Pride is Every Month: LGBTQ Reads
Love is love in #42
Here’s the thing about book content: it is everywhere, and plentiful, and yet, like all cultural things, it seems like the same books pop up over and over for the same few weeks and then are gone, right? (Yes, hello, apparently I’m explaining the process of book promotion to you, you’re welcome.)
And a reader can’t go anywhere in June without running into new and beloved LGBTQ titles that then pretty much seem to disappear in July in favor of beach reads. Which is - wonderful for June! But what about the rest of the months? And, control-X control-V for Black History Month, or Women’s History Month … you get me. That feels wrong.
And though I generally try to mix in diverse authors throughout every set of recommendations, it’s also fun to spotlight authors and topics in a group to remind us all (me, especially) that reading a range of voices and topics can only be a good thing. Unless it’s business books, you KNOW how I feel about those. Be an HBR article, already, business books.
In other words, September, October, June and every other month should be pride month! Let’s read, queens!
I heard an entire Fresh Air interview about Punch Me Up to the Gods and yet I still was not remotely prepared for how powerful this memoir would be. (I never doubted you, Terry Gross! #TEAMTERRY4EVA) This memoir, about growing up Black, gay and poor in rural Ohio and his subsequent young adulthood struggling with addiction, will take your breath away from the violence and sadness and poetry. All the words like “powerful” or “heartbreaking” or “searing” feel equally histrionic and insufficient; you’ll be left staggered by his unsentimental writing about the cruelties he faced and the fluttering beauty of hope in the face of it.
A similarly gorgeous and devastating memoir from the archives: How We Fight for Our Lives
If you’re looking for your long (US) weekend read, look no further than The Guncle. Aging TV star Patrick (AKA “Gay Uncle Patrick”) has withdrawn to his Palm Springs house and plans to stay there, until he’s unexpectedly called upon to take his young niece and nephew for the summer. Hijinks and heart-bursting sweetness ensue, with all the witty Palm Springs repartee you might expect and more depth than the cover would intimate. Plus, I’m a sucker for adult characters speaking to kids like they’re jaded adults (a specific niche of reading, I know, but I stand by it.) A cute summer read!
A similar joy from the archives: The House in the Cerulean Sea
Less is one of those books I confess that I struggled with a bit in the reading but by the end really admired. It’s the story of an aging, marginally successful novelist who is trying to escape his ex’s wedding by traveling around the world to a number of half-baked, often humiliating literary events. The satire of this book is such that at first it seems the main character - vain, desperate - is the butt of the joke, but by the end there’s so much heart, lovely reflection on aging, and sharp wit, that it really sings.
For more queer artists but with a literary, hilarious, raunchy and heartbreaking spin, check the archive for one of my favorites: Plays Well With Others
And here’s a wild card suggestion for the teens in your life - Felix Ever After is the story of 17-year-old Felix Love, a trans boy grappling with first love, college plans, friendships and a family coming to terms with his transition. It’s sweet and messy in the way that teens are, but it’s probably really YA-for-YA. It’s not one adults *need* to read but an important voice and story for a lot of questioning teens and the people who love them.
Better YA for Adults from the archives: Red, White, and Royal Blue
And an archive LGBTQ lightning round:
Tales of the City: a serial page turner about decades in a SF apartment house
Detransition, Baby: like no gender/parenthood meditation I’ve ever encountered
A Little Life: majestic and devastating
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: glamorous, dramatic
In the Dream House: an experimentally heady pastiche of queer stories
Confessions:
From this week’s theme, I couldn’t finish The Argonauts and I’m lukewarm about On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (spectacular writing but we get it, everything is terrible). Did you love them?
The next two weeks of newsletters will be archival re-re-remixes while Your Weekend Reading takes a little time off. But I’ll drop in a few new suggestions for you, just to keep it fresh, and I’ll be back with new takes before you know it.
All links go to Bookshop.org which isn’t really a confession, but something you should know anyway, because it supports independent bookstores and that’s rad. Also this week I learned that, amidst all the supply chain shortages, new books are under pressure. So if you’re planning any holiday book gifting, why not start making some pre-orders?