Read This! An Excerpt From Patrick Nathan’s ‘Some Hell’
Some Hell is a harrowing novel about a gay teen’s coming of age
‘My Cat Yugoslavia’ by Pajtim Statovci
For a reader looking for fiction that also serves as social criticism, My Cat Yugoslavia is both thought-provoking and emotionally resonant
‘Rough Patch’ by Nicole Markotic
Keira is bisexual, and she lets you know it even if she hasn’t told anyone else. She is 15 years old with a lot to figure out, including meticulously planning the moment to come out to her best friend.
‘The Troubleseeker’ by Alan Lessik
The Troubleseeker is a potent mash-up of contemporary history, Greek mythology, Caribbean Santería, and queer eroticism
‘Running’ by Cara Hoffman
Running has plenty of dazzle; it races atop remarkable sentences. But at its core are two people who, accustomed to getting by on nothing, have no idea what to do with the bounties that befall them: success, family, love
‘Heartsnare: Book One of the Umbraverse’ by Steven B. Williams
Steven B. Williams blends a horrifying and unconventional world with verisimilitude.
‘After the Blue Hour’ by John Rechy
After the Blue Hour is a clever psychodrama that blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction
‘Blind Side of the Moon’ by Blayne Cooper
Dreams haunt Samantha Blackwell. At
‘Feder: A Scenario’ by Nathanaël
Decidedly cerebral, Feder doesn’t just involve the mind, it takes place there; the associative, disembodied voice of a narrator is quite nearly pure intellect
‘This is a Dance Movie!’ by Tim Jones-Yelvington
The collection as a whole speaks to any reader unafraid of a revealing dive into sexual deviancy, fickle intimacy, and evasive amour
‘Difficult Women’ by Roxane Gay
Difficult Women is comprised of wildly different stories, ranging from realistic to magical, hopeful to dystopian
‘State of Grace’ by Sandra Moran
State of Grace is just as unsparing and jarring as the experience of trauma itself.
‘Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days’ by Jeanette Winterson
For years, Winterson has written a new story every year at Christmastime, and here she collects them for the first time. The result is a book for cold, clear nights and roaring fireplaces.
Fingerplay and Handmaidens: The Queer and Subversive Pleasures of Reading Sarah Waters
In Sarah Waters’ writing, historical queer female desire is inferred, inserted, and re-imagined
‘The Wonder’ by Emma Donoghue
In her latest novel, Donoghue’s child characters once again shine in their imaginings when faced with creating solace in unimaginable circumstances
‘The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories’ by A.C. Wise
The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories is achingly smart, sad, and weird in equal measure
‘At Danceteria and Other Stories’ by Philip Dean Walker
This short story collection is inspired by the heady mix of sex, celebrity, and sinisterness inherent in the metropolitan cities of the 1980s
‘The Jungle Around Us’ by Anne Raeff
The slow, measured prose of these nine interrelated tales approaches big topics—loneliness, belonging, death, fear—and yet, Anne Raeff’s stories are intimate, character driven, and incredibly subtle
‘The Stormwater Drains in Canberra’ by Paul Johan Karlsen
It takes some courage for a young Norwegian man from a small town to travel around the world for gay sex. In some ways, the novel reads like a fairy tale… The Stormwater Drains in Canberra may serve as a study guide for a new generation of young gay men
‘Vow of Celibacy’ by Erin Judge
Vow of Celibacy, stand-up comedian Erin Judges dishy debut novel, plunges the reader directly into the world of Natalie—bisexual, plus-sized fashion maven, and undertaker of the titular vow.
‘Remarkable’ by Dinah Cox
Set in Oklahoma, the stories in this collection are sharp, precise, and surprising
Blacklight: Porto’s ‘Sergio Y’ Renders a Compassionate but Incomplete Exploration of Gender Identity
Sergio Y explores the limitations of truly knowing another person
‘Another Brooklyn’ by Jacqueline Woodson
Another Brooklyn is an absorbing, lyrical, beautifully written novel, which quietly draws the reader into its story of four friends “sharing the weight of growing up girl in Brooklyn” in the 1970s
‘Hellmaw: Of the Essence’ by Gabrielle Harbowy
This novel is only the
‘Here Comes The Sun’ by Nicole Dennis-Benn
How do you save your sister, your lover, your home and your ambition? In this brilliant debut novel, Nicole Dennis-Benn aims to present this riddle through rich prose, crackling dialogue, and the lives of three unforgettable Jamaican women
‘Love Slaves of Helen Hadley Hall’ by James Magruder
This sparkling novel owes much of its success to Magruder’s remarkable ability to manipulate words to get to the heart of all matters, especially matters of the heart
Adam Haslett: On Masculinity, Being Fearless, and the Power of Ambiguity
“Imagine Me Gone is the most personal book I’ve written, since I used the fact there is mental illness in my own family more directly than I have in anything else.”
