‘Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me’ by Bill Hayes
Bill Hayes has managed to tell his own moving story and to include Oliver Sacks, his partner of seven years, as a very active character but not the exclusive focus
‘Abandon Me’ by Melissa Febos
Abandon Me is a fierce exploration of love and obsession
Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace on Crafting Her New Punk Rock Memoir
“I found a lot of parallels between recording an album and writing a book. I came to find myself looking at each chapter like a song.”
‘Indomitable: The Life of Barbara Grier’ by Joanne Passet
Grier’s life emerges as an interesting through line of lesbian activism in the twentieth century
‘The Clancys of Queens’ by Tara Clancy
The Clancys of Queens is a family story that takes an unfiltered look at class differences. It’s also hilarious, inspiring, and that rarest of animals–a memoir full of honest good cheer.
Queer Readers and Kim Addonizio’s ‘Bukowski in a Sundress’
Addonizio’s work is important to many LGBTQ readers because her writing persona works as an amalgamation of identities queer readers understand: the outsider, the rebel, the provocateur, the lover, and the survivor
‘Infringe’ by Sarah B. Burghauser
In Infringe, the reader is taken through the journey of a girl who has been raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, whose faith and sense of identity is fractured by trauma
‘Oscar of Between: A Memoir of Identity and Ideas’ by Betsy Warland
I. Betsy Warland’s new book
‘And Then I Danced: Traveling the Road to LGBT Equality’ by Mark Segal
The most important lesson one can learn from Segal’s life is that, no matter what, you just have to keep on fighting
‘Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home’ by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Dirty River goes above and beyond being a story of survival; it is a femme manifesto
‘Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl’ by Carrie Brownstein
The debut memoir from Sleater Kinney member and Portlandia star Carrie Brownstein Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl is a whip smart and compelling story that expertly blends music writing with personal revelations
‘Uncovered: How I left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home’ by Leah Lax
Lax explores the ways in which men and women both encounter limitations in their lives through a fundamentalist religion and offers some insight into why they join.
‘Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin’ by Andrew Wilson
This biography chronicles how success changes you: the ways in which the people fall away, as you become consumed with your new life(style) which, if not managed carefully, can overwhelm and consume
‘Worlds Apart’ by David Plante
For readers who yearn more for good dish than spiritual pondering, it does not hurt that Plante’s “connections” are of the very best kind: Germaine Greer, Phillip Roth, David Hockney, to name a few.
Gary Indiana: On His New Book ‘I Can Give You Anything But Love’ and the Impossibility of Happy Endings
“There aren’t any happy endings! We die! How could anything have a happy ending? Life is pessimistic because we die!”
‘I Can Give You Anything But Love’ by Gary Indiana
I Can Give You Anything does, in fact, give you just about everything: travel writing; diary entries; fragments; and deliciously wicked but not inhumane portraits of a variety of noteworthy figures
“Bendova Like I Told Ya”: Big Freedia and the Healing Power of Contradiction
Ease with contradiction would appear to be a kind of puckish response to systemic disenfranchisement
A Look at LGBTQ Homeless Teens: Read an Excerpt from Ryan Berg’s ‘No House To Call My Home’
The book is an illuminating account of the lives of a group of New York City LGBTQ homeless youth
‘Becoming Westerly: Surf Champion Peter Drouyn’s Transformation into Westerly Windina’ by Jamie Brisick
Becoming Westerly is an unforgettable portrait of a hard-won second act in an already exceptional life
‘Barbara Gittings: Gay Pioneer’ by Tracy Baim
Baim’s book introduces this stalwart activist to a broad audience, and Gittings’ determination, achievement and love for her community shines through.
‘Looking for a Kiss: A Chronicle of Downtown Heartbreak and Healing’ by Kate Walter
Looking for a Kiss is about one woman’s herculean attempt to thrive in the face of tragedy and an uncertain romantic future
Gore Vidal: Devil with a Soul
In Sympathy for the Devil:
‘Dangerous When Wet’ by Jamie Brickhouse
Dangerous When Wet is a fabulous new memoir about a man who has it all–a great job in publishing, a longtime boyfriend, fun friends and a caring family. But Brickhouse has some serious life challenges too, including addictions and HIV
‘Smash Cut: A Memoir of Howard & Art & the ’70s and the ’80s’ by Brad Gooch
In his new memoir Smash Cut, novelist and biographer Brad Gooch recounts his experiences in New York City during the turbulent ’70s and ’80s
Yarrott Benz: On Revisiting a Harrowing Adolescence and Writing His New Memoir ‘The Bone Bridge’
“Whether I like it or not, the story of The Bone Bridge is the defining story of my life.”
