Manhunts! (Or is it Menhunt?)

Thrillers! Transitions! Barney Miller!

I think every year around this time how perfect it is that National Coming Out Day bumps right up against the anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard. For folks my age, there was perhaps no other historical moment that impacted our willingness or desire to come out more than his murder. It taught us the frustrating lesson that for us the key to acceptance and respect would always be making ourselves visible, familiar, and known. But doing so would always carry the risk of emotional pain, grievous harm, or even death.

Twenty-five years later, are we more hopeful? Matthew became the face of a movement that’s still somehow necessary now. Watch the news. We still live in a society where fundamentalist religious leaders and prominent Republican politicians continue to insist on castigating LGBTQ folks as threats. That bias extends to everyday jokes, sneers, and threats when we have to be the bigger people, the better sports, or risk harm otherwise.

Last weekend in Philadelphia was OutFest, the largest coming out celebration of its kind in the country. We celebrated the privilege of being out right now, the past sacrifices that brought us here, and future for which we’ll continue to fight. We had fun. We always do. But in the back of our minds we remember what we are forced to know: Every gay celebration is a reckoning, a vulnerable moment that is quite literally a matter of life and death.

Also, kind of related, my husband and I were walking around Ghent, Belgium the other night on vacation, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the sign for this bar and the writing underneath it. (pictured below) Moments of visible resistance like this personally give me hope. This kind of community spirit is uncrushable and will only grow stronger.

Oops, that was heavy.

In other news, there are FAR too many books I need/want to finish before the end of the year, so I'm going to need everybody to stop sending me non-book things to do. If there’s any book you feel like I MUST read before year’s end, please leave it in the comments. But for now…

THE LIBRARY IS OPEN

Bellies

by Nicola Dinan (2023)

Tom and Ming have the kind of meet cute that makes you (and them) feel like they might be meant to be forever, the kind that they’ll tell their kids about someday. Tom is newly out, single, and ready to mingle with his ex-girlfriend’s friend group in college somewhere vaguely British. At a party where everyone is dressed in drag, he runs into a beautifully made up and corseted Ming, and sparks fly immediately. They go home together, and the rest is history! Kind of! As Tom plans their post-collegiate life together, clues are sprinkled throughout the chapters that not everything may be as perfect as it seems. Queer complications ensue, as they always do!

As they head for a Happily Ever After, we discover through narrations from both of their viewpoints that Ming has long tried to beat back the feeling that she was born in the wrong body and wants to officially begin transitioning. (Ming begins the story identifying as a male, but I will use she/her pronouns to discuss her because that’s what her character uses after she transitions.)

So many questions! How does a relationship stay together when one person self-actualizes into changes so drastically? Is a transition actually a meaningful change if the person feels the same on the inside? How do gender dynamics in relationships change after transition? Is being attracted to the soul that burns inside a person enough to stay together when their sexual physicality changes? Is this what Patty Smyth and Don Henley were talking about?

I don’t think I’ve ever read a story like this. It takes apart, puts together, and digs deep into the many complications that happen in relationships when one partner transitions. The book casts no judgments and allows both partners to be selfish, vulnerable, curious - they feel real. The book is very moving, but it’s also quite funny. I highly recommend this one, especially if you’re interested in learning about the transition experience through a fictional lens.

Read this if you like: Sally Rooney but British and super queer, transition stories, dry humor, queer love stories with endings that straight people might think are untidy, supportive parents.

Happiness Falls

by Angie Kim (2023)

Angie Kim writes weird, messy fiction, but you’d never know if by the way her books are marketed. What looks like innocent enough general litfic aimed at your smarter than average airport traveler gets into some very strange stuff!

Her last book oddly kind of predicted the entire situation with that submarine of billionaires that lost their lives in a bizarre accident at the bottom of the ocean, all while skewering the way that conservative Korean families don’t allow themselves or anyone around them to process emotions. And her latest book, which I loved, is about a family whose father goes missing, and the only person who knows what happened is Eugene, their son and brother who is autistic and a sufferer of Angelman Syndrome, which renders him unable to communicate verbally. As the search becomes more desperate, the family must find a way to communicate with the child they love but have never effectively “communicated” with.

I say “communicated” because this book, through flashbacks, takes us on a journey about what communication even means, especially to those we think may not understand. How underestimating everyone around us could (and does) lead to disaster. We also learn about how the father, before he went missing, was conducting experiments on the meaning of happiness within his own family. Kim Trojan-horses some deep thoughts on all of the above into what is a genuine page-turning thriller. Just like how I learned so much about deafness from True Biz, I learned so much about nonverbal autism here. I devoured the last couple hundred pages in one gulp. You probably will too.

Bonus: This book is a great example of one that uses the COVID pandemic as an effective plot device without it being gimmicky or pedantic. Bravo!

Read it if you like: twins, sarcastic narrators, complicated families, missing person thrillers, accidentally learning a lot about human conditions

All the Sinners Bleed

by S.A. Cosby (2023)

Speaking of thrillers, how is S.A. Cosby not one of the most famous authors in America right now? How are streaming platforms not fighting to throw American dollars at him to adapt his novels into 6-part miniseries that everyone would be talking about with their coworkers? Mare of Easttown found trembling! True Detective outsold! American Crime Story found dead in a ditch!

The quaint county of Charon, Virginia has only had two murders in recent decades, but boy howdy, is that about to change. In the course of just a few hours, a (Black) student shoots and kills a (white) teacher, and that student is gunned down by law enforcement when he tries to surrender. This not only means big trouble for Sheriff Titus Crown, the first Black sheriff in Charon County, but it also unleashes a series of violent acts that puts the entire county in jeopardy. Combine this with the fact that white supremacists are planning a march to coincide with the county’s annual festival, and tensions are at an all time high.

It will probably not surprise you to learn that Sheriff Titus has come back to town with secrets. A former FBI agent who purportedly moved back to town to take care of his father after the death of his mother, the Sheriff has a past full of violence and lost love that he does not intend to carry with him into the future. That is, unless the current violent events he’s tasked with solving and stopping force his hand.

This book is exciting! It weaves condemnation the evils of white supremacy into the twisty narrative in expert ways. It’s bound to be a movie sooner or later, so get on the S.A. Cosby train now before it leaves the station.

Read it if you like: thrillers with current events substance, the destruction of confederate statues, mysteries you can solve, Southern gothic, small town drama

It’s Been a Minute So Here’s a Bonus Book:

Hi Honey, I’m Homo

by Matt Baume (2023)

This book is so fun! Baume sets parallel paths of the queering of American society and the queering of sitcoms and shows how they contributed to each other’s advancement. Based on his YouTube channel, this book is perfect for anyone looking for a cocktail of a a high level view of American gay history and lots of facts about sitcoms - starting from Bewitched and landing in the Modern Family era. It’s worth it for the Golden Girls chapter alone.

Lightning Round

Maybe you’re in the mood for an essay collection about creeps?

Or a gay romance centered around mooncakes?

Or another gay romance with a surly best man who falls for another surly best man?

Until next time…happy reading!