Read an Excerpt from Nicole Dennis-Benn’s Stunning New Novel ‘Here Comes The Sun’
Here Comes The Sun maps a family’s struggle to gain independence and freedom in a world where both don’t come easy
‘Weekend’ by Jane Eaton Hamilton
What is especially wonderful about Weekend is the emotional adventure that occurs completely within the context of romantic and communal relationships
‘Arcade’ by Drew Nellins Smith
In Drew Nellins Smith’s debut novel, Arcade, Sam, an awkward, likable late 20-something, guides us through a XXX video store on the outskirts of a Texas town
‘Walking the Dog’ by Elizabeth Swados
The book details the struggles of “former child prodigy and rich-girl kleptomaniac” Ester Rosenthal as she navigates a post-prison life as a high-end professional dog walker
‘Infidels’ by Abdellah Taïa
Abdellah Taïa’s Infidels is a story about the protagonist Jallal’s fall–out of boyhood, into love, out of innocence, into Jihad.
‘Imagine Me Gone’ by Adam Haslett
Adam Haslett immerses his novel of familial strife in contemporary ideas about racial and economic justice in America
‘Without Annette’ by Jane B. Mason
Josie and Annette have been
‘Night Sweats’ by Tom Cardamone
Short these stories may be, but that doesn’t mean that they’re lightweight
‘Black Sheep Boy’ by Martin Pousson
What Pousson does so masterfully is to take such a dazzlingly fantastical and specific world and render it universally recognizable
‘In Case of Emergency, Break Glass’ by Sarah Van Arsdale
Whether the stories take place on a snow bank in an unknown, prehistoric land or in a hotel in Barcelona, Van Arsdale’s novellas strike achingly close to home by reporting true narratives of people and their complications
Read an Excerpt from Edmund White’s New Novel ‘Our Young Man’
“Although Guy was thirty-five he was still working as a model, and certain of his more ironic and cultured friends called him, as the dying Proust had been called by Colette, ‘our young man.'”
Kaitlyn Greenidge: On Her New Novel ‘We Love You, Charlie Freeman’ and Writing Fully Realized Characters
“I think anyone can write any experience as long as they recognize that experience as part of the human condition. The problem arises when a writer uses a character’s social positionality as shorthand or for street cred.”
Darryl Pinckney: On His Novel ‘Black Deutschland’ and the Complexities of Gay Desire
“It used to be that if you told your parents that you were gay, they imagined you were living these aimless nights of danger. Now you tell your parents that you are gay, and they want to meet your boyfriend.”
Read an Excerpt from Ann McMan’s New Novel ’Backcast’
Humor and heart go hand in hand in Backcast, a new novel from writer Ann McMan
‘Fox Tooth Heart’ by John McManus
John McManus’s new collection Fox Tooth Heart is a gripping, often tragic meditation on the vast distance between inner life and outer expectations
Ten of This Year’s Standout LGBTQ Books
It was truly a year of queer literary excellence
‘The Uncollected David Rakoff’ by David Rakoff
David Rakoff was here. He made us laugh, he made us weep, he made us think. The Uncollected Works are some of his best and some of his not-so-best, but they are all him and as such, to be cherished
‘The Repercussions’ by Catherine Hall
The Repercussions does not try to explain war, nor does it try to call us to action. It is simply a chronicle of the ways human beings mess each other up and what it takes, on an individual level, to keep on living
Michael Graves: On Writing, Relationships, and Practicing Hope
“[…] People are scared to talk about religion. They are less fearful of discussions concerning sex or guns. Why don’t we talk about God? Why don’t we talk about spirituality?”
‘A Poet of the Invisible World’ by Michael Golding
In A Poet of the Invisible World, we’re asked to consider the curative role of art and how experience–often painful–can bring us to a deeper understanding of life
Read an Excerpt from Jeanette Winterson’s New Novel ‘The Gap of Time’
The Gap of Time is a decidedly queer “remix” of William Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale, from celebrated author Jeanette Winterson.
