Book picks similar to
Hornito: My Lie Life by Mike Albo
fiction
lgbt
queer
gay
Patience & Sarah
Isabel Miller - 1969
Ultimately, they are forced to make life-changing decisions that depend on their courage and their commitment to one another.First self-published in 1969 (titled A Place for Us) in an edition of 1,000 copies, the author hand-sold the book on New York street corners; it garnered increasing attention to the point of receiving the American Library Association's first Gay Book Award in 1971. McGraw-Hill's version of the book a year later brought it to mainstream bookstores across the country.Patience & Sarah is a historical romance whose drama was a touchstone for the burgeoning gay and women's activism of the 1960s and early 1970s. It celebrates the joys of an uninhibited love between two strong women with a confident defiance that remains relevant today.Features an appendix of supplementary materials about Patience & Sarah and the author, as well as an introduction by acclaimed novelist Emma Donoghue.
Light Fell
Evan Fallenberg - 2007
Twenty years have passed since Joseph left behind his entire life—his wife Rebecca, his five sons, his father, and the religious Israeli farming community where he grew up—when he fell in love with a man, the genius rabbi Yoel Rosenzweig. Their affair is long over, but its echoes continue to reverberate through the lives of Joseph, Rebecca, and their sons in ways that none of them could have predicted. Now, for his fiftieth birthday, Joseph is preparing to have his five sons and the daughter-in-law he has never met spend the Sabbath with him in the Tel Aviv penthouse that he shares with a man—who is conveniently out of town that weekend. This will be the first time Joseph and all his sons will be together in nearly two decades. The boys’ lives have taken widely varying paths. While some have become extremely religious, another is completely cosmopolitan and secular, and their feelings toward their father range from acceptance to bitter resentment. As they prepare for this reunion, Joseph, his sons, and even Rebecca, must confront what was, what is, and what could have been. Evan Fallenberg is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, and has since 1985 lived in Israel, where he is a writer, teacher, and translator. His recent translations include novels by Batya Gur and Meir Shalev. He is a graduate of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the Vermont College MFA program. He is the father of two sons.
Pins
Jim Provenzano - 1999
Set in Little Falls, New Jersey in 1993, PINS weaves the classic story of a Catholic saint into a compelling modern life -and near-death- account of Joey Nicci, a fifteen-year-old Italian-American wrestler. After befriending Donald "Dink" Kohrs, Joey and his new posse get involved in pranks and partying that eventually get out of control, resulting in the death of a maligned fellow teammate. The ensuing legal battle and media frenzy alter Joey's life and his self- perception as a gay teenager while shattering his fragile love for fellow teammate Dink. Like his patron saint, his battle against his own teammates forces him to suffer for his beliefs. His survival becomes a literary miracle. A compelling story of a loving yet confused family, coaches and teachers struggling with multiple issues of violence and homophobia amid the clan-like world of teenage athletes, PINS brings together elements now frighteningly common in the media; bullying jocks, assaults on weaker students, faculty and families unwittingly allowing such behavior
Moffie
André Carl van der Merwe - 2006
Try as he may, he cannot live up to the macho image expected of him by his family, by his heritage. At the age of 19 he is conscripted into the South African army and finds his every sensibility offended by a system close to its demise, and yet still in full force. Author André Carl van der Merwe transports the reader into this young man’s world with evocative realism - sometimes heart-rending, sometimes with humour, always with brush strokes of hope. This is a long overdue story about the emotional and physical suffering endured by countless young men."
The Painting of Porcupine City
Ben Monopoli - 2011
His coworker Fletcher Bradford is looking for a heaven spot of his own, and his is even more elusive. Out since age 12, Fletcher's been around more blocks than Mateo has ever painted. He's dated all the jerks, all the creeps, all the losers in between. At 26 he's decided the only way to meet a nice guy is just never to give him a chance to prove otherwise. When he's introduced to Mateo, Fletcher expects to add another notch to his bedpost. But Mateo is different--and from him Fletcher will rediscover a long-lost feeling: surprise. What Fletcher finds in the trunk of Mateo's car will change his life in ways he never imagined--and may help him find what he's always wanted.From the author of THE CRANBERRY HUSH comes an epic story spanning years and hemispheres and miles of painted walls. At times sexy and sweet, gritty and gut-wrenching, THE PAINTING OF PORCUPINE CITY takes readers along with Mateo and Fletcher on an adventure through the subways of Boston to the towers of São Paulo. Are you in?
Leading Men
Christopher Castellani - 2019
Their encounter will go on to alter all of their lives.Ten years later, Frank revisits the tempestuous events of that fateful summer from his deathbed in Manhattan, where he waits anxiously for Tennessee to visit him one final time. Anja, now legendary film icon Anja Bloom, lives as a recluse in the present-day U.S., until a young man connected to the events of 1953 lures her reluctantly back into the spotlight after he discovers she possesses the only surviving copy of Williams's final play.What keeps two people together and what breaks them apart? Can we save someone else if we can't save ourselves? Like The Master and The Hours, Leading Men seamlessly weaves fact and fiction to navigate the tensions between public figures and their private lives. In an ultimately heartbreaking story about the burdens of fame and the complex negotiations of life in the shadows of greatness, Castellani creates an unforgettable leading lady in Anja Bloom and reveals the hidden machinery of one of the great literary love stories of the twentieth-century.
