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Christopher Marlowe’s Queer World

As the title suggests, Stephen Greenblatt’s new book isn’t so much an exhaustive biography of Christopher Marlowe as an expert rendering of the world he lived in. Dark Renaissance, The...

Queer Shakespeare

For centuries those who questioned William Shakespeare’s sexuality were silenced by two simple facts: he married Anne Hathaway and fathered three children with her. Case closed, right? It is only...

On the Death of Edmund White

The Queer Lit world is still in shock at the news that the great Queer author, Edmund White has passed. Only his husband, Michael Carroll, and a few close friends...

An Important Queer History Book from Edmund White

Don’t be deceived by the title, Edmund White’s latest book, The Loves of My Life, A Sex Memoir, is an important volume of Queer History. By chronicling his sex life–so...

More than the Definitive Isherwood Biography

Katharine Bucknell’s new Isherwood biography is the most important non-fiction book QueerReader has reviewed so far. Because of his background, education, talents and personality, Christopher Isherwood was uniquely positioned to...

Armistead Maupin and Stephen McCauley: Two Great Queer Writers at the Height of their Powers

With all the excitement over the up and coming queer authors of our time–Ocean Vuong, Lydia Conklin, Douglas Stuart, David Santos Donaldson, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Edward Cahill, to name just a...

Disorderly Men is Essential Reading

Let’s get this out of the way: Disorderly Men is an astonishingly good debut novel. But even this sentence doesn’t do it justice. Because the term “debut novel” implies something that is not...

Edmund White’s New Novel is Predictably Brilliant

It’s been forty-one years since Edmund White got the world’s attention when A Boy’s Own Story broke the New York Times bestseller list. The simple fact that a literary queer...

The Best Novel of 2022: David Santos Donaldson’s Greenland

It’s award season again. Time to take a fresh look at David Santos Donaldson’s Greenland. Were it simply a historical novel centered on the three years E.M. Forster spent in...

Lydia Conklin is an Author to Watch.

It’s hard to believe today, but when this website began fifteen years ago Queer Literature was defined almost exclusively as Gay and Lesbian. Times have certainly changed. And nowhere is...

Andrew Holleran’s The Kingdom of Sand Explores the Nature of Queer Mortality.

In the nineteen-seventies, a generation of queers saw their reflection in the exuberant prose of Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance. In his new novel, Kingdom of Sand, Mr. Holleran...

John Weir’s Your Nostalgia is Killing Me is Poignant, Historical and Laugh-out-Loud Funny.

Let’s face it. Short story collections often make for a choppy reading experience. Even the best of them are a challenge to read from cover to cover. Two magnificent exceptions...

Women’s House of Detention is Timely and Insightful.

Ethel Rosenberg did time here. So did Angela Davis and Afeni Shakur. Andrea Dworkin endured its notorious cavity search and, with the help of Grace Paley, publicized this barbaric practice. ...

On Young Mungo and the Relevance of Queer Fiction

As homosexuality has become more and accepted, Queer Lit has the potential of becoming more and more conventional. Queer experiences in The United States–to use one example–are now mainstream. This...

The Publishing Triangle and Lambda Lit Finalists: What they Got Right and What’s Missing

It is once again time to take a good hard look at The Publishing Triangle and Lambda Literary Finalists list. First, let’s start by congratulating all of this years finalists. ...

Edmund White’s New Novel is Witty, Wise and Very Sexy.

Edmund White’s new novel might be his sexiest yet. And that’s saying a lot. In A Previous Life, Ruggero, a Sicilian aristocrat, and his young wife, Constance, decide that in...

Remember Anthony Veasna So.

By now Queer Readers know of the sad story of Anthony Veasna So: how just months before the publication of his first book, Afterparties, he died suddenly of an accidental...

Alison Bechdel Edifies.

Alison Bechdel’s latest book is her most autobiographical and it’s also arguably her best. Once again, Ms. Bechdel takes a simple true story and fortifies it with insights and literary...

On the Importance of The Prophets

As the literary award season approaches, it’s time to revisit the novel that may well have changed Queer Lit forever. With The Prophets, Robert Jones Jr. shattered three assumptions about...

The Definitive Oscar Wilde Biography

As much as Queer Reader enjoyed Richard Ellman’s Oscar Wilde biography, one finished it with the impression that certain parts of the the story weren’t completely fleshed out. Although all...

Let the Record Show is Magnificent.

Queer Reader approached Sarah Schulman’s latest book with some trepidation. As a veteran of ACT UP, this reviewer had grown tired of the misrepresentations, innaccuracies, and false narratives. As much...

Advice to President Biden from a Queer Icon

John Maynard Keynes is a somewhat awkward queer icon. In his youth he had numerous gay affairs and was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, but he ultimately married a...

Read Pamela Sneed’s Funeral Diva.

Funeral Diva is the self-portrait of a woman who our society does its very best to ignore: black, queer, statuesque, outspoken. But this particular woman, Pamela Sneed, will not be...

Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain is Heartbreaking, Unforgettable.

Though portrayed by the popular culture as a joyous, carefree time, childhoods are often far from that–particularly for those who are sensitive and different. For these people, childhood isn’t the...

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