Fiction

Leavitt has earned high praise for his empathetic portrayal of human sexuality and the complexities of intimate relationships. In While England Sleeps, available for the first time in two years, he moves beyond precisely controlled domestic drama to create a historical novel, set against the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe, that tells a story of love and the violent chaos of war.

One of the most important works of gay literature, this haunting, brilliant novel is a seriocomic remembrance of things past -- and still poignantly present. It depicts the adventures of Malone, a beautiful young man searching for love amid New York's emerging gay scene. From Manhattan's Everard Baths and after-hours discos to Fire Island's deserted parks and lavish orgies, Malone looks high and low for meaningful companionship. The person he finds is Sutherland, a campy quintessential queen -- and one of the most memorable literary creations of contemporary fiction. Hilarious, witty, and ultimately heartbreaking, Dancer from the Dance is truthful, provocative, outrageous fiction told in a voice as close to laughter as to tears.

A literary cause célèbre when first published more than fifty years ago, Gore Vidal's now-classic The City and the Pillar stands as a landmark novel of the gay experience.Jim, a handsome, all-American athlete, has always been shy around girls. But when he and his best friend, Bob, partake in "awful kid stuff", the experience forms Jim's ideal of spiritual completion. Defying his parents’ expectations, Jim strikes out on his own, hoping to find Bob and rekindle their amorous friendship. Along the way he struggles with what he feels is his unique bond with Bob and with his persistent attraction to other men. Upon finally encountering Bob years later, the force of his hopes for a life together leads to a devastating climax. The first novel of its kind to appear on the American literary landscape, The City and the Pillar remains a forthright and uncompromising portrayal of sexual relationships between men.

Originally published in 1976, Christopher and His Kind covers the most memorable ten years in the writer's life-from 1929, when Isherwood left England to spend a week in Berlin and decided to stay there indefinitely, to 1939, when he arrived in America. His friends and colleagues during this time included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and E. M. Forster, as well as colorful figures he met in Germany and later fictionalized in his two Berlin novels-who appeared again, fictionalized to an even greater degree, in I Am a Camera and Cabaret. What most impressed the first readers of this memoir, however, was the candor with which he describes his life in gay Berlin of the 1930s and his struggles to save his companion, a German man named Heinz, from the Nazis. An engrossing and dramatic story and a fascinating glimpse into a little-known world, Christopher and His Kind remains one of Isherwood's greatest achievements. A major figure in twentieth-century fiction and the gay rights movement, Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) is the author of Down There on a Visit, Lions and Shadows, A Meeting by the River, The Memorial, Prater Violet, A Single Man, and The World in the Evening, all available from the University of Minnesota Press.

Set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin's now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.

In Close to the Knives, David Wojnarowicz gives us an important and timely document: a collection of creative essays - a scathing, sexy, sublimely humorous and honest personal testimony to the "Fear of Diversity in America." From the author's violent childhood in suburbia to eventual homelessness on the streets and piers of New York City, to recognition as one of the most provocative artists of his generation -- Close to the Knives is his powerful and iconoclastic memoir. Street life, drugs, art and nature, family, AIDS, politics, friendship and acceptance: Wojnarowicz challenges us to examine our lives -- politically, socially, emotionally, and aesthetically.

\ "What am I going to do without him?" I asked in a hollow voice, and Cope replied immediately, with great force and conviction. "Write about him, Paul," he said. "That's what you have to do."\ It's a book about LIFE and LOVE, not about death, emotional lines full of overwhelming sadness and grief and painful lost and regret and beautiful lyric and heartbreaking tenderness and touching memories...and LOVE, REAL LOVE. \ ...we never talked about dying because we were fighting so hard to stay alive.\ Paul Monette and Roger Horwitz\ No Goodbyesby Paul Monettefor hours at the end I kissed your temple strokedyour hair and sniffed it it smelled so clean we'dwashed it Saturday night when the fever brokeas if there was always the perfect thing to doto be alive for years I'd breathe your hairwhen I came to bed late it was such pure youwhy I nuzzle your brush every morning becauseyou're in there just like the dog the nightwe unpacked the hospital bag and he skippedand whimpered when Dad put on the redsweater Cover my bald spot will youyou'd say and tilt your head like a parrotso I could fix you up always alwaystill this one night when I was reduced toI love you little friend here I am mysweetest pea over and over spending all ourendearments like stray coins at a borderbut wouldn't cry then no choked it becausethey all said hearing was the last to gothe ear is like a wolf's till the very endstraining to hear a whole forest and Iwanted you loping off whatever you couldstill dream to the sound of me at 3 P.M.you were stable still our favorite wordat 4 you took the turn WAIT WAIT I AMTHE SENTRY HERE nothing passes as long asI'm where I am we go on death isa lonely hole two can leap it or elseor else there is nothing this man is minehe's an ancient Greek like me I doall the negotiating while he does battlewe are war and peace in a single bedwe wear the same size shirt it can't it can'tbe yet not this just let me brush his hairit's only Tuesday there's chicken in the fridgefrom Sunday night he ate he slept oh whydon't all these kisses rouse you I won't won'tsay it all I will say is goodnight pattinga few last strands in place you're covered nowmy darling one last graze in the meadowof you and please let your final dream bea man not quite your size losing the wholeworld but still here combing combingsinging your secret names till the night's gone\

