Beyond the Pale


Elana Dykewomon - 1997
    The richly textured novel details Gutke Gurvich’s odyssey from her apprenticeship as a midwife in a Russian shtetl to her work in the suffrage movement in New York. Interwoven with her tale is that Chava Meyer, who was attended by Gurvich at her birth and grew up to survive the pogrom that took the lives of her parents. Throughout the book, historical background plays a large part: Jewish faith and traditions, the practice of midwifery, the horrific conditions in prerevolutionary Russia and New York sweatshops, and the determined work of labor unionists and suffragists.

What Runs Over


Kayleb Rae Candrilli - 2017
    Unfurling and unrelenting in its delivery, Candrilli has painted “the mountain” in excruciating detail. They show readers a world of Borax cured bear hides and canned peaches, of urine-filled Gatorade bottles and the syringe and all the syringe may carry. They show a violent world and its many personas. What Runs Over, too, is a story of rural queerness, of a transgender boy almost lost to the forest. The miracle of What Runs Over is that Candrilli has lived to write it at all."When Roethke said 'energy is the soul of poetry,' he might have been anticipating a book like What Runs Over, which is so full of energy it practically vibrates in your hand. Here, Candrilli’s speaker sticks their tongue 'into the heads / of venus fly traps just to feel the bite,' then later, burns holy books in the backyard and rolls around in the ashes until they become 'a painted god.' This is the verve of an urgent new poetic voice announcing itself to the world. As Candrilli writes: 'This is what I look like / when I’m trying to save myself.'"-Kaveh Akbar

The Rabbi of 84th Street: The Extraordinary Life of Haskel Besser


Warren Kozak - 2004
    Always wearing an easy smile, Hasidic rabbi Haskel Besser spreads joy wherever he goes, enriching the lives of his many friends and congregants with his profound understanding of both Orthodox Judaism and humannature.With warmth and admiration, journalist Warren Kozak writes about the rabbi's extraordinary life—from his family's escape to Palestine in the late 1930s to his witnessing of Israel's rebirth in 1948, to his move to New York City, where he lives today.A rare window into the normally closed world of Hasidic Jews, The Rabbi of 84th Street is also the story of Judaism in the twentieth century; of the importance of centuries-old traditions; and of the triumph of faith, kindness, and spirit.

Cool for You


Eileen Myles - 2000
    The New York Times Book Review said the author has "an exquisite sense of the borderline where people hide or are transformed according to luck or will---undramatically rich writing." Dorothy Allison said, "Eileen Myles is a genius!"

Holocaust


Charles Reznikoff - 1975
    His source materials are the U.S. government's record of the trials of the Nazi criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal and the transcripts of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. Except for the twelve part titles, none of the words here are Reznikoff's own: instead he has created, through selection, arrangement, and the rhythms of the testimony set as verse on the page, a poem of witness by the perpetrators and the survivors of the Holocaust. He lets the terrible history unfold--in history's own words.

Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman


Abby Stein - 2019
    Stein was born as the first son in a dynastic rabbinical family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. But Abby felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. She suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to smuggled secular examinations of faith. Finally, she orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood to mainstream femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family, her way of life. Powerful in the truths it reveals about biology, culture, faith, and identity, Becoming Eve poses the enduring question: How far will you go to become the person you were meant to be?

The Beautiful: Collected Poems


Michelle Tea - 2003
    A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2004 and a Lambda Literary Award finalist.

Stone Butch Blues


Leslie Feinberg - 1993
    Stone Butch Blues traces a propulsive journey, powerfully evoking history and politics while portraying an extraordinary protagonist full of longing, vulnerability, and working-class grit. This once-underground classic takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride of gender transformation and exploration and ultimately speaks to the heart of anyone who has ever suffered or gloried in being different.

Kissing Dead Girls


Daphne Gottlieb - 2007
    Fusing pornography and postfeminist theory, transcript and tell-all, these playful, penetrating poems and stories reach off the page in search of what it is to be known, both to the masses and to the "Other."

All I Love and Know


Judith Frank - 2014
    Opposites in many ways, they have grown together and made their relationship work. But when they learn that Daniel's twin brother and sister-in-law have been killed in a bombing in Jerusalem, their lives are suddenly, utterly transformed.In dealing with their families and the need to make a decision about who will raise the deceased couple's two children, both Matthew and Daniel are confronted with challenges that strike at the very heart of their relationship. What is Matthew's place in an extended family that does not completely accept him or the commitment he and Daniel have made? How do Daniel's questions about his identity as a Jewish man affect his life as a gay American? Tensions only intensify when they learn that the deceased parents wanted Matthew and Daniel to adopt the children-six year old Gal, and baby Noam.The impact this instant new family has on Matthew, Daniel, and their relationship is subtle and heartbreaking, yet not without glimmers of hope. They must learn to reinvent and redefine their bond in profound, sometimes painful ways. What kind of parents can these two men really be? How does a family become strong enough to stay together and endure? And are there limits to honesty or commitment-or love?

The Dyke and the Dybbuk


Ellen Galford - 1993
    When lightning strikes and Kokos is released, she finds herself in the world of the 20th century -- as the disgruntled employee of the multinational corporation, Mephistco. In order to keep her job and fulfill an ancient curse, Kokos must hunt down the descendant of the woman she was instructed to haunt centuries ago. No easy task, as that descendant happens to be Rainbow Rosenbloom -- London taxi-driver, film critic, lesbian, and niece to a pack of formidable aunts.As the hilarious tale unfolds, both Rainbow and her dybbuk discover that History still holds a few tricks up her sleeve.

Butch Geography


Stacey Waite - 2013
    LGBT Studies. In her Los Angeles Review of Books essay "Who Is Who: Pronouns, Gender, and Merging Selves," Dana Levin describes Stacey Waite's fusion of gender identities: "Pseudonyms, heteronyms, personae, all the ventriloquizing literary arts; point of view and tonal shifts: these are tools for speakers and speaking. But the sentence too has a voice: 'i will not be the kind of boy who can not bear the memory of her body'... This is [Waite's] genius...to take innocuous syntactical phrasing and change the players mid-sentence--to get around English's pronominal either/or by creating a syntactical both/and...."

Out of the Closet and Nothing to Wear


Lesléa Newman - 1997
    Based on her popular column, which ran in lesbian and gay periodicals across the country, this series of fictional comedy/adventures stars femme author Leslea Newman and her beloved butch, Flash.

Angels in America


Tony Kushner - 1993
    Prior is a man living with AIDS whose lover Louis has left him and become involved with Joe, an ex-Mormon and political conservative whose wife, Harper, is slowly having a nervous breakdown. These stories are contrasted with that of Roy Cohn (a fictional re-creation of the infamous American conservative ideologue who died of AIDS in 1986) and his attempts to remain in the closet while trying to find some sort of personal salvation in his beliefs.

Diving Into the Wreck


Adrienne Rich - 1973
    / The words are purposes. / The words are maps. / I came to see the damage that was done / and the treasures that prevail." These provocative poems move with the power of Rich's distinctive voice.