BY Amos Lassen
It is not always easy to narrow my monthly book list down to just 10, because there is so much being published. What I have tried to do is a give a list that includes all genres and enough variety that everyone can find something here to read. The books are listed in no particular order although I cannot recommend Edmund White's new book enough. It is no wonder he is regarded so highly in literary circles.
White's Jack Holmes and His Friend (Bloomsbury Publishers) is a wonderfully crafted story of a relationship between a straight man and a gay man during the sexual revolution in America. Jack Holmes is in love with Will Wright, but Will cannot return the feeling. This is a story about different classes and differing sexualities that is so beautifully written that I found myself wanting to dwell on every page. White lets us see how he perceives America through wonderfully drawn characters, and if you have read White you know that he is a master. His narrative is amazing as he explores both sensibility and sexuality. Even though this appeared on my December list, I have included it again simply because it is so wonderful. It is now one of my all-time favorite books.
Don Weise, founder of Magnus Books, gives us an anthology about gay Buddhists. Perfect Light consists of 22 essays that cover the range of gay life and especially deals with gay Buddhists. We learn about spirituality and sex and how these work in the Buddhist framework and learn a great deal about the nature of spirituality.
Luminosity, by Mark Henderson, is a look at the male body through the photographs of Henderson. Each and every page is beautiful and sensual and this is just a wonderful book.
We will finally get to see Tony Kushner's five one-act plays in print. Tony Kushner: Five One-Act Plays (Theater Communications Group) are the latest output from one of the most important writers for the American theater and for our community. Kushner's Angels in America wowed us and brought him the Pulitzer Prize and several Tony Awards. Now in shorter works, Kushner is just as relevant. The plays included are Flip Flop Fly!; Terminating or Sonnet LXXV or Lass Meine Schmerzen Nicht Verloren Sein or Ambivalence; East Coast Ode to Howard Jarvis: a little teleplay in tiny monologues; Dr. Arnold A. Hutschnecker in Paradise; and Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy.
Alan Hollinghurst's new novel, The Stranger's Child (Knopf), has been highly awaited and it was, indeed, worth the wait. Set in 1913, Cecil Valance, a young aristocratic poet goes to stay with George Sawle, a friend from his college days at Cambridge. What follows is a plot that will have you turning pages as fast as you can to find out about what happened during that weekend visit.
One of the most beautiful books now available is Treasures of Gay Art from the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation edited by Peter Weirmair (All Saints Press). It is erotic and filled with masterpiecesand it provides a basic collection of erotic gay art. The collection was first shown in 1968 and became a foundation dedicated to the preserving of art in 1990. The book is divided into paintings, drawings and sculpture and one of the highlights is a look at some very erotic Warhol.
The first book to cover all of LGBT history from 1492 through the present is Michael Bronski's A Queer History of the United States (Beacon Press). It is wonderfully readable and looks at the way we understand the history of the United States. The LGBT population moves from the margins to the mainstream and we see that the history of this country also is our history.
The Cambridge Companion to Gay and Lesbian Writing (Cambridge University Press) edited by Hugh Stevens concentrates on the last 20 years and shows how our literature has influenced the overall literary scene. Each chapter shows key concepts by using literary texts and we get a broad overview of the literature of our community. All main authors can be found here and the book has a wonderful chronology and an introduction about the diversity of what we read and write.
Garrett Graham's The Gay State: The Quest for an Independent Gay Nation-State and What it Means to Conservatives and the World's Religions (iUniverse) gives us an outline of 3,000 years of the abuse heaped unto homosexualsusually because of organized religion. He proposes the idea of a gay state and feels that the people of the world are now ready to receive such an entity. If this were to happen we would have our rightful place in the world and be equal to all. While the idea may sound radical, there is something to be learned from this book and it is guaranteed to make you think.
Craig Moreau is a new poet and his first book, Chelsea Boy, Chelsea Station Editions looks at how he was transformed when he moved from Iowa to New York City. He became a "Chelsea Boy" and he shares with us what he has gained and what he has lost and exactly what the stereotype type means. The poetry moves beyond Chelsea to Fire Island and Midtown, Miami Beach and even San Francisco and we see that you can take the boy out of Chelsea but … . The poems are playful and erotic and tell us about the way we liveand to me that is what counts.
Finally we have Chulito (Magnus Books) by Charles Rice-Gonzalez, the story of a young man in Manhattan as he comes of age and comes out. I know what you are thinking, "not another one," but this is not just another one. Chulito is one of the boys that the neighborhood watched grow and he had many friends. When he realizes who he is, he deals with it in a way that causes him the loss of nothing. There is no collision between two different worlds and Chulito shows us how to do that. This is the first book from Gonzalez-Rice. Keep your eyes on him; I think he is going to be very big.