David Leavitt's extraordinary first novel, now reissued in paperback, is a seminal work about family, sexual identity, home, and loss. Set in the 1980s against the backdrop of a swiftly gentrifying Manhattan, The Lost Language of Cranes tells the story of twenty-five-year-old Philip, who realizes he must come out to his parents after falling in love for the first time with a man. Philip's parents are facing their own crisis: pressure from developers and the loss of their longtime home. But the real threat to this family is Philip's father's own struggle with his latent homosexuality, realized only in his Sunday afternoon visits to gay porn theaters. Philip's admission to his parents and his father's hidden life provoke changes that forever alter the landscape of their worlds.

Jean Genet's seminal Our Lady Of The Flowers (1943) is generally considered to be his finest fictional work. The first draft was written while Genet was incarcerated in a French prison; when the manuscript was discovered and destroyed by officials, Genet, still a prisoner, immediately set about writing it again. It isn't difficult to understand how and why Genet was able to reproduce the novel under such circumstances, because Our Lady Of The Flowers is nothing less than a mythic recreation of Genet's past and then - present history. Combining memories with facts, fantasies, speculations, irrational dreams, tender emotion, empathy, and philosophical insights, Genet probably made his isolation bearable by retreating into a world not only of his own making, but one which he had total control over.

At the age of eight Brian Lackey is found bleeding under the crawl space of his house, having endured something so traumatic that he cannot remember an entire five–hour period of time.During the following years he slowly recalls details from that night, but these fragments are not enough to explain what happened to him, and he begins to believe that he may have been the victim of an alien encounter. Neil McCormick is fully aware of the events from that summer of 1981. Wise beyond his years, curious about his developing sexuality, Neil found what he perceived to be love and guidance from his baseball coach. Now, ten years later, he is a teenage hustler, a terrorist of sorts, unaware of the dangerous path his life is taking. His recklessness is governed by idealized memories of his coach, memories that unexpectedly change when Brian comes to Neil for help and, ultimately, the truth.

First published in 1974, The Front Runner raced to international acclaim - the first novel about gay love to become popular with mainstream. In 1975, coach Harlan Brown is hiding from his past at an obscure New York college, after he was fired from Penn State University on suspicion of being gay. A tough, lonely ex-Marine of 39, Harlan has never allowed himself to love another man. Then Billy Sive, a brilliant young runner, shows up on his doorstep. He and his two comrades, Vince Matti and Jacques LaFont, were just thrown off a major team for admitting they are gay. Harlan knows that, with proper training, Billy could go to the '76 Olympics in Montreal. He agrees to coach the three boys under strict conditions that thwart Billy's growing attraction for his mature but compelling mentor. The lean, graceful frontrunner with gold-rim glasses sees directly into Harlan's heart. Billy's gentle and open acceptance of his sexuality makes Harlan afraid to confront either the pain of his past, or the challenges which lay in wait if their intimacy is exposed. But when Coach Brown finds himself falling in love with his most gifted athlete, he must combat his true feelings for Billy or risk the outrage of the entire sports world - and their only chance at Olympic gold.

When John Rechy's explosive first novel, City of Night, was first published in 1963, it became a national bestseller and ushered in a new era of gay fiction. Bold and inventive in his account of the urban underworld of male prostitution, Rechy is equally unflinching in his portrayal of one hustling "Youngman" and his restless search for self-knowledge. As the narrator careens from El Paso to Times Square, from Pershing Square to the French Quarter, we get an unforgettable look at a neon-lit life on the edge. Said James Baldwin of the author, "Rechy is the most arresting young writer I've read in a very long time. His tone rings absolutely true, is absolutely his own; and he has the kind of discipline which allows him a rare and beautiful reckless."

