A year in queer books
At the start of 2020 I had a goal to read more LGBT books and watch more LGBT movies. I kicked that off with a rare book-buying splurge in January (usually I am a dedicated library patron) and then ended up tearing through every one of them by the end of April. After that it was all library e-books which is new to me, I am a die-hard paper lover. Once libraries are safe to go back to I think I will return to my papery ways.
City of Night—The classic of classics. Loved it.
Close to the Knives—I became familiar with David Wojnarowicz’s impactful and challenging art because of the Whitney retrospective History Keeps Me Awake At Night. This book felt in some ways like a distilled version of his body of visual art. A difficult read but a worthwhile one.
Confessions of the Fox—Of course I loved this book! Really, really, I loved every single page. After a while the fake-18th century prose started feeling really really fake to me, and the author-story footnotes felt gratingly done before by better (and worse) authors. But, I still loved it. This is the kind of historical fiction that we need more of.
Dancers from the Dance—I had never heard of this book or its author Andrew Holleran (for some reason my brain insists that the title of this is Dancers in the Dark hahaha) but it’s a delightful though sad read. Reading it alongside Faggots by Larry Kramer was unintentional but illuminating, like tragic and comic versions of the same story.
Death in Venice—Probably I am a philistine but I found this one too boring to get into.
Deathwatch—Interesting very short play by Jean Genet. It’s very Jean Genet, but that’s about all I can say about it.
Faggots—I did enjoy reading this although at times it felt like Kramer is coming from 1978 to shock me in 2020 and that is just never, ever going to work. This along with a handful of others on this list occupies that interesting post-Stonewall but pre-AIDS space where people really thought that being gay was about to become the cool and hip thing. Faggots talks a lot about that being the atmosphere, which feels intentionally ironic reading it today, another of Kramer’s bitter, biting jokes. But he didn’t know what was coming, and I think it’s pretty plausible that gay people could have been accepted much earlier if not for the AIDS crisis.
The Faggots and their Friends between the Revolutions—I first read this book in 2017 which was an extremely difficult year for me personally, and it was one of the few that helped me to get through it. It’s a really beautiful short read.
Gay Artists in Modern American Culture: An Imagined Conspiracy—TBH I picked this one up because the title seemed absurdly funny to me but it has actually turned out to be quite interesting! Still reading it but I am learning a lot about composers I have never heard of.
Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940—This is a pretty old book as far as gay history goes and I would be interested to know what the author thinks of it today. Really enjoyed reading it.
Gender Failure—This has been on my to-read list for years and it did not disappoint. I especially enjoyed the chapters by Rae Spoon. The chapters by Ivan Coyote were great too but they mostly concerned top surgery which was still pretty fresh in my mind at the time.
Indecent Advances—The first gay book I read this year, and it was a doozy. This and Gay New York together really helped to change my view about straight people in history. I feel like historical fiction gives the impression that because of homophobia all straight people were totally naïve to the concept of gay people really existing until like 1984. Of course, in reality homophobia was and is more immediate and practical than straight people would like us to believe.
The Maids—This was the more interesting read than Deathwatch which was in the same volume. Genet has an interesting take on gender roles vis-a-vis other types of roles.
Maurice—I have never liked anything I read by E. M. Forster but this was an exception.
The Metoidioplasty Diaries—This is maybe more of a zine than a book but it’s on my bookshelf so it counts. Informative read with great pictures.
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness—The only manga I have ever read before this is the great and terrible Hellsing and this was a more fun though less blood-soaked read.
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers—I had heard so much praise for this book, but the introduction was so off-putting that I put it aside for most of the year. Only just started it again and it has a lot of interesting information but I find myself constantly skeptical of the author’s interpretations.
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit—This book is mostly about religion and family issues that I didn’t really find interesting, but it’s well-written.
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl—An absolute knockout. I read this one in January and it blew me away. Truly haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I probably would have re-read it several times by now but I lent it to a friend right after finishing and then a pandemic happened.
Phallos—Fun erotic historical fiction by my favorite living author. Even though this was published in 2004 it felt very 80’s to me, or at least I found myself thinking a lot about the bathhouses and wider gay scene of midcentury New York while reading it.
Pricks in the Tapestry—Don’t tell my poet friends but I generally really am not into poetry. It’s not you, it’s me. But I absolutely loved this book. Jameson Fitzpatrick is the first really relatable poet I have ever encountered and I’m excited to see more of their stuff.
Rebent Sinner—Another by Ivan Coyote that I really enjoyed.
Sketchtasy—Weirdly I started reading this one right after watching Poison for the first time. I love Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s essay collections but I found this sort of hard to get into.
The Stonewall Reader—I can’t quite remember if I read this one in 2020 or 2019 but you should absolutely read it in 2021.
The Talented Mr. Ripley—I was expecting this book to be 100% subtlety regarding gay themes but it surprised me with its directness. Also just a fun thriller focusing on a brilliant dumbass. Made me feel like I, too, could murder someone and steal their identity. I won’t, but I could.
The Thief's Journal—Of Genet’s novels this is probably my least favorite that I have read. I had trouble keeping track of when and where things were taking place and overall it felt kind of sloppy. I still really liked it, though! Our Lady of the Flowers and Querelle are just better reads.
Tipping the Velvet—I was very impressed that this was Sarah Water’s first novel because it is extremely polished and well-plotted. Definitely will be reading more of her work.
We both Laughed in Pleasure—Beautiful, heartbreaking, made me feel very self-conscious every day when I journal. Absolutely check it out.
Why Are Faggots Afraid of Faggots?—This book really is not that old (2012) but it often felt like something out of a different time. A lot of the essays and stories were so interesting and I was kind of disappointed to find that in many cases there wasn’t anything else by the best writers in this anthology.
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name—My only criticism of this book is I wish it were longer. Audre Lorde was primarily a poet but I loved her prose so much, I wanted a full autobiography.
One thing that I am not thrilled with about this list overall is that it is very white. For 2021 I plan to prioritize non-white authors at least to some degree. I will also do a better job of tracking my reading next year because this was fun, but I basically just tried to remember every title I had read since January which was a challenge and I’m sure there’s some that are missing.
Next up: a year in queer films.