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
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
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
In his new short story, “There’s a Small Hotel,” Andrew Holleran returns to the themes he explored in his last novel, Grief. Once again, Mr. Holleran presents us with a main character who is wrestling with lingering memories. But
Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club is an excellent book. I’m not the first to notice this. It won the Lambda Award last month and before that, Benjamin Alire Saenz’s collection of short stories won the coveted Faukner
In his new book, The Testament of Mary, Colm Toibin humanizes the Jesus story by telling it from the perspective of his Jewish mother. The Mary Mr. Toibin renders here lives her life in fear. She fears the semi-hidden
Amidst all the successes of the worldwide struggle for LGBT rights, something has undeniably been lost. What that ‘something’ is can be difficult to define, but perhaps the best word for it might simply be, “sleaze.” The etymology of the
It takes courage today to write a novel with a first person narrator who is bisexual. In this politically correct age, there is bound to be a pitfall, a mistake, an offense made–perhaps unintentionally. It is remarkable that John Irving