Boulder by Eva Baltasar (translated by Julia Sanches)

I feel lucky that my husband and I have always fully agreed that we don't want to have children. For some couples this can become a difficult and painful subject. Such is the case for the protagonist of “Boulder” and her partner Samsa. Because the narrator had previously been living an isolated life working as a cook on a merchant ship, Samsa nicknames her Boulder like “those large, solitary rocks in southern Patagonia, pieces of world left over after creation”. Upon meeting the women immediately form an intense emotional and sexual connection. So, when Samsa is offered a good job in Reykjavik, Boulder is persuaded to give up her nomadic lifestyle and settle down. After several years Samsa is determined to have a child and Boulder hesitantly agrees. This novel follows the complications this causes in their relationship and raises larger questions about the meaning of life especially in regards to procreation. It's written in a poetic and briskly engaging style full of verve and insights.

It's interesting how Boulder's philosophy of life is disrupted by the challenge of partnership and parenthood. For most people, settling down is a stage which naturally follows from a rootless existence. But she believes “The destination always kills the journey, and if we have to reduce life to a story, it can only be a bad one.” Equally she shuns any attachments believing “I can give anything up, because nothing is essential when you refuse to imprison life in a narrative.” This ethos is contrary to what mainstream society promulgates concerning the matters of a stable job, life partner and starting a family. So it's striking how Boulder feels irresistibly drawn towards Samsa and their bond challenges her essential nature. This is described in deeply evocative prose: “The intense heat of Samsa's body is rhythmic, it reaches my skin in waves that wash over me the way a murmuring tide washes over a lone rock, bringing in something new each time – a tale of shipwreck, a ship buried in the sand, calm and quiet at the bottom of the sea.” I admire the rich descriptions which not only invoke the heat of their connection but the gradual shift in Boulder's psychology.

The metaphor inherent in Boulder's nickname is worked into the texture of this book. She doesn't feel connected to the story of our species so becoming a mother and entering into that narrative is deeply uncomfortable for her. This isn't just a queer perspective because clearly Samsa feels differently. However, I feel like it's a sense that many queer people strongly relate to since we often feel ostracised from the values of larger society and certainly many heterosexual people can feel the same. There's an interesting section where she goes to a museum and remarks “I'm not even interested in the sculptures – nude, still, deliberately feminine, wrested with every strike of the mallet from slabs of granite, from rocks that had once held meaning under the stars.” For her, propagating the species takes away from the inherent value of life for life's sake. She didn't ask to be created; she simply exists and doesn't feel obligated to ensure anyone will continue on from her. Also, as with many couples who become parents, her emotional and physical relationship to her partner dramatically changes once they have a child. The growing distance between them is palpable.

I found it very moving how the storyline evokes gradual but seismic shifts which occur between them and within Boulder herself over a long period of time. It takes a lot of skill to convey immense and complicated feelings through such economical prose. While the ideas of the book seem weighty, there's also a lightness in this story demonstrated in the feverish desires which takes hold of Boulder and the humour of her drinking partner Ragnar who had many wives and children. “Wife number three had amazing tits. Creamy as skyr, he says. The man's a poet,” Boulder wryly comments. I found this description which invokes Iceland's famous yoghurt-like product so funny. Maybe I also strongly connected to this short, impressive novel because I feel sympathetic with Boulder's point of view. However, I don't think it's dogmatic in its message. Instead it offers an alternative perspective from the idea that existence only has meaning if you have children. It poignantly opens up a conversation about having children as well as the nature of life and how it should be lived.

The New Life by Tom Crewe

Crewe's debut novel begins in the summer of 1894 as John Addington makes the important decision that he won't deny his sexual and romantic longing for men any longer. He's middle aged and married to a woman named Catherine. They have multiple children who are now adults themselves. The few sexual encounters John's previously experienced resulted in repentance and a return to the sublimation of his desires. After he meets a man named Frank at a nude swimming pond in London he longs for the kind of domestic closeness any couple in love wants. Most modern readers will naturally recognise that John has repressed his homosexuality because of Victorian attitudes which not only condemned gay relationships but criminalised them. The consequences of such laws were made famous by Oscar Wilde's 1895 trial which casts a shadow over this story.