Finlater
Shawn Stewart Ruff - 2008
Cliffy, black, and Noah, Jewish, are teens of their time, segregated by neighborhood, skin color and opportunity, yet neither boy has ever had a friend like the other.
Children of the Sun
Max Schaefer - 2010
It’s an environment in which he must hide his sexuality, in which every encounter is potentially deadly.2003: James is a young writer, living with his boyfriend. In search of a subject, he begins looking into the Far Right in Britain and its secret gay membership. He becomes particularly fascinated by Nicky Crane, one of the leaders of the neo-Nazi movement who came out in 1992 before dying a year later of AIDS.The two narrative threads of this extraordinarily assured and ambitious first novel follow Tony through the seventies, eighties, and nineties, as the nationalist movement splinters and weakens; and James through a year in which he becomes dangerously immersed in his research. After risky flirtations with individuals on far right websites, he starts receiving threatening phone calls—the first in a series of unexpected events that ultimately cause the lives of these two very different men to unforgettably intersect.Children of the Sun is a work of great imaginative sympathy and range—a novel of unblinking honesty but also of deep feeling, which illuminates the surprisingly thin line that separates aggression from tenderness.
Jews Queers Germans
Martin Duberman - 2017
All five men are primarily homosexual, though they handle their erotic orientation in very different ways. Where Rathenau remains utterly closeted, Kessler feels free to bring his youthful working-class lover to the privileged soirées of the aristocracy, and the roustabout Röhm openly cavorts int he gay bathhouses and bars. Though Prince von Eulenburg, in contrast, is discretion itself, his enemies are hell-bent on his downfall; their intrigues culminate in the notorious trial of 1907 - at which Magnus Hirschfeld gives "expert" witness - that produces worldwide shock and titillation.The drama of these astonishing lives plays out against the rich tapestry of a period in human istory in which the remnants and artifices of a moribund society contend with the rise of revolutionary insurgencies, international antagonisms, and a surge of innovation in the arts, sciences - and self-knowledge.
Inferno (A Poet's Novel)
Eileen Myles - 2008
And that’s heaven.”—poet, essayist and performer Eileen Myles’ chronicle transmits an energy and vividness that will not soon leave its readers. Her story of a young female writer, discovering both her sexuality and her own creative drive in the meditative and raucous environment that was New York City in its punk and indie heyday, is engrossing, poignant, and funny. This is a voice from the underground that redefines the meaning of the word.
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.
City Of Night
John Rechy - 1963
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."
Maurice
E.M. Forster - 1971
In order to be true to himself, he goes against the grain of society’s often unspoken rules of class, wealth, and politics.Forster understood that his homage to same-sex love, if published when he completed it in 1914, would probably end his career. Thus, Maurice languished in a drawer for fifty-seven years, the author requesting it be published only after his death (along with his stories about homosexuality later collected in The Life to Come).Since its release in 1971, Maurice has been widely read and praised. It has been, and continues to be, adapted for major stage productions, including the 1987 Oscar-nominated film adaptation starring Hugh Grant and James Wilby.
Blue Boy
Rakesh Satyal - 2009
A boy who doesn't quite understand his lot--until he realizes he's a god. . . As an only son, Kiran has obligations--to excel in his studies, to honor the deities, to find a nice Indian girl, and, above all, to make his mother and father proud--standard stuff for a boy of his background. If only Kiran had anything in common with the other Indian kids besides the color of his skin. They reject him at every turn, and his cretinous public schoolmates are no better. Cincinnati in the early 1990s isn't exactly a hotbed of cultural diversity, and Kiran's not-so-well-kept secrets don't endear him to any group. Playing with dolls, choosing ballet over basketball, taking the annual talent show way too seriously. . .the very things that make Kiran who he is also make him the star of his own personal freak show. . .Surrounded by examples of upstanding Indian Americans--in his own home, in his temple, at the weekly parties given by his parents' friends--Kiran nevertheless finds it impossible to get the knack of "normalcy." And then one fateful day, a revelation: perhaps his desires aren't too earthly, but too divine. Perhaps the solution to the mystery of his existence has been before him since birth. For Kiran Sharma, a long, strange trip is about to begin--a journey so sublime, so ridiculous, so painfully beautiful, that it can only lead to the truth. . ."The best fiction reminds us that humanity is much, much larger than our personal world, our own little reality. Blue Boy shows us a world too funny and sad and sweet to be based on anything but the truth." --Chuck PalahniukNew York Times Bestselling Author