FIRST LOVE swirls at the center of Christopher Zyda’s memoir, The Storm, followed in short order by illness and death. The book recounts the fifteen-year period from 1983 to 1998, during which the promising UCLA English literature major who had “set my career sights on writing in Hollywood” meets and falls in love with 33-year-old Stephen, “a muscular man with brown hair, piercing blue eyes, and a beautiful smile.” …
More
WHAT HAPPENS when a gay American man and the heir to the British throne meet and fall in love? In Playing the Palace, Paul Rudnick makes full use of his comedic skills—evident in such screenplays as Jeffrey, Sister Act, and In and Out—to bring this improbable romance to life. …
More
FIRST NOVELS, especially coming-out novels, arrive with a certain amount of baggage. I tend to open them with trepidation, prepared to be assaulted by clichés about the closet and bad sex. That’s why Justin Deabler’s first novel, Lone Stars, comes as a welcome surprise. Deabler avoids the traditional landmines of coming-out stories by working on a broader canvas. …
More
THIS LARGE ANTHOLOGY has three very different introductory pieces: a foreword by Cheryl Clarke; an essay titled “Mouths of Rain: Be Opened,” by Alexis Pauline Gumbs; and an introduction by the editor, Briona Simone Jones. Cheryl Clarke assesses the importance of this book in the context of writing by and about people of African descent, especially women and members of LGBT communities.
More
THE WASTELAND is an imaginative novel constructed around the secret gay life of poet T. S. Eliot and the creation of his monumental poem The Waste Land, which was published in 1922. It portrays Eliot as a lonely, tormented man, conflicted between finding true love and achieving literary success.
More
In the end, it seems, [Tim] Dlugos came to question nearly everything, including even his desire to be a poet. But, in his best work, he leaves behind a freshness and honesty that still rings true. New York Diary underscores anew the loss of this beautiful and important voice.
More
Book Reviews of The Fall of America Journals, 1965-1971 by Allen Ginsberg, On the Red Hill: Where Four Lives Fell into Place, Angels on a Freight Train: A Story of Faith and Queer Desire in Nineteenth-Century America, Shared Secrets: The Queer World of Newbery Medalist Charles J. Finger, As Far as I Can Tell: Finding My Father in World War II by Phil Gambone, Catrachos: Poems, The Renunciations, and Sonata Form.
More
THE TITLE of Judy Grahn’s sixteenth book beckons readers into a world in which all living species share a net of consciousness, a mind as distinct from the brain as a biological organ. The ten essays and “true stories” in the Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit exhibit an openness to phenomena that enables Grahn to explore what she describes as her sensory, cellular, and spirit-related consciousness.
More
MARCEL PROUST is having a very good year: 2021 marks the sesquicentennial of his birth as well as the centenary of his winning the Prix Goncourt—France’s pre-eminent prize for literature. It also marks the publication in English of a book of new work, The Mysterious Correspondent …
More
BY THE TIME animal painter Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899) died, she had been one of the most famous and financially successful establishment artists in France for half a century. Railway tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt had bought the canvas regarded as her masterpiece, the 8’ x 16’ Horse Fair in Paris (1853), for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wealthy collectors on both sides of the Atlantic had regularly commissioned canvases from her. …
More
