American Studies


Mark Merlis - 1994
    An amazing first novel, a beautifully written work of historical fiction ( Lambda Book Review), American Studies tells the story of 62-year-old Reeve who, as he recovers from a brutal beating, recalls the troubled and closeted world of his former mentor, a once-famous professor who was driven to suicide during the McCarthy era.

Kept Boy


Robert Rodi - 1996
    Which, in his characters' vernacular, means he's a total scream.Having made a career of deconstructing the denizens of the modern gay world, Robert Rodi now turns his hand to -- and twists the knife in -- yet another gay archetype: the kept boy.Dennis Racine is 31, but looks 23...which might be considered his good fortune, except that even 23 is a bit old for his chosen profession: pampered "companion" to the fiftyish, filthy rich Chicago theatrical impresario Farleigh Nock (a.k.a. "the Papp of the Provinces"). In fact, Farleigh has lately become so resistant to Dennis's charms that he's conferred the ultimate indignity on him: demanding that he get a job.Dennis proves himself astonishingly unemployable, then learns that his old job is in peril as well; for Farleigh's affections have been snared by the lithe young pool boy Jasper Moran. When Jasper is promoted from chlorination duties to directing Farleigh's production of Lady Windermere's Fan, Dennis knows he's in danger of losing his place in Farleigh's life (not to mention his Last Will and Testament).Lending him a hand in a spirit of common cause are his two best friends. Lonnie Roach is the kept boy of an ancient gossip columnist; Paulette Ng is retained by a member of Congress whose anonymity she protects by referring to him only as "the Spanker of the House".Together they devise a plan to whisk Farleigh away from Jaspers influence, landing him in Greece, where Dennis can re-seduce him in exotic privacy. The scheme provokes bigger repercussions than Dennis ever expected and he finds himself fighting for his man -- and his man's legacy-- more fiercely than ever before, aided only by two Iowa co-eds and a maniacal Santorini grandmother.His satiric eye sharper than ever, but never straying from the deep humanity that makes his characters and stories so appealing, Robert Rodi once again delivers a fabulous, unforgettable farce of the kind that has made him so enduringly popular.

The Sparsholt Affair


Alan Hollinghurst - 2017
    Handsome, charismatic, a powerful athlete and oarsman, David Sparsholt seems at first unaware of the effect he has on others--especially on the lonely and romantic Evert Dax, son of a celebrated novelist, himself also destined to become a writer. While the Blitz rages in London, Oxford exists at a strange remove from the action: a place of transience and uncertainty, the fears and rigors of the blackout both encouraging and concealing unexpected liaisons. Between these two young men of very different backgrounds an unusual friendship develops, one whose consequences will unfold over the many years that follow.Alan Hollinghurst's masterly new novel evokes the intimate lives of three generations of Sparsholts in a sequence of vividly rendered episodes: a childhood holiday in Cornwall; eccentric social gatherings at the Dax family home; the adventures of David's son Johnny, in pursuit of love and a career as a painter in 1970s London. Changes in taste, morality, and private life are explored in a group portrait of friends brought together by art, literature, and love. Champions of the Modern live to see modernity itself becoming history, while more personal, life-changing crises and scandals--including that which gives this novel its title--recede into the past, leaving their ambiguous traces. And as gay men and women live in increasing freedom and openness, and the gay scene evolves into new forms and possibilities, The Sparsholt Affair becomes a meditation on human transience, even as it expresses the countervailing longing for permanence and continuity.Witty, tender, epic in scope yet rich in observation, The Sparsholt Affair is a dazzling new work of fiction by a writer justly hailed by the Wall Street Journal as "one of the best novelists at work today."

How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater


Marc Acito - 2004
    Seventeen-year-old Edward Zanni, a feckless Ferris Bueller–type, is Peter Panning his way through a carefree summer of magic and mischief. The fun comes to a halt, however, when Edward’s father remarries and refuses to pay for Edward to study acting at Juilliard.Edward’s truly in a bind. He’s ineligible for scholarships because his father earns too much. He’s unable to contact his mother because she’s somewhere in Peru trying to commune with Incan spirits. And, as a sure sign he’s destined for a life in the arts, Edward’s incapable of holding down a job. So he turns to his loyal (but immoral) misfit friends to help him steal the tuition money from his father, all the while practicing for his high school performance of Grease. Disguising themselves as nuns and priests, they merrily scheme their way through embezzlement, money laundering, identity theft, forgery, and blackmail. But, along the way, Edward also learns the value of friendship, hard work, and how you’re not really a man until you can beat up your father—metaphorically, that is.How I Paid for College is a farcical coming-of-age story that combines the first-person tone of David Sedaris with the byzantine plot twists of Armistead Maupin. It is a novel for anyone who has ever had a dream or a scheme, and it marks the introduction to an original and audacious talent.

The Object of My Affection


Stephen McCauley - 1987
    They share a cozy, cluttered Brooklyn apartment, a taste for impromptu tuna casserole dinners, and a devotion to ballroom dancing lessons at Arthur Murray. They love each other. There's only one hitch: George is gay. And when Nina announces she's pregnant, things get especially complicated. Howard -- Nina's overbearing boyfriend and the baby's father -- wants marriage. Nina wants independence. George will do anything for a little unqualified affection, but is he ready to become an unwed surrogate dad? A touching and hilarious novel about love, friendship, and the many ways of making a family.

