New in June: Edmund White, Yrsa Daley-Ward, Édouard Louis, and Jordy Rosenberg

Author: Edit Team
June 3, 2018
June is here! Pride month is always a great time for great new LGBTQ books, and this year is no exception.
Edmund White, 2018 Lambda Literary Visionary Award honoree, has a new memoir out. The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading (Bloomsbury) looks back at his life through the lens of his reading.
For White, each momentous occasion came with a book to match: Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, which opened up the seemingly closed world of homosexuality while he was at boarding school in Michigan; the Ezra Pound poems adored by a lover he followed to New York; the biography of Stephen Crane that inspired one of White’s novels. But it wasn’t until heart surgery in 2014, when he temporarily lost his desire to read, that White realized the key role that reading played in his life: forming his tastes, shaping his memories, and amusing him through the best and worst life had to offer.
From Yrsa Daley-Ward, “the celebrated poet behind bone,” comes The Terrible (Penguin), “a lyrical memoir—part prose, part verse—about coming-of-age, uncovering the cruelty and beauty of the wider world, and redemption through self-discovery and the bonds of family.”
Don’t miss current Lammy finalist Édouard Louis’s latest, History of Violence (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), “a short nonfiction novel in the tradition of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, but with the victim as its subject.” Already a bestseller in France, the English translation arrives in the US this month.
Jordy Rosenberg’s “genre-busting” debut novel, Confessions of the Fox (One World) tells the story of Jack Sheppard and Edgeworth Bess, “the most notorious thieves, jailbreakers, and lovers of eighteenth-century London.”
In nonfiction, Robert W. Fieseler’s Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation (Norton), “mesmerizingly reconstructs the 1973 fire that devastated New Orleans’ subterranean gay community.”
Silas House’s new novel, Southernmost (Algonquin), also focuses on the south:
In the aftermath of a flood that washes away much of a small Tennessee town, evangelical preacher Asher Sharp offers shelter to two gay men. In doing so, he starts to see his life anew—and risks losing everything: his wife, locked into her religious prejudices; his congregation, which shuns Asher after he delivers a passionate sermon in defense of tolerance; and his young son, Justin, caught in the middle of what turns into a bitter custody battle.
As always, if we missed an author or book, or if you have a book coming out next month, please email us.
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Fiction
- Days of Awe: Stories by A.M. Homes, Viking
- History of Violence by Édouard Louis, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg, One World
- Southernmost by Silas House, Algonquin Books
- Sweet and Low by Nick White, Blue Rider Press
- The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, Viking
- Never Anyone But You by Rupert Thomson, Other Press
- Disbanded Kingdom by Polis Loizou, Cloud Lodge Books
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Nonfiction
- Trans Like Me by CN Lester, Seal Press
- Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation by Robert W. Fieseler, Liveright
- Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity by Arlene Stein, Pantheon
- Raised by Unicorns: Stories from People with LGBTQ+ Parents edited by Frank Lowe, Cleis Press
- The Boys of Fairy Town: Sodomites, Female Impersonators, Third-Sexers, Pansies, Queers, and Sex Morons in Chicago’s First Century by Jim Elledge, Chicago Review Press
- 50 Years Legal: Five Decades of Fighting for Equal Rights by Simon Napier-Bell, Red Planet
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LGBT Studies
- Has the Gay Movement Failed? by Martin Duberman, University of California Press
- The Path to Gay Rights: How Activism and Coming Out Changed Public Opinion by Jeremiah J. Garretson, NYU Press
- The Trans Generation: How Trans Kids (and Their Parents) are Creating a Gender Revolution by Ann Travers, NYU Press
