Here’s something you might have missed: 2014 was a good year for Queer Lit. It began with the publication of The Days of Anna Madrigal: the final volume of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series. Then came Edmund
James Magruder’s short story collection, Let Me See It, is exceptional. Mr. Magruder is a master at dialogue. His stories are perfectly constructed. And he has a literary style that is all his own: minimalist, yet peppered with telling
Queer readers have waited a long, long time for the definitive Tennessee Williams biography. Mr. Williams took a stab at it himself with his Memoirs, published in 1975. But Memoirs, while a thoroughly entertaining read, was self-serving and
Bernardine Evaristo’s novel, Mr. Loverman is the story of Barrington: a septuagenarian West Indian man who has finally reached the decision to come out as gay. His ever-shifting, highly complex situation is told from the perspectives of both Barrington and
In the twelve stories comprising Michael Carroll’s Little Reef, the qualities which make him a major new literary talent are on display. Mr. Carroll is a master at dialogue, his characters are three-dimensional and he clearly knows how to
Near the beginning of Michael Cunningham’s new novel, one of the main characters has a potentially life-changing experience: a seemingly celestial being appears to him in the sky above Central Park. What ever this white light cloud formation is, it
Edmund White’s new book is a delicious read. More than just a memoir of his years living “inside the pearl” that is Paris, it is also a peripatetic journey through France, Britain and Morocco. Along the way, the reader will
Concluding the Tales of the City series was perhaps Armistead Maupin’s most challenging literary task. Concluding an epic novel–let alone a series of novels–involves not only revisiting the key characters and wrapping up their stories, but also the inclusion of
He gave the Beat Movement its name, witnessed its history from beginning to end and was an accomplished author in his own right, but you probably haven’t heard of him. Certainly this queer reader hadn’t heard of Herbert Huncke until
Allan Gurganus’s new book, Local Souls, is a collection of three novellas. They share a common location–the fictional town of Falls, North Carolina–and also a common theme: survival. They are rendered in a style that is at once lyrical