Outtakes of A Walking Mistake


Anthony Paull - 2011
    old boy named Tyler Morris, who auditions for a student film to win the heart of Billy Greske, the school's celebrity thespian. The plan seems promising until Tyler’s bipolar best friend Jenny offers love advice and a local skater takes interest in Tyler as well. Furthering complications, Tyler's estranged mother, a clairvoyant circus clown, returns home to win back the love of her family.

New Boy


William Sutcliffe - 1996
    "Sutcliffe has managed to pull off a worthy British companion to Portnoy's Complaint" Jay Rayner,Observer "Well-written,clever and very funny" Literary Review "Smart,entertaining stuff...somewhere between Adrian Mole and Holden Caulfield" Philip Hensher,Mail on Sunday

Breakfast with Scot


Michael Downing - 1999
    But when eleven-year-old Scot's mother suddenly dies, the couple is determined to make good on a wine-soaked promise made years before. They hang a tire swing in the back yard and call the neighborhood school to arrange enrollment. Scot arrives just in time to start fifth grade—with a pair of lacy white socks in his duffel bag. With wry dialogue, frothy characters, and an offbeat plot, Michael Downing's mastery reaches new heights of brilliance in Breakfast with Scot.About the Author:Michael Downing is the author of the novels Perfect Agreement, Mother of God, and A Narrow Time. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Father of Frankenstein


Christopher Bram - 1995
    This is a novel by the author of Hold Tight.

Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders


Samuel R. Delany - 2011
    Delany is not only one of the most profound and courageous writers at work today, he is a writer of seemingly limitless range."—Michael CunninghamA vast river of a novel alive with explicit sexuality and the richness of life itself, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders concerns a gay, working-class, interracial relationship. In 2007, just before Eric's seventeenth birthday, his father brings him to Diamond Harbor, a failing tourist town on the Georgia coast, to live with his mother. There Eric meets nineteen-year-old Morgan Haskell, who works with his father, Dynamite Haskell, and the two boys soon join their lives—and their bodies—together on the coast as a couple over the next seventy-five years.The author of more than forty books, Samuel R. Delany is a novelist and critic whose novel Dhalgren has sold over a million copies. He is a recipient of the William Whitehead Memorial Award for a Lifetime Contribution to Gay and Lesbian Writing and the Lambda Literary Pioneer Award. He is a professor of English and creative writing at Temple University in Philadelphia.

The Coming Storm


Paul Russell - 1999
    Russell's award-winning novel is the story of four interlocking lives - Louis Tremper, the headmaster at the Forge School; his wife Claire; Tracey Parker, a 25-year old gay man and recently hired teacher at the Forge School; and Noah Lathrop III, a troubled student; all of whom struggle with their own inner demons, desires, and conflicted loyalties. When Tracey and Noah become involved in an illicit relationship, dark incidents from the school's past begin colliding with the current growing confusion that all of them must face. Compelling and poignant, this is the finest work yet from one of the best contemporary American novelists.

Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall


Neil Bartlett - 1990
    In a dark corner of the best bar in the city, two lovers fall into each other's arms. The bar has been called many names, but it is now known simply as The Bar. Its proprietor is the aging, still glamourous Madame. Its clientele is gay. The two who fall in love are Boy, a beautiful nineteen-year-old, and the handsome, forty-something "Older Man" referred to as "O" by the regulars of The Bar. This is the story of Boy's and O's courtship and marriage, of Madame's role in the affair, and of the man called "Father," who threatens to come between them. Searingly honest in its deception of gay culture and ritual, this gripping novel is at once a moving celebratiion of love and a stark picture of life for gay men today.

Franny, the Queen of Provincetown


John Preston - 1983
    With genuine caring and concern for her boys, Franny looks after the gay men of Provincetown with the ultimate goal of making a place in the world for those who don't belong and making the world better for all.

Plays Well with Others


Allan Gurganus - 1997
    Through his eyes we encounter the composer Robert Christian Gustafson, an Iowa preacher's son whose good looks constitute both a mythic draw and a major limitation, and Angelina "Alabama" Byrnes, a failed deb, five feet tall but bristling with outsized talent.  These friends shelter each other, promote each other's work, and compete erotically.  When tragedy strikes, this circle grows up fast, somehow finding, at the worst of times, the truest sort of family.Funny and heartbreaking, as eventful as Dickens and as atmospheric as one of Fitzgerald's parties, Plays Well with Others combines a fable's high-noon energy with an elegy's evening grace.  Allan Gurganus's celebrated new novel is a lovesong to imperishable friendship, a hymn to a brilliant and now-vanished world.

Perfect Freedom


Gordon Merrick - 1982
    Tropez -- dapper American expatriate Stuart Cosling, his ravishing French wife Helene, and their stunningly handsome son Robbie. To his parents, Robbie was still a boy, but in the spring of 1938, on a cruise of the Greek islands, Robbie discovered the pleasures of manhood. It wasn't until a certain season in St. Tropez that Robbie discovered the endless passion that comes only once with first love.