Obviously John's life has been painful and we want to see him find happiness. What's so engaging and innovative about this novel is the way it shows the full complexity of trying to obtain such happiness. How do you change laws which criminalise such desire without first dispelling widespread prejudice? How do you change the attitudes of the public without first changing the laws? How do you reconcile your own innate desires within the framework of a society which teaches you to repress them? How much are you willing to obstruct the happiness of others' to achieve your own? Many scenes in this novel are more concerned with the way such questions intrude upon moments of these characters' lives leaving them in a tense state of ambiguity and uncertainty. In doing so, it causes readers to ponder their own assumptions about what is just and what is right.

Running parallel to John's story is that of a shy young man named Henry who enters into a non-traditional marriage with Edith. The couple share a strong intellectual connection and commitment to working towards “the New Life” as Henry feels “we must live in the future we hope to make”. Henry and Edith maintain separate residences as Edith is engaged in a romantic relationship with another woman named Angelica. Henry also has secret sexual proclivities which he finds excruciatingly painful to admit. He exchanges letters with John as they write a book together titled “Sexual Inversion” which seeks to establish an intellectual and medical basis for homosexuality. They hope this will lead to changes in the larger society and help usher everyone into this ideal conception of a “New Life.” However, historical circumstances and the impact this publication has upon people connected to the book dramatically complicate these aims.

These matters create such an intriguing and unexpected plot which plays out over the course of nearly two years in these characters' lives. Crewe's academic speciality for this period of British history gracefully informs the story and imbues it with tantalizing atmospheric detail. It also allows the author to adeptly deviate from historical fact and the actual men who inspired these characters in a way which serves the fiction extremely well. There is a striking scene where London is covered in such a thick fog that boys with lanterns need to be hired to guide people from one spot to another. This fog provides a natural metaphor for the dilemmas of the story as well as a romantic opportunity for desires which ordinarily must be concealed to be expressed in the open. The writing is highly sensuous (as one would hope it would be given the subject matter) and unashamedly captures the object of these characters' desires as well as how their yearnings manifest. It makes it a very sexy novel (albeit in a very English way) falling naturally in line with the work of Alan Hollinghurst.

I found it particularly moving how John has such a strong sense of being watched even in private moments and how this has inhibited him for most of his life. Yet, when he becomes adamant about being open about his desires it impedes upon the lives of others such as his wife Catherine who speaks up at a crucial moment in the story. As total disclosures are made it also turns some who are sympathetic and supportive of John against him. This creates more haunting questions for the reader concerning what liberty we actually possess to confess all that we are to the world. How much honesty can our relationships and larger society take? Equally, the characters' earnest desire to establish a “New Life” compellingly teases out the vaguely shifting lines between being and becoming. There are no easy answers to these problems and by casting us back to a period of history that we believe we've progressed far away from, Crewe cleverly makes clear how the past is actually still present.

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde

Great coming of age tales are enthralling because we can all relate to the awkward transition from childhood to adulthood. However, they can also attune us to the challenges some face because of a particular individual's identity or circumstances. “Zami” draws on much of Audre Lorde's autobiographical experience to form what she calls a “biomythography”. It's a process of understanding and defining herself as separate from the ways in which she has been categorized by her circumstances and the way other people view her. We follow her piercing observations of the world around her being raised in Harlem through to her independence and early adulthood in the 1950s. She charts her journey towards being proudly “Black, female, gay and out of the closet” in a time and society with widespread racism, sexism and homophobia. With evocative and emotive detail Lorde captures the difficult process of establishing an independent state of being within the circles of family, friends, lovers, community and country. It also endearingly charts her progress towards becoming a great reader and writer.

The depths of loneliness Lorde felt being so different from those around her is powerfully related in celestial terms: “I grew up feeling like an only planet, or some isolated world in a hostile, or at best, unfriendly, firmament.” This intense sense of alienation is carried forth as she is sensitive to the hostilities of other people's opinions and the ways they look down upon her. It has a persistent physical effect upon her as she describes: “I could feel bands of tension sweeping across my body back and forth, like lunar winds across the moon's face.” This is such a clever way of framing her mental and physical state in her early years. By casting herself as a planetary body she shows how she is at once cognizant of her inherent greatness but also painfully aware of her distance from others.

