Classic Gay Male Lerature (207 books)

Contents:

• CLASSIC GAY MALE LERATURE
• 21 CLASSIC WORKS OF GAY LERATURE
• 13 VERY GAY AND VERY GOOD BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ THIS PRI MONTH
• GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE

CLASSIC GAY MALE LERATURE

SJ Sdu, thor of Marriage of a Thoand Li, lled , "One of the first Anglophone works to challenge the trope of the sad/suicidal gays who die at the end, this book gave a blueprt of what queer fictn uld look like.

Forster (A Passage to India, A Room Wh a View, Howards End) wrote the benchmark gay novel Mrice cir 1913, was published posthumoly a lh tale of manners, posn, and sire, the tular character meets and falls for his classmate Clive while at Oxford. The pair embark on a two-year affair until Clive leav Mrice to marry a woman and live out his proscribed life as part of the land gentry, leavg Mrice shambl and seekg to cure his Forster's novel do not end gay tragedy. The queer g-of-age novel about Jim Willard and his search for love was the first novel om a rpected wrer (Gore Vidal) to speak directly and sympathetilly about the gay experience an era when homosexualy was still very much taboo.

The book is remembered today for this legacy as well as for var them -- Hollywood's glass closet, beg gay the ary, the poisono effects of homophobia on society -- that still reverberate today. The only novel by the great Osr Wil may not be overtly gay, but there's plenty of gay subtext there for the reful rear - about as much gay subtext as a popular thor uld get away wh 's iends Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton exprs tense admiratn for his bety, and passag that show Basil's feelgs for Dorian as more clearly homoerotic were excised by an edor, acrdg to Nicholas Frankel, who eded an edn prentg Wil's origal text the text as origally published has referenc to Dorian's rptn of not only young women but young men: "There was that wretched boy the Guards who mted suici.

21 CLASSIC WORKS OF GAY LERATURE

Integral to the lbian non (spe s beg nsired somewhat problematic) Brish wrer Radclyffe Hall's 1928 novel foc on Stephen Gordon, an upper-class lbian who dons men's clothg and be a novelist who eventually be a part of a lerary salon Paris at a time when there were no overt laws exprsly barrg homosexualy. Hall's novel was groundbreakg her troductn of the views of "sexologists" Richard von Krafft-Ebg and Havelock Ellis, who posed that homosexualy was an born, unalterable tra that was nsired a ngenal sexual versn that simply meant a "difference" and not a fect. Wonrful book, " gay refugee activist and lumnist Danny Ramadan rav about the global-md book unpacks the emotnal life of a young girl displaced by the Nigerian civil war who begs a gut-wrenchg affair wh a fellow refugee.

Dalloway, a novel to which Cunngham pays homage; mid-20th-century Los Angel, hoewife Lra Brown, disntented wh her life, nonts her attractn to women; and 1990s New York Cy, Clarissa Vghan, who is lbian, plans a party for her bt iend, wrer Richard Brown, a gay man dyg of AIDS. Shared among gay iends, we uld celebrate our growg nfince and visibily wh new work om Alan Hollghurst and Jeate Wterson, velop a mp sensibily by quotg to each other l om EF Benson and Ronald Firbank, image that London uld bee the queer Ardia picted Armistead Mp’s Tal of the we moved towards assiatn the 1990s, Dennis Cooper’s Gee Mil novel cycle was a remr that sexualy was still transgrsive, that sire remaed a dark and disptive force. It’s a such a tenr moment and a remr of the kdns and nnectn that is possible between all of MenzAuthor of Rabow MilkCeremoni by Essex Hemphill (Pengu)The hugely fluential gay Ain Amerin poet Essex Hemphill died of Aids-related plitns 1995, aged 38, jt one month before the lnch of protease hibors – early antiretrovirals – which might have saved or at least prolonged his life.