I wonder why I never reviewed Faggots before? Oh, that's right, I was scared to! Because if I recommend it very strongly, which I would very much like to do, and people here actually give it a go, I might end up with swathes of people defriending me on the spot and writing rude comments on my profile. So : don't read this if you have a nervous disposition. Please! Because Larry Kramer will discombobulate your psychosexual equilibrium. He will make you boggle, along the lines of do guys really do that? followed swiftly by can guys really do that?? oh my - pass the smelling salts, Ethel.This is a pre-Aids novel which hilariously satirised fast-track New York gay life in the 70s. You laugh, you cringe, you may barf, and you end up really liking most of these guys. I mean - the fun they had! The drugs they took! But larry actually wanted them to STOP! RIGHT NOW! or at least SLOOOOW DOWWWWN. He was the lone voice saying to gay men - this hectic crazy unlimited drugs&sex&discoballs lifestyle is gonna hit a brick wall soon. Larry didn't know what the brick wall would be, he just felt it in his bones. All his pals though he was just mean old party pooper Larry. Only a few short years after Faggots was published, along came Aids, and Larry was like hate to say this guys but I told you so and they were all aw shit Larry, you so did, you jerk. So Larry became a big Aids campaigner and wrote a play called The Normal Heart which was not that good but got a lot of attention and he became a polemicist, fighting several good fights. And he's still alive!Back to Faggots. Here’s a quote from the author:"The straight world thought I was repulsive, and the gay world treated me like a traitor. People would literally turn their back when I walked by. You know what my real crime was? I put the truth in writing. That's what I do: I have told the fucking truth to everyone I have ever met."If you read this novel, which as you know I’m not sure you should, it depends, you will see why it produced such an uproar. It’s merciless. It’s excruciating. Gay men are not shown in a good light. They are shown to be shallow, vain, and like a lot of well-dressed bunny-rabbits who’ve been reading too much Marquis de Sade for their own good. I didn’t know any of this stuff when I read it, and I can see why they might want straight people not to know this stuff. These days, thirty years on from the late 70s, maybe people do know this stuff, but maybe not as well. So it still might shock. But it’s funny. It made me howl. And shudder. And howl. So, give it fifty pages. Page 47 might be the deal-breaker.

From the award-winning author of Brooklyn and The Master, a powerful, brave, and moving novel set in Argentina.In Argentina, in the time of the Generals, the streets are empty at night, and people have trained themselves not to see. Richard Garay lives with his mother, hiding his sexuality from her and from society. Stifled by his job, Richard is willing to take chances, both sexually and professionally. But Argentina is changing, and as his country edges toward peace, Richard tentatively begins a love affair. The result is a powerful, brave, and poignant novel of sex, death, and the diffculties of connecting one's inner life with the outside world.

A comical and poignant memoir of a gay man living life as he pleased in the 1930sIn 1931, gay liberation was not a movement—it was simply unthinkable. But in that year, Quentin Crisp made the courageous decision to "come out" as a homosexual. This exhibitionist with the henna-dyed hair was harassed, ridiculed and beaten. Nevertheless, he claimed his right to be himself—whatever the consequences. The Naked Civil Servant is both a comic masterpiece and a unique testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

A child of the 1950s from a small New England town, "perfect Paul" earns straight A's and shines in social and literary pursuits, all the while keeping a secret -- from himself and the rest of the world. Struggling to be, or at least to imitate, a straight man, through Ivy League halls of privilege and bohemian travels abroad, loveless intimacy and unrequited passion, Paul Monette was haunted, and finally saved, by a dream of "the thing I'd never even seen: two men in love and laughing."Searingly honest, witty, and humane, Becoming a Man is the definitive coming-out story in the classic coming-of-age genre.

Written on the Body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulation of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille. I like to keep my body rolled away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.

Boy, am I SOO enchanted with this elusive Mr. Hollinghurst! Although “The Folding Star” is definitely weaker and less “literary” than the rest (“Swimming-Pool Library,” “The Line of Beauty”), it still has that tight and elegant mechanical heart which impels the modern reader to want to just sit down to read it, badly (I myself had to actively hunt the book down: I got the original U.S. first edition for 99 cents on Ebay). Yes, this is the least best in his enviable oeuvre—but it happens to have the raunchiest scenes, the most explicit, the most inciting (!!!) Hollinghurst’s vocabulary is mad impressive, like reading a Victorian novel where all the characters become entangled/infatuated with others, all who happen to be men—the smuttiest of events are portrayed beautifully, with all details exquisite. It's like a youthful “Death in Venice”, with tragedy less present than wit (although aging IS a theme). No one else can write like this, or can depend on the gay world so profoundly for authenticity and plot; to bring out the poetry so implicit in cruisin’ European streets, in meeting young, eager lads who have but one thought uniting them in an almost-religious fervor is not an easy feat.This is as if Henry James & Tom of Finland ever got together & had a joyous, gay old time…Books like these are super hard to come by (trust me, I know). Invaluable. Always extraordinary in their originality and always wicked fun.