‘Did You Ever Have a Family’ by Bill Clegg
In this novel, fifty year old June Reid is faced with the irreconcilable deaths of every person in her family—a fate she was spared from by pure happenstance
A Queer Look at Garth Risk Hallberg’s ‘City On Fire’
The book stretches broad enough to embrace many narratives, a compelling gay narrative among them
Chinelo Okparanta: On Her New Novel ‘Under The Udala Trees’ and Being a Champion of Love
“It’s too bad that so many of us have a need to psychoanalyze love and destroy it in the process.”
‘The Gap of Time’ by Jeanette Winterson
Winterson—whose energetic literary career began with the sui generis coming-out novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and has ranged through many forms and eras since—has written a “cover version” of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale
‘Dryland’ by Sara Jaffe
Adults and teen readers will appreciate this coming-of-age tale which captures a girl’s initial steps to finding her sexual identity and the emotional struggles of navigating adolescence
‘The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter’ by Tom Mendicino
Tom Mendicino’s latest novel explores the bonds of brotherhood, literal and metaphoric, between two brothers who on the surface appear so dissimilar
‘The Cherokee Rose: A Novel of Gardens and Ghost’ by Tiya Miles
Historians reveal uncomfortable truths and novelists force us to look at them. Perhaps The Cherokee Rose is a nod in support of the New South that recognizes its multicultural past, present, and future.
‘Let Me Explain You’ by Annie Liontas
Let Me Explain You is a story about relationships—between sisters, between countrymen, between people and place, between food and memory, between languages, between time and space
Author Quintan Ana Wikswo on the Limitations and Power of Labels
“Primarily, I wanted to see if I could write a book in which issues of love, erotics, desire, and sex could be momentarily liberated from conventional categorizations of gender identity.”
‘The Small Backs of Children’ by Lidia Yuknavitch
The plot centers on an orphaned child from a war torn Eastern European country, and how her life captivates and unsettles a group of western artists
‘Hotel Living’ by Ioannis Pappos
Management consultants don’t exactly sound
‘Counternarratives’ by John Keene
The remarkable thing about this kind of book–this expansive, wide-reaching book–is that the writer expects the reader to be as well-read as they are, or to at least engage with the text in an intentional way
A Queer Look at Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’
The eighty-nine-year-old Lee has long been a lesbian literary icon, and her protagonist, Scout Finch, a.k.a. Jean Louise, has been—along with Carson McCullers’ Frankie Addams in The Member of the Wedding—a girl that every young American lesbian grew up reading
‘The Brink’ by Austin Bunn
The Brink is a fast-paced, slim, engrossing collection that reminds its reader of one of life’s most essential truths: we’re always on the cusp of something new, and every passing moment, for better or worse, changes us
‘Night at the Fiestas’ by Kirstin Valdez Quade
At its best, Kirstin Valdez Quade’s new collection of stories, Night at the Fiestas, sidesteps cliché but keeps the grandeur of her setting by transposing it to her characters—people big as myth, opaque as Scripture
‘Two Augusts in a Row in a Row’ by Shelley Marlow
Two Augusts in a Row in a Row is a novel about gender, love, grief and magic.
‘Sphinx’ by Anne Garréta
Sphinx, on the surface, is a standard story of love and loss. But that’s about all that’s standard here. You won’t get past the first page without asking questions, and by the time you turn the last one, you’ll be no closer to an answer
‘Vera’s Will’ by Shelley Ettinger
“Don’t go. Let me show
‘Muse’ by Jonathan Galassi
Jonathan Galassi does a superb job of offering a meticulously observed peek behind the curtain of the book publishing world, complete with an eclectic cast of outsized characters.
‘Soul Selecta’ by Gill McKnight
Prepare to meet the unexpected in this plot that folds back on itself and brings with it more than one element of surprise.
‘The Hope of Floating Has Carried Us This Far’ by Quintan Ana Wikswo
The stories here beg borders. They are amorphous and esoteric. Many of them feel like shortwave radio dispatches from another Universe where the edges that separate us are constantly blurring and shifting.
On Plague and the Queer Art of Absurdist History: Larry Kramer’s ‘The American People’
As much as The American People purports to historical authenticity, Kramer’s tome is primarily a masterpiece of the queer art of legend making, a natural byproduct of our occluded historical visibility
‘To the Dark Tower’ by Francis King
To the Dark Tower, Francis King’s first novel, was published in 1946
‘Boo’ by Neil Smith
Smith ventures to convey a reality about bullying and mental health that is far braver than any you’ve ever read, as Boo is a spelunking adventure deep into the caves of life, death, good, evil, mortality, loss and grief.
