JAMES PURDY Life of a Contrarian Writer by Michael Snyder Oxford Univ. Press. 456 pages, $34.95 IT SEEMS to be the fate of any article discussing James…More

The Italian Invert is an important addition to the field of queer studies. The Italian’s story—full of despair, confusion, narcissism, sexual yearning, snobbery, and ultimate self-acceptance—is as compelling as it is candid. Moreover, as editor Michael Rosenfeld points out, Zola’s collaboration with Saint-Paul was an extraordinary example of “goodwill and courage,” even though both men struggled to understand the complete reality of homosexuality.

Reading Shakespeare Reading Me offers a meditation on not only what’s queer in Shakespeare but also how queer people translate a wide range of what they find in books into their own lives. Barkan remarks: “The world literature of love and desire, with some notable exceptions, is heavily heterosexual, Shakespeare included.” Nevertheless, he finds many places in the plays and poems where queer people can see themselves

IN FEVER SPORES, an eclectic collection of essays and interviews about writer William S. Burroughs, editors Brian Alessandro and Tom Cardamone make a pitch for Burroughs’ place in the “gay canon,” arguing that the novelist “has been sainted by the literary establishment in general but not the gay literati in particular.”

            A Woman’s Battles and Transformations strikes me as the least angry and the least politically charged of Louis’ four books. In revisiting the same material, I wondered if he had run out of something new to say. Early on in the book, Louis anticipates this possible criticism: “I want to write only the same story again and again, returning to it until it reveals fragments of its truth.” It’s that fierce, determined quest to get at the truth—even “fragments” of the truth—behind poverty, class, gender domination, racism, and homophobia that makes Édouard Louis an author well worth reading no matter how many times he hits the same notes.

            Making the Rounds is alive with passion and tumult, a discovery narrative in which the writer comes to recognize herself as capable of love. More reflection on the transformation might have been nice. But then again, the journey was hectic!

            A Secret Between Gentlemen is a carefully researched book that not only delves into an episode in early 20th-century British history but also provides an in-depth look at gay history in this era. The main story is one of great intrigue, filled with sex and crime and political scandal, outlandish lives, and an extraordinary cover-up. Unlike Oscar Wilde, Lord Battersea opted to use his connections and influence to escape prosecution and prison, a story that lay dormant for over a century.

            The impact of the writer’s early years is echoed throughout the last two parts of Black Folk Could Fly. The lens is broadened to include perspectives from the writer’s stint working in a publishing firm in New York and his travels around the U.S. in search of what it means to be Black.

The Digital Closet looks at how the “unlikely bedfellows” of anti-porn feminists, conservative groups such as Morality in Media (now renamed ncose, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation), and alt-right groups like the Proud Boys have influenced the development of the Internet.

In Len & Cub, authors Meredith J. Batt and Dusty Green have assembled a large number of photographs that tell the unfolding story of Leonard Olive Keith (1891–1950) and Joseph Austin Coates (1899–1965)—the “Len” and “Cub” of the book’s title.