There's so much powerful imagery from her childhood which brings this bygone era to life. From descriptions of her glasses which frequently broke to a briefly known playmate we come to understand the world of her youth through the things she valued the most. One of my favourite sections is about the West Indian pestle and mortar in her family kitchen. It's both a symbol of the Caribbean island her mother came from and a beautiful object which she attends to with an almost hypnotic intensity. Seemingly everyday items such as this are elevated to near religious significance when understood within the context of a household because it's what ties this family to a particular lineage, culture and history.

Lorde also deftly differentiates her understanding of her environment as a child from what she knows now viewing it in retrospect. For instance, there were occasions when out in public white people would spit at her but her mother explained it away as people who were simply careless. She realises that “My mother and father believed that they could best protect their children from the realities of race in america and the fact of american racism by never giving them name, much less discussing their nature.” So it was only through experience and her own rationale that she came to truly understand her position in this society as a black woman.

I appreciated how there are detailed accounts of her economic struggles as a young woman who found it especially difficult to find steady and decently-paid work because of the colour of her skin and her educational background. Gruelling experiences of working in a factory are described with such intensity. The paltry safety measures in place had to be ignored in order to produce the demanded workload leaving employees dangerously at risk to exposure or injury. However, one point I found it difficult to understand was her self-proclaimed lack of typing skills. She describes how with every move to new lodgings she made she laboriously carried with her a typewriter which she used to write poetry. Yet at every job interview she insists “I had never really learned to type” which closes many opportunities. I'm guessing she means she never learned how to type a certain amount of words per minute, but because this was such a barrier to finding jobs other than manual labour it seems strange she didn't teach herself to properly type while regularly using a typewriter.

It feels especially meaningful that even when Lorde is able to enter liberating spaces as a young woman she discovers there are barriers which prevent her from finding true happiness or being truly equal to those around her. She feels an instinctual desire to move to Mexico and there “Wherever I went, there were brown faces of every hue meeting mine, and seeing my own color reflected upon the streets in such great numbers was an affirmation for me that was brand-new and very exciting. I had never felt visible before, nor even known I lacked it.” Yet, such freedom is short lived as she must return to America. Also, when she gradually discovers a lesbian community she finds they are united in a belief that “as lesbians, we were all outsiders and all equal in our outsiderhood... It was wishful thinking based on little fact; the ways in which it was true languished in the shadow of those many ways in which it would always be false.” Lorde pointedly describes how there's still discrimination and aggression because of her blackness which is mostly unspoken because an oppressed community doesn't want to believe they are also capable of being oppressors.

An interesting stylistic choice of the book is how the linear story of her development is interspersed with short italicised sections. Earlier in the text these seem to be youthful poems and later on they become more narrative-driven to articulate her burgeoning understanding of the world. These poignantly add to the sense of her evolution as a writer and intellectual. It shows how her growth as a literary artist has been an ongoing process running alongside larger issues to do with family, work and lovers as “Writing was the only thing that made me feel like I was alive.” It's such a gift that Audre Lorde insisted upon documenting her experience and thoughts in this way for future generations. Jackie Kay, a contemporary writer I admire, commented that “I came across Audre Lorde's Zami, and I cried to think how lucky I was to have found her. She was an inspiration.” Reading this book is an enriching and wondrous experience.

The Arena of the Unwell by Liam Konemann

It's heartening to see so many new queer books representing the complexity and many different forms of gay experience. The protagonist of debut novel “The Arena of the Unwell” is Noah, a 20-something North Londoner who is into indie music and feels “I'm a pretty sub-standard gay – not quite up to date on the culture and customs. I missed that part of my education.” He's one of many gay men that don't necessarily identify with the predominant gay culture. Though his closest friend and flatmate is a lesbian named Mairead, most encounters he has with the gay community seem to be coincidental. He doesn't go to gay bars or engage on gay social media/hookup apps. As such he seems to feel an increased sense of alienation and has few opportunities for romantic encounters. This adds to his existing issues to do with depression, low self-worth, alcohol abuse and lack of motivation. So when two slightly older men show interest in Noah he becomes intimately involved and entangled in their lives. Unfortunately it turns out to be a much more fraught relationship and complex situation than he imagined.