‘Orient’ by Christopher Bollen
Bollen crafts a series of interweaving threads with impressive finesse and detail, and it’s a testament to his talent that the reader can become equally invested in them as they are in getting to the roots of the murders and arson that begin to pepper the narrative
‘The Man With the Overcoat’ by David Finkle
It is October, on an
‘One Hundred Days of Rain’ by Carellin Brooks
In Carellin Brooks’ One Hundred Days of Rain, we meet a woman going through a divorce with a small son in Vancouver. Rain serves as a kind of co-narrator to the book; it’s both character and metaphor
‘Things Half in Shadow’ by Alan Finn
Alan Finn mines the fertile history of post-Civil War Philadelphia and the country’s obsession with Spiritualism during that period to craft a superbly rich, historically-detailed whodunit in Things Half in Shadow
‘Lost Boi’ by Sassafras Lowrey
Lost Boi is a counterculture fairy tale, but the way Lowery turns all expectations upside down and finds hope in the darkest corners is the real magic here.
‘Tiny Pieces of Skull’ by Roz Kaveney
Tiny Pieces of Skull delights in its characters and the grit and glamour of their daily lives.
‘Apocalypse Baby’ by Virginie Despentes
Apocalypse Baby, in the end, is a demanding read; Despentes’ words, plot, and ideas are contentious, confrontational, and very purposefully so.
‘Delicious Foods’ by James Hannaham
To describe Hannaham’s novel by referencing other writers would be too easy, and perhaps unfair. With Delicious Foods, James Hannaham has himself become a reference point.
Read an Excerpt from Larry Kramer’s ‘American People: Volume I’
This month, Farrar, Straus and Giroux is releasing the long-awaited new novel from author Larry Kramer, The American People: Volume 1: Search for My Heart: A Novel.
‘JD’ by Mark Merlis
Jonathan Ascher, an acclaimed 1960s
‘The Gracekeepers’ by Kirsty Logan
It’s easy to lose yourself in The Gracekeepers. Logan’s rich tapestry of characters and storylines, her deft language and her exquisitely built world add up to a deep, intriguing, and accessible novel.
‘Daydreamers’ by Jonathan Harper
Jonathan Harper’s debut collection Daydreamers is aptly named: each story contains the ruminations of young men drifting through their lives, either making bad choices or failing to choose
‘Call Me Home’ by Megan Kruse
Call Me Home, as the title implies, focuses very strongly on the idea of home. It’s place-based for sure, but in this novel, who we call home is even more important.
‘Aquarium’ by David Vann
Ultimately, the characters in Aquarium are desperately struggling to move toward forgiveness and redemption—it’s a story you can’t help but be submerged in completely
Helen Humphreys: On Her New Novel ‘The Evening Chorus,’ Her Creative Process, and the Solitary Act of Writing
“I struggle with writing because to write well you have to remove yourself somewhat from the life around you. It is a lonely business.”
‘Don’t Let Him Know’ by Sandip Roy
Sandip Roy’s Don’t Let Him Know is a multi-generational story venturing deep into the hidden pasts of a single family over the course of decades.
‘The Evening Chorus’ by Helen Humphreys
The power of The Evening Chorus is accumulation: a plot that unfolds at a comfortable pace, characters that feel usual, even ordinary, and thus interesting in their familiarity, and exquisite sentences
‘Love Is Enough’ by Cindy Rizzo
When Massachusetts Congressional Representative, Angie
‘The First Bad Man’ by Miranda July
July’s talent exists in her ability to create such complex, bizarre relationships while always raising the stakes, but her carefully erected world does require a willful suspension of disbelief.
‘Carry the Sky’ by Kate Gray
Kate Gray has written a stunning book, a blazingly necessary work of fiction for a wounded world.
‘Bitter Waters’ by Chaz Brenchley
This small collection provides an excellent representation of Brenchley’s wide-ranging output.
‘The War Within’ by Yolanda Wallace
The lives of four people
‘O, Africa!’ by Andrew Lewis Conn
Moving deftly from Coney Island to Africa to the first-ever Academy Award ceremony and back, O, Africa! is an engrossing and thought-provoking novel about self-discovery and the occasionally dangerous power of the movies.
