I was thinking about how snakes shed their skin every year, and how awesome it would be if people did that too. In a lot of ways, that's what I was trying to do. As of tomorrow, I was going to have new skin, and that skin could look like anything, would feel different than … Continue reading On Closets and Straight Gazes – Bill Konigsberg’s [Openly Straight]
Edmund White's A Boy's Own Story is a coming-of-age novel centered on the sexual awakening of a queer teenage boy in the Midwest during the 1950s. The novel discusses topics such as the corruption of innocence, the pressures of masculinity in the lives of young boys, the emergence of childhood sexuality, and the exploration of humanity through … Continue reading Queer Time in Edmund White’s [A Boy’s Own Story]
I find it so easy to get lost in the elegance and artistry of Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty. I originally planned to read this book in a day or two, but it took me a while longer simply because I was so enthralled and moved by the novel's baroque descriptions and its aesthetic focus … Continue reading Fact Versus Fiction: Alan Hollinghurst’s [The Line of Beauty]
Jeanette Winterson, author of the celebrated novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, takes a rather defensive stance when asked if she considers Oranges to be a lesbian novel. She explicitly addresses this question in her personal website by answering it in the negative: No. [Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is] for anyone interested in what happens … Continue reading What is Gay Literature? The Case of Colm Tóibín’s [The Blackwater Lightship]
