay Life

In Anal Probe writer Art Greenwald shares his "best of," a collected works of non-fiction stories and columns viewed through a gay man's lens.

Part autobiographical, the Central Pennsylvania native and South Floridian chronicles the people, places and situations he's observed and experienced first-hand.

Greenwald offers up a mixed bag of high drama, humor, personality profiles and closet adventures from the 1950's to the present, including his own painstaking journey for self-acceptance from small-town USA to his college days at Penn State University to life in gay Fort Lauderdale.

The author reveals in searing detail his dance with death in a stripper bar, an AIDS survivor overcoming the odds, a meth addict's struggle to stay clean, a Hurricane that united, the high price of friendship, a riches to rags account of redemption, an immigration indignity and more.

His quirky, tongue-in-cheek tales lighten the load, from his first prostate exam to aging gay gracefully to lampooning the dating game to gay gym rats, a lesbian guide to rejection and his rose-colored realization of Florida as the first gay state.

Greenwald's provocative and profound opinion pieces tackle taboo topics with candor and without self-censure, poking fun at politics, the lifestyle and its ancient stereotypes while exposing hypocrisy. A controversial take on killer Andrew Cunanan, drag queens, a letter to the late Jerry Falwell, his laughable attempt to give up sex and an Andy  Rooney "what makes gay" parody both

entertains and enlightens.

The author also profiles a young gay singer, a comic genius, a Franciscan Priest who uplifts the lives of individuals with HIV/AIDS, unforgettable Charlie Squires, figure skater Rudy Galindo, a champion for abused and neglected children, a security guard, transgender activist, bar owner and volunteer making a difference.