In some respects the literary award season isn’t all that different from the film award season. The most recent releases have an advantage. And sometimes those released earlier are forgotten. As this year’s queer lit award season approaches, queer reader
Don’t Forget Patsy. Read More »
In September it was announced that Ocean Vuong had been awarded the MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius Award”. Queer Reader has never described an author as a “genius”, but in this case the word is entirely appropriate. Ocean Vuong is a brilliant
Why Ocean Vuong Matters Read More »
It’s awards season again. Soon lists will be released of the best books of last year. We will know shortly whether Stephen McCauley, the author of so many consistently superb novels, will be rewarded for his efforts. It remains a
Stephen McCauley’s My Ex-Life is the Best Novel of 2018 Read More »
To paraphrase Tolstoy, great novels are not all alike. Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, for example, is like no other novel. It is an epic novel that follows several characters over decades. But what sets A Little Life apart
A Little Life is Like No Other Novel. Read More »
Here’s something you might have missed–this queer reader almost did: Edmund White has written a novel that may well be his best. Take a moment for that to sink in.
Our Young Man is the epic gay novel Edmund White
Edmund White’s Our Young Man Might be his Best. Read More »
Let’s face it: short story collections can be a tough sell. Even the best of them include a few clunkers. Some even throw in some unpublished fragments: bits of what might have been a novel (novella?), but didn’t quite flesh
The Dream Life of Astronauts: Nine Superb Stories from Patrick Ryan Read More »
If you’re looking for a good summer read, consider James Magruder’s Love Slaves of Helen Hadley Hall. It follows the stories of the residents of a Yale dormitory in the school year of 1983-1984. In all the there are
Love Slaves of Hadley Hall is a Good Beach Read. Read More »
Although a novel, Darryl Pinckney’s Black Deutschland reads like a memoir. The style is simple, direct, conversational, flawless. It’s the the story of an American abroad: a visitor to Berlin in the final days of the wall. His journey from
Black Deutschland is Flawless. Read More »
Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs to You is a good, old-fashioned gay novel. In the tradition of Edmund White, Mr. Greenwell tells a very personal story. And like Mr. White, Mr. Greenwell doesn’t shy away from sex. Sexuality isn’t incidental to
Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs to You is a Good, Old-fashioned Gay Novel. Read More »
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
James Magruder’s Let Me See It is Exceptional. Read More »