- Circulating Queerness: Before the Gay and Lesbian Novel by Natasha Hurley, University of Minnesota Press
- Pride Parades and LGBT Movements: Political Participation in an International Comparative Perspective by Abby Peterson, Mattias Wahlström & Magnus Wennerhag, Routledge
- Fugitive Life: The Queer Politics of the Prison State by Stephen Dillon, Duke University Press
- Because We Are Human: Contesting US Support for Gender and Sexuality Human Rights Abroad by Cynthia Burack, SUNY Press
- Erotic Islands: Art and Activism in the Queer Caribbean by Lyndon K. Gill, Duke University Press
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Young Adult and Children’s Literature
- Running with Lions by Julian Winters, Duet
- Social Intercourse by Greg Howard, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
- Dear Rachel Maddow by Adrienne Kisner, Feiwel & Friends
- Sometime After Midnight by L. Philips, Viking Books for Young Readers
- The Unbinding of Mary Reade by Miriam McNamara, Sky Pony Press
- SuperMoon by H.A. Swain, Feiwel & Friends
- Final Draft by Riley Redgate, Amulet Books
- Pink Is for Boys by Robb Pearlman & Eda Kaban, Running Press
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Romance
- When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri, G.P. Putnam’s Sons
- Truckin’ to Please by Jerry Rabushka, Lethe Press
- Beowulf for Cretins: A Love Story by Ann McMan, Bywater Books
- Take My Hand by Missouri Vaun, Bold Strokes Books
- Worth the Wait by Karelia Stetz-Waters, Forever Yours
- Sparks Like Ours by Melissa Brayden, Bold Strokes Books
- The Best Worst Honeymoon Ever by Andrew Grey, Dreamspinner Press
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Graphic Novels/Illustrated Books
- Gumballs by Erin Nations, Top Shelf Productions
- Luisa – Now and Then by Carole Maurel & Mariko Tamaki, Humanoids
- The Infinite Loop, Vol. 2: Nothing But the Truth by Pierrick Colinet, Elsa Charretier & Daniele Di Nicuolo, IDW Publishing
- Retreat by Jaakko Pallasvuo, 2dcloud
- Éclair: A Girls’ Love Anthology That Resonates in Your Heart edited by ASCII Media Works, Yen Press
- My Solo Exchange Diary Vol. 1: The Sequel to My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness by Nagata Kabi, Seven Seas
- Claudine by Riyoko Ikeda, Seven Seas
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Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror
- Witchmark by C.L. Polk, Tor
- The Last Sun by K.D. Edwards, Pyr
- Of Echoes Born by Nathan Burgoine, Bold Strokes Books
- Book of Hats by Dov Zeller, Tiny Golem Press
- Ardulum: Third Don by J.S. Fields, Ninestar Press
- A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White, Orbit
- Demon in the Machine by Lise MacTague, Bella Books
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Mystery/Thriller
- Who Is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht, Tin House Books
- Wight Mischief by J.L. Merrow, Dreamspinner Press
- Alias by Cari Hunter, Bold Strokes Books
- Hers to Protect by Nicole Disney, Bold Strokes Books
- Death Checks In by David S. Pederson, Bold Strokes Books
- Of Our Own Device by M.K. South, South Publishing
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Bio/Memoir
- The Terrible: A Storyteller’s Memoir by Yrsa Daley-Ward, Penguin
- The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading by Edmund White, Bloomsbury Publishing
- The Weight of the Earth: The Tape Journals of David Wojnarowicz edited by Lisa Darms & David O’Neill, Semiotext(e) / Native Agents
- In Search of Pure Lust: A Memoir by Lise Weil, She Writes Press
- This Young Monster by Charlie Fox, Fitzcarraldo Editions
- The Art of Gay Cooking: A Culinary Memoir by Daniel Isengart, Outpost19
- Yes, You Are Trans Enough: My Transition from Self-Loathing to Self-Love by Mia Violet, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
- Undivided: Coming Out, Becoming Whole, and Living Free from Shame by Vicky Beeching, HarperOne
- Returning to Reims by Didier Eribon, Allen Lane
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Poetry
- Something Bright, Then Holes by Maggie Nelson, Soft Skull Press
- Ornitheology by Kevin McLellan, The Word Works
- Feral Animals by Joel Sadler-Puckering, Hidden Voice Publishing