‘Positive Lightning’ by Laurie Salzler
Positive Lightning (Blue Feather Books) tells
‘Pissing in a River’ by Lorrie Sprecher
Amanda, the narrator of Lorrie
‘Nightingale’ by Andrea Bramhall
Charlie Porter is an out
‘A Room in Chelsea Square’ by Michael Nelson
Boredom is one thing you definitely won’t experience reading A Room in Chelsea Square. You might even be enlightened. The goal of satire after all is to foster change.
In Remembrance: Nancy Garden
Nancy Garden, author, editor, LGBT activist, former theater maven and teacher, died suddenly on the morning of June 23 of a massive heart attack. She was 76.
‘Corona’ by Bushra Rehman
In her 2014 Lambda Literary
‘Wonderland’ by Stacey D’Erasmo
“[…]D’Erasmo does a rare thing with Wonderland: she combines the delightful worlds of literature and music while bringing out the best in both mediums.”
‘The Death of Lucy Kyte’ by Nicola Upson
Nicola Upson’s series of mysteries
‘Last Words from Montmartre’ by Qiu Miaojin
Miaojin, I know this letter
‘Seneca Falls’ by Jesse J. Thoma
Seneca King has a past
‘The Snow Queen’ by Michael Cunningham
“In The Snow Queen, Cunningham reminds us that no matter the form in which love arrives, we should consider ourselves lucky.”
‘Canary’ by Nancy Jo Cullen
Every story in Nancy Jo Cullen’s debut collection skates along the edge of weirdness. These characters are just a tiny bit off, drawing the reader into their delightful eccentricities.
Q&A With Self-published Writer Tom Schabarum
Last year was big one
John Schuyler Bishop: The Strange Loves of Henry David Thoreau
“In all I read about him, Thoreau never really became more than the wooden icon who tramped the woods and wrote brilliant essays. But he was a living, breathing, gay man who yearned for love…”
A few bold scholars have explored the mystery of Henry David Thoreau’s love life, but author John Schuyler Bishop has now written a novel about it, appropriately titled Thoreau in Love.
A.M. Homes Wins The Women’s Prize Amid Controversy
There’s been a great deal of snarkiness about this literary prize. “Why only women?” “Isn’t this sexism in reverse?”
‘Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club’ by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
The seven stories in this
‘Harvard Square’ by André Aciman
[,,.] André Aciman’s greatest accomplishment with his latest novel: the crafting of a thoroughly inclusive love letter to those who have ever felt excluded.
‘The Fainting Room’ by Sarah Pemberton Strong
“Mister, I need a cup
‘Nevada: A Novel’ by Imogen Binnie
In her debut novel Nevada (Topside Press), Imogen Binnie welds a fierce new voice in an expertly delivered narrative.
‘Scenes from Early Life’ by Philip Hensher
Late in Scenes from Early
‘What Comes Around’ by Jameson Currier
From an adolescent crush on a swimming instructor to the imagined drowning of a high maintenance boyfriend, Currier explores every aspect of relationships – the good, the bad, and the very dysfunctional – each set in a literary landscape perfectly crafted for the lovelorn.
‘Coming Out Can Be Murder’ by Renee James
Experts estimate that the number
‘Makara’ by Kristen Ringman
Traversing from Ireland to India to Venice, Makara (Handtype Press) manages to be both ethereal and incredibly earthly at the same time. It is a coming-of-age story unlike any other.
Thom Nickels: Affliction, Morality, and Liberation
“Like it or not, we
‘Art on Fire’ by Hilary Sloin
Art on Fire is framed as a biography of Francesca deSilva, a reluctantly revolutionary artist. DeSilva is a character of Sloin’s own making, but under the author’s deft craftsmanship she is an uncannily realized creation.
‘The Dream of Doctor Bantam’ by Jeanne Thornton
Meet Julie Thatch, the teenage
‘Lovetown’ by Michał Witkowski
The phrase “too many queens, not enough spotlights” should give a glimpse into the anarchic feel of Michał Witkowski’s debut novel, Lovetown.
The self-proclaimed ‘queens’ of Lovetown, who exclusively refer to each other by feminine names, revel in what they see as the glorious heyday of Polish Communist-era sex, equal measures grim and liberating.
‘Frozen’ by Carla Tomaso
In the front matter of
‘boneyard’ by Stephen Beachy
There are some books that
‘Lightning People’ by Christopher Bollen
A fun fact about lightning: a strike lasts for about 30 microseconds.
Lightning People starts with a similar flash. The narrator of the prologue, Joseph Guiteau, speaks in conspiratorial terms, suggesting a link between a rise in lightning-related Manhattan-area deaths and the fall of the Twin Towers.
