Bughouse blues

the long version

Bughouse Blues was an early nonfiction novel of sorts. It contains many stories of the gay hustling underworld in Chicago in the mid 1970's. The names are all changed to protect the guilty, as the introduction states. The material was supplied by Richard Raff (1948-1975), who was gay and frequented hustlers almost exclusively. He was an extremely overweight, unattractive, and very erudite young man who had no other sexual outlet in the very repressed, closeted gay world of mid 1970's Chicago. The book was co-written with his close friend Gerald Nicosia, a professional writer, not gay but very sympathetic to Richard's plight and the life he was experiencing at the time. Most of the action takes place around Bughouse Square (real name: Washington Square), a real location in Chicago which at that time was the nexus for gay hustling in Chicago.