I sympathize with Noah's situation, but unfortunately I didn’t really like him. I certainly don’t always have to like the protagonists I read about. But I grew increasingly frustrated and bored by this novel as Noah is caught in a continuous cycle of disaffection, drinking and inertia. Though he has a number of people in his life who want to help and support him when he's having a hard time, he continuously bats away their offers or ignores them. This is a natural response from someone with very low self esteem, but he also fails to engage in other people's lives in a way which might allow him to feel more connected and gain a sense of community. Though his friend Mairead and his father are clearly struggling with their own issues we learn little about their situations. Instead, the narrative solely focuses on Noah's point of view and seems to take it for a given that the reader will like him. Though I recognized that he was wrestling with a number of issues and has the common self-centredness of the young, I grew annoyed with him as a character and how he refuses any opportunities to positively change his situation. Moreover, there's a kind of pretension about how he withdraws from society where he admits “I am 'convalescing'. Alternatively, 'drowning my sorrows'. Sulking, but in an artistic sort of way.” While this is someone who feels quite real the main issue I have with the book is that the author doesn't explore the dynamics of Noah's plight in a way that shows the character gaining any sense of self-awareness. Instead, the story seems structured in a way where the fault lies entirely with the two men who draw them into their twisted (and frankly baffling) co-dependency.

Additionally, there were several elements of the story which felt underdeveloped or didn't go anywhere. Though it's touching to see how Noah's father accepts his son's homosexuality we get little insight into the father's personal life or their family history. Noah receives threatening messages at one point but this dilemma is left aside. Some stollen money goes missing but we don't find out where it went. There's a parallel narrative which shows brief articles about a band called Smiling Politely where their singer Ryan Shelby struggles with self-destructive impulses similar to Noah's. It's interesting how (though ostensibly successful) this band member equally can't pull himself out of a downward spiral. Unfortunately, the way this part of the story concludes didn't feel as impactful as I felt it was supposed to. An aspect of the story which I felt most uncomfortable with was the way it handled Noah's struggle with self harm. Though this is a very difficult issue, it's introduced quite abruptly and then not referred to again so it felt like it was dropped into the narrative. If such a conflict is going to be a part of a story I feel like it needs to be a more integral part of the novel.

All of these issues prevented me from really connecting with the story in the way I wanted to. I was surprised not to appreciate this novel after having read (and loved) the novel “Love in the Big City” because the protagonist of that book is somewhat similar to Noah. However, I just never grew to care much about the faltering hero of Konemann's novel.

An Ordinary Wonder by Buki Papillon

Of the many coming-of-age novels I've read about individuals who grow up feeling intensely alienated and different from those around them, I've never encountered a story like “An Ordinary Wonder”. It follows Oto who is raised within a relatively-privileged family in Nigeria in the 1980s and 90s. Oto has a twin sister Wura who is considered “normal” but Oto is made to feel like a “monster” because although Oto feels herself to be a girl she has been raised as a boy. This is something Oto's conservative and superstitious family have been try to suppress, but as Oto becomes a teenager the disjunction between how she feels, her appearance and how she's forced to present herself can no longer be suppressed. The narrative moves backwards and forwards in time between Oto's childhood with her abusive mother and teenage years at a boarding school. Gradually Oto becomes empowered to perceive herself in a way that is very different from how the authority figures in her early life made her feel worthless and unwanted. There are some inspiring individuals who support and befriend Oto while others seek to abuse, diminish and take advantage of her because she is at such a vulnerable and confused point in her life. It's a heartrending tale and Buki Papillon artfully crafts a story which carries you through Oto's journey with many revelations and dramatic surprises along the way. 

It's was interesting reading this new novel so soon after reading the early-20th century classic “The Well of Loneliness”. Although these stories are very different in many ways they both concern gender confusion and individuals who feel extremely isolated and beleaguered until they learn a language with which to define themselves. Where Stephen found a freedom in calling herself an “invert”, Oto finds it liberating when she discovers that she was born intersex and that there are other people like her. Aside from providing an opportunity to feel part of a group and take medical and legal steps to fully embrace her identity, having this language provides a frame within which Oto can positively view herself in a way which is radically different from how her parents and local community perceived her. What's even more inspiring is how Oto gradually discovers that her family contains many secrets and hidden facets which reveal that her mistreatment isn't isolated but part of larger social structures built upon rigid notions of gender identity and patriarchal power. 

