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Nick Guest has left university and summer is in full swing. It is an astonishingly vivid novel, grappling not only with the heady contours of desire, but also the disturbing consequences of shame and self-loathing.Ĭourtesy Penguin Modern Classics The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst (2004) With this looming, David recounts the trials and tumult of their love affair, and, in doing so, sketches a complex portrait of masculinity at war with itself. This terrible morning, we soon discover, marks the day of Giovanni’s execution.
Detailing the fraught relationship between American David and Italian bartender Giovanni, the former narrates the tale of their time together over a night leading “to the most terrible morning of my life”. Giovanni’s Room condenses an incredible sweep of emotion into its scant length. “Onward and upward.” Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (1956) “If Rubyfruit Jungle helped to push you on your path to freedom, I’ve done something right,” she wrote briskly. On its re-release in 2016, Brown penned a new introduction reflecting on the book’s legacy. It’s a giddy, often funny read about a wilful protagonist who is hungry for life and cares little for categories or the censure of others. I’d just say I was enchanted.’” Rita Mae Brown’s Rubyfruit Jungle made waves when it was first published in 1973 for its unapologetically raucous depiction of a “full blooded, bona fide lesbian” making her way around New York. “‘You gay?’ ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say I was gay. Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown (1973) Like her short story collection Salt Slow, this is a narrative about unstoppable metamorphosis: the mundane colliding with the haunting. Armfield’s prose is supple and atmospheric, and her observations on the minutiae and private mythology of relationships beautifully observed. Julia Armfield’s Florence Welch-approved debut is several things at once: a magnificently creepy Gothic story about the unknown terrors of the ocean a loving examination of lesbian domesticity an unsettling portrait of what happens when the person you loved remains beyond reach, even when they’re sat next to you on the sofa. When Leah returns after an unexpectedly prolonged deep-sea mission, Miri begins mourning the wife she once had.
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For an examination of LGBTQIA+ life in modern-day Nigeria told through a series of sprawling, magic realist episodes, try Eloghosa Osunde’s Vagabonds! (2022).Ĭourtesy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield (2022) Coming to terms with being a lesbian in a culture hostile to homosexuality, Okparanta skilfully weaves between resignation and revelation – unstinting in her focus on the horrors of both war and deep prejudice, while offering a fragile note of hope. A coming-of-age tale taking place against the backdrop of the Nigerian civil war, it focuses on a young Igbo woman named Ijeoma who struggles to reconcile faith, family and her sexuality. This sobering fact forms the author’s endnote in Chinelo Okparanta’s moving, sparingly written novel. In 2014, Nigeria’s then-president Goodluck Jonathan signed the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act with incredibly serious sanctions ranging from imprisonment to death. Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta (2015) For a very different slice of San Francisco, buy Armistead Maupin’s much-beloved Tales of the City series (1978-2014). After The Parade is a stunningly written book, deft in its understanding of love and alienation.
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In breaking free of all that has tethered him, Aaron finds room to unravel a complex web of trauma and loss. Relocating to San Francisco, disturbing recollections from childhood mingle with examinations of his time with Walter – a quiet, ordered man who wished “to serve as benefactor to Aaron’s wishes and ambitions, and so bind Aaron to him”. After The Parade by Lori Ostlund (2015)Īs Aaron Englund leaves his older partner after 20 years, his life packed up in the back of a truck, the past constantly infiltrates his chosen future. Think of these suggestions as a starting point – a handful of books both classic and contemporary that offer their own specific avenues into love, sex, domesticity, yearning and self-revelation.
EM Forster, Audre Lorde, Christopher Isherwood, Sarah Waters and numerous other novelists aren’t listed here, but have all written excellent fiction that has helped both shape and pluralise the stories that now make up a queer canon. For every inclusion, there is another notable absence. In fact, this list offers just a handful of the books that could have been chosen. By Marley Marius, Liam Hess, Lisa Wong Macabasco and Emma Specter
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