Maggie Nelson: On Writing ‘The Argonauts’ and Doing Justice to Queer Happiness
“On one level, I tried to do something I hadn’t done before, which was use the book as a holding container for sentiments of love and happiness […]”
Brad Gooch: On Remembering the 1970s and 1980s and Writing His New Memoir ‘Smash Cut’
“I had not really revisited these memories deeply since I shut the door on them over two decades ago. I discovered that I had intact, vivid memories, as if on a dolly track, reliving walking the halls of the AIDS wards of St. Vincent’s Hospital.”
‘I Left It on the Mountain’ by Kevin Sessums
I Left It On the Mountain is a spiritual page-turner.
‘The Autumn Balloon’ by Kenny Porpora
Porpora deploys a deft hand and straightforward tone that lifts what could have easily been a maudlin, self-pitying—or, in the opposite direction, self-congratulatory—narrative into a memoir that should be moved to the top of everyone’s to-read list immediately.
‘How to Grow Up’ by Michelle Tea
For all of us late-to-the-party adults, for all of us stumbling around wondering how in fact to actually do this thing called adulthood, How to Grow Up is the book we’ve been waiting for
‘Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe: A Biography’ by Philip Gefter
Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe: A Biography is a book-length argument for Wagstaff’s importance in the world of American art.
‘Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh’ by John Lahr
Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh is first and foremost a perceptive and edifying look at Williams’ life.
Brontez Purnell: On His New Book ‘The Cruising Diaries,’ Silencing the Critics, and the Joys of Writing About Sex
“I like writing in a way that can sometimes be dark yet still be generous to the human condition…”
‘Wilde in America: Oscar Wilde and the Invention of Modern Celebrity’ by David M. Friedman
“The book’s central thesis is that our modern-day cult of celebrity, in the Kardashian sense of unaccomplished people famous for being famous, had its beginnings in Wilde’s American tour.”
‘The Reappearing Act: Coming Out as Gay on a College Basketball Team Led by Born-Again Christians’ by Kate Fagan
“Fagan knows that it is not enough for a memoirist to merely relate her story; she must figure out how her life has shaped her.”
‘Teaching the Cat to Sit’ by Michelle Theall
“Michelle Theall’s new memoir, Teaching the Cat to Sit, brings some big topics—God, sexuality, abuse, loneliness, love, family—to the page. It’s a rocky ride, full of contentious conversations, frank disclosures, and plenty of struggle.”
‘The Tastemaker: Carl Van Vechten and the Birth of Modern America’ by Edward White
“The Tastemaker is essential reading for anyone interested in how America emerged from the cultural shadow of Europe in the last century.”
‘Jack Be Nimble: The Accidental Education of an Unintentional Director’ by Jack O’Brien
Jack Be Nimble: The Accidental Education of an Unintentional Director details Jack O’Brien’s induction into theater through the Association of Producing Artists (APA) Repertory Company , his movement from an actor into a director, and his emergence as a major presence in the theater world in the 1970s.
‘Dreadful: The Short Life and Gay Times of John Horne Burns’ by David Margolick
It’s a sadly familiar story in American literature: an alcoholic gay writer of great talent comes to a tragic end. Think Hart Crane. Think Charles Jackson. And now think John Horne Burns, the subject of David Margolick’s enlightening biography, Dreadful: The Short Life and Gay Times of John Horne Burns (Other Press).
‘Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father’ by Alysia Abbott
Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father (W.W. Norton & Company) by Alysia Abbott manages to pick up the nearly moribund genre of the AIDS memoir, give it a good dusting off, and then send it back out into the world with something like a fighting chance.
‘The Master of Us All: Balenciaga, His Workrooms, His World’ by Mary Blume
How does one write a biography of someone who has been dead for 40 years, was a bit of a recluse their whole life, and whom few people really knew. If you are Mary Blume, and the subject is Cristobal Balenciaga, one of fashion’s most unique designers, you focus on the fashion itself…
‘Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk, from the Middle East to the Lower East Side’ by Rayya Elias
Millions of Syrian refugees have
‘The End of San Francisco’ by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Perhaps the greatest strength of the book is Sycamore’s ability to capture queer adolescence and immortalize that reality onto the page without sanitizing the struggles.