I must admit I felt wary at some points in the story when an examination of Oto's body occurs - not because I was repulsed by the physical characteristics being described but I was worried the story was becoming almost voyeuristic. Since our society so often feels uncomfortable not knowing whether an individual can be labelled female or male people can take a prurient interest in the genitals and bodies of people whose outward appearance doesn't conform to a certain gender. I don't want to participate in that kind of invasive gaze and would rather allow people to define themselves. Since Oto declares early on in the novel that she is a girl this is the only evidence I needed to see. But I think the author is careful in using descriptions of Oto examining her body as a way of demonstrating a part of her journey to understanding exactly who she is and how she can integrate into a society that she's been cast out of. This is something that needs to be handled sensitively and I think Papillon does an admirable job of relating details in a way which feels respectful to Oto herself.

“An Ordinary Wonder” is such an inspiring and valuable story. The apparent contradiction in this novel's title speaks to how every individual is special in their own way, but the unique aspects of our identities should simply be treated as normal variations within a richly diverse community of people.

100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell

In one story from Brontez Purnell's collection “100 Boyfriends” a character sits in an STD clinic thinking “I could say I deserve better than this – but do I? Really?” That tragic ambivalence and tottering self-esteem is common to many of the characters in these stories where casual sexual encounters are vigorously pursued without caution or care for the consequences. Some lead to more tender feelings, emotional connections or regular satisfying sex. Others are so fleeting it feels like a routine function. Some encounters are so hot it becomes a “squirting epic semen battle” and others are dissatisfying and all the more shameful because the narrator knows he will go back for more. There's an acknowledgement that the expectation is often better than the sex itself. We learn some of these men's names and others remain anonymous as we follow an enormous amount of gay hookups. Like the experiences themselves, the result is that the reader's memory becomes crowded with a plethora of indistinct vaguely-recalled male faces, bodies and details. It's brilliant how this gives a true sense of what that compulsive pursuit is like for some men who have sex with men. 

Sometimes it feels like we get just the tip of a fascinating backstory about an individual only for the narrator to move onto another hookup or the story itself ends. Of course, this is somewhat frustrating for me as a reader as I'd naturally like to know more about some of these characters but it's entirely logical as these fleeting encounters seldom lead to a sustained relationship where sexual partners gain a deeper understanding of each other. The stories are often anecdotal in a way which isn't necessarily gossipy but conveys simple truths about the messiness of casual gay sex. The writing also frequently takes a surprising tone. An encounter with a Satanist which should be horrifying as he details the violent sex which ensues is described in a way which is comic and swerves around whether there is a more ponderous meaning to this experience. What's poignant is how little the narrator values his body and himself, but also how the brutal sexual exchange isn't coded with the same importance that the larger heterosexual society would likely ascribe to it.

Something really refreshing about these stories is that men's bodies are described in a highly realistic way with bellies, scars and variously sized genitals. In so much of gay fiction men's physicality is detailed in a ludicrously idealized way, but in Purnell's stories what might normally be viewed as imperfections aren't shamefully hidden or a turn off. They are simply who we are and there is something very liberating about this. The author also gets at how there's an abiding sense of loneliness which comes with gay life where intimacy might only be fleeting. This experience is encapsulated in the story 'Ed's Name Written in Pencil' which describes the experience of a 7 year old bullied by one older boy and befriended by another, but in the end he loses them both and it's the importance of contact (positive or negative as if to stave off loneliness) that matters more than the quality of that contact. Some gay readers might bristle at how these stories could be interpreted as a negative representation of gay life, but I admire the bold honesty of how these tales describe the filthy experience of some men. There are no pristine white bedsheets in these stories; they are stained with our bodies and this should not be concealed with a blanket. We're at a point where gay fiction from authors such as Bryan Washington and Garth Greenwell can get beyond a pointed political agenda to lay out the complex nuances of homo desire and gay life. I really fell for these highly-sexed wickedly-entertaining tales which are all about fucking around, fucking up and not giving a fuck.