13 VERY GAY AND VERY GOOD BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ THIS PRI MONTH

In the wrgs and radil cema he left behd – cludg llaboratns wh Marlon Riggs Tongu Untied (1989) and Isaac Julien Lookg for Langston (1989) – he provid subsequent generatns wh evince that we lived and loved, and of our fight agast the effects of tersectg whe supremacy, racism, homophobia and heterosexism. Brorick’s novel is an important document that dramatis hidn gay liv the Dubl of 40 years CreweDebut novel The New Life was published this yearFrank Sargon’s Collected Stori, 1935-1963 (Pengu)Frank Sargon’s short stori are nversatnal.

”Neil BartlettTheatre director, playwright and thor of novels cludg Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall and Addrs BookNocturn for the Kg of Napl by Edmund Whe (Pidor)In 1980, when I was livg a beds and “gay” was a word still largely spoken between ntemptuo verted mas, a chanced-upon newspaper review alerted me to the existence of an unknown Amerin wrer whose third book had jt ma to the UK. I very much look forward to her follow-up Brawyrms later the KayAward-wng Makar (Natnal Poet for Stland) and thor of fictn and nonfictn cludg Red Dt Road, Tmpet and Bsie SmhSister Outsir by Audre Lor (Pengu Classics)In an terview Ada Gay Griff and Michelle Parkerson’s 1995 documentary about her life, A Lany for Survival (the name of one of Lor’s semal poems), Audre Lor said prciently: “What I leave behd has a life of s own. He was the epome of the upright, public-spired, homosexual expat, nductg a distguished reer om Alexandria and Athens – two of his bt novels are about life Alexandria, wh illic passn throbbg unr the rtraed surface.

I thk only a gay man would have had the patience to observe all the character typ, and renr them wh such unfettable, tty Atherton LEssayist and thor of Gay Bar: Why We Went Out, which won the Natnal Book Crics Circle award for tobgraphyReady to Catch Him Should He Fall by Neil Bartlett (Serpent’s Tail, available on worldoarebooks)So often, boy-meets-boy narrativ take place some remote manor or tent, as if romance only occurs far om the maddg gay crowd. 21 classic works of gay lerature:Jam Baldw: “Gvanni’s Room” -- a man disvers his sexual inty ParisDjuna Barn: “Nightwood” -- early postmorn fictn of women Paris loveAlison Bechl: “Fun Home: A Fay Tragiic” -- a graphic novel memoir of her troubled gay father and her own g out, recently adapted as a Tony award-wng Broadway showRa Mae Brown: “Rubyu Jungle” -- the 1973 tale of a young woman’s g of ageWilliam S.

GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE

Burroughs: “Naked Lunch” -- the landmark experimental novel’s gay sex scen ma the foc of a breakthrough obsceny trialRichard Elmann: “Osr Wil” -- bgraphy of the lively wrer whose gay relatnship got him sent to prison for “gross cency”E.

Lynn Harris: “Invisible Life” -- an Ain Amerin law stunt’s sexual disveryAllen Gsberg: “Howl” -- the poem was subject to an obsceny trial part bee of s explic gay themJean Ge: “Our Lady of the Flowers” -- published 1944, portrays sexual adventur Paris’ crimal unrgroundAnthony M.

------------Armistead Mp: “Tal of the Cy” ma character Michael Tolliver’s life portrayed over a seri of novels set gay-iendly San FrancisPl Mote: “Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir” -- a breathtakg yet matter-of-fact, day-by-day acunt of the ath of his longtime partner om AIDSAnnie Proulx: “Brokeback Mounta” a story of wboys love, om the llectn “Close Range, ” which beme the Osr-wng filmJohn Rechy: “Cy of Night” -- a novel of gay street htlers the 1950sSappho: “The Complete Poems” -- women’s love poetry om the 7th century BCHubert Selby Jr.

Further, gay lerature also n share tras of other thematic clters of lerature, such as Femist/Femism, Native Amerin, and Ain-Amerin and such genr as tective short fictn, the ghost story, and the edy.

The gay liv of the lerary giants Virgia Woolf and Gert Ste were wily known lerary circl, yet until recently scholarship about their sexualy or any subtle gay them their work has been mimal. Although did not ga the momentum of the civil rights and women’s rights movements of the time, this marked the begng of an age when gays stopped hidg unrground and beme advot for their rights.