‘I Await the Devil’s Coming’ by Mary MacLane
Based solely on its title, I Await the Devil’s Coming (Melville House Publishing) sounds like a canonical text for Satanists. In reality, it’s the fiercely feminist, wickedly witty, and decidedly deranged glimpse into the life and thoughts of a transgressive young woman growing up unhappily in the Midwest at the beginning of the 20th century.
‘Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight? Confessions of a Gay Dad’ by Dan Bucatinsky
Families don’t just happen. Gay,
‘Farther and Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson’ by Blake Bailey
Blake Bailey has dissected complex, self-destructive literary lives in his biographies of Richard Yates and John Cheever, and Farther and Wilder will no doubt add to his reputation as the premiere chronicler of tormented American writers.
‘Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir’ by Nicole J. Georges
Nationally, Portland, Oregon is known
Read Kate Bornstein’s Excerpt from Lambda’s ’25 for 25′ E-book
Read Kate Bornstein’s excerpt from Lambda’s Literary’s 25th anniversary anthology, 25 for 25, an E-book featuring some of the community’s leading LGBT authors.
‘L Is For Lion’ by Annie Rachele Lanzilloto
This sprawling narrative could be called an Italian memoir, a Bronx memoir, a cancer memoir, a veteran father memoir, a 1960s childhood memoir, a mother-daughter memoir, or a lesbian memoir.
Clive Davis Comes Out in New Memoir
In his new memoir, famed 80-year-old record executive Clive Davis opens up about his long rumored bisexuality.
‘Robert Duncan in San Francisco’ by Michael Rumaker
This isn’t a memoir solely about the physical presence of Robert Duncan. It’s also about those who he inspired…
‘A Simple Revolution’ by Judy Grahn
For over forty years, Judy
‘A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths’ by Tony Fletcher
In his introduction to A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of The Smiths (Crown Archetype), author Tony Fletcher makes the claim that, of all the books concerning The Smiths, this is the first one that focuses on the whole band rather than lead singer Morrissey or guitarist Johnny Marr.
‘Licking the Spoon’ by Candace Walsh
Food is, of course, the perfect metaphor for Walsh’s life: through much stumbling, there is a persistent desire to find the right dish, the perfect spice, the ingredient that brings it all together.
‘The Scientists: A Family Romance’ by Marco Roth
Marco Roth grew up in
‘Oddly Normal: One Family’s Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality’ by John Schwartz
New York Times journalist John
‘Coal to Diamonds’ by Beth Ditto and Michelle Tea
Beth Ditto’s memoir is PUNK, which, after learning about her through the pages of this book, I think is probably what she would see as the best possible compliment about her work.
‘Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me’ by Ellen Forney
An association between artistic creativity and mental illness is something many of us take for granted without questioning which came first or why the two should be linked. In her new graphic memoir, cartoonist Ellen Forney tackles that question in light of its impact on her work as an artist with Bipolar I Disorder.
‘All We Know’ by Lisa Cohen
Lisa Cohen’s lush biography, All We Know (Farrar Straus and Giroux), is a staggering labor of love that offers a triptych of three women of a queer persuasion. Cohen sets this story in the early 20th century, giving her audience a catalogue of the largely forgotten life during that time. Her subjects–the great intellectual Esther Murphy, the celebrity connoisseur Mercedes de Acosta, and the fashion maverick Madge Garland…
‘Folsom Street Blues: A Memoir of 1970’s SoMa and Leatherfolk in Gay San Francisco’ by Jim Stewart
Jim Stewart brings together stories, poems and photographs that gives readers of today a glimpse into the early days of the leather community and the beginnings of a post-stonewall gay community in San Francisco.
‘The Vicious Red Relic Love’ by Anna Joy Springer
Springer uses journals, letters, myth, and doodles from feminist class lectures to create a interlocking puzzle map that guides readers on an intoxicating journey through the dyke community in 90s San Francisco.
‘Small Fires’ by Julie Marie Wade
In Small Fires, Julie Marie Wade, who won a Lambda for her memoir Wishbone, considers family and memory with a poetic eye and unabashed tongue. With her carefully chosen words and a studied deliberateness, Wade proves unafraid to delve into her past—to skillfully reconstruct the events of her youth, from the horrifying to the sentimental to the self-conscious and beyond.
‘Halsted Plays Himself’ by William E. Jones
Los Angeles-based artist and experimental filmmaker William E. Jones has brought together a variety of materials that will help, hopefully, to revive an appreciation both for Halsted’s work as well as of the man himself.
‘Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures’ by Julie Marie Wade
Like the Ocean which literally