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

It's incredible to discover that less than a hundred years ago in 1928 James Douglas, the editor of the Sunday Express, wrote an article calling for a ban of “The Well of Loneliness” stating: “In order to prevent the contamination and corruption of English fiction it is the duty of the critic to make it impossible for any other novelist to repeat this outrage.” His campaign successfully led to the book being formally banned in Britain because of its representation of homosexuality as being a natural facet of identity and it wasn't made legally available again in this country until 1949. 

This is the first time I've read this classic novel. I can only imagine what it would have meant to a gay person early in the 20th century to read it and discover a kinship of feeling – not just for the book's portrayal of female protagonist Stephen Gordon's emotional and sexual closeness to people of the same gender or Stephen's desire to dress in more masculine clothes – but the overwhelming sense it gives of being made to feel different and wrong for your very existence. The first section of the book describes Stephen's coming of age and feeling continuously frustrated “for she did not know the meaning of herself.” Nor does she have language available to describe her difference. Those that seem to understand her queerness (even her own father) refuse to name it so for many years her estrangement and isolation is felt all the more intensely. 

Of course, to me and any sensitive or queer person who read it at the time of publication, it's perfectly obvious what Stephen is. Her early passionate crush on a beautiful maid and misguided affair with a married American woman are so touchingly portrayed because they are expressions of longing which can never be fulfilled in a satisfying way – not just because Stephen's feelings can't be equally reciprocated but because there's a fundamental miscommunication of desire. What's wonderful is that over the course of the novel Stephen discovers the words with which to describe herself and this leads to her liberation. She eventually labels herself as an invert. What's more, after being exiled from the stately home of her birth and meeting a woman she falls in love with while working for an ambulance unit during WWI, she discovers a community of similarly queer individuals while living in Paris. Yet, even though there is a group of people with codes and behaviour which loosely groups them together as inverts, their venues and meetings are kept in the shadows. That their community remains furtive and largely unacknowledged means that Stephen's feelings of isolation and estrangement will persist no matter what personal and private fulfilment she achieves.

It's quite moving how the ending of the novel is a rallying call where Stephen's voice joins with “millions” to demand “Give us also the right to our existence!” It's undoubtably a novel with a political message which Sir Charles Biron, the chief magistrate overseeing the book's trial in November 1928 described as “a passionate and almost hysterical plea for the toleration and recognition of these people”. So it wasn't just a worry that the novel might “corrupt those into whose hands it should fall” but that it will motivate queer people and people sympathetic to queer expression to campaign for legislation which will protect queer rights. Though Radclyffe Hall insisted the novel should be circulated simply because of its literary merit, the Bloomsbury Group who actively campaigned for its publication and the courts which ordered “it to be destroyed” openly acknowledged the stakes involved.

That this novel should still survive as both a document of this societal divide and a richly immersive story in itself is wonderful and it should quite rightly stand as a cornerstone of queer literature. Many would argue its political importance has passed and its tragic arc gives a negative representation that true happiness can't ever be found for queer people, but as an individual's journey of self discovery and a query into the lines of gender I think it remains a worthy story. I also found it interesting how the novel's narrative focus occasionally drifts to characters other than Stephen so you can clearly see their point of view. The story even comically focuses at some points on how Stephen's dog David sees the world and view's Stephen's lover as a goddess. Like the protagonist in “Orlando”, Stephen's semi-open expression of queerness is only possible because of her wealth and privilege. I think it's important to acknowledge that it's necessarily limited in this respect as (of course) expressions of queer desire existed amongst every social class so I find it heartening we're now getting new historical novels such as “The Prophets”, “Days Without End”, “White Houses” and “A Place Called Winter” which describe expressions of same sex desire amongst many different levels of society. Despite it being a product of its time, it remains an extremely enjoyable story full of insights and pleasure as it follows Stephen's singular journey.

Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen by Amrou Al-Kadhi

Coming out stories will always be an important part of LGBT literature since the way we arrive at a queer identity is a unique journey for every individual growing up in a predominantly heterosexual society. Sometimes I'll idly wonder if we've had enough of them and then come across a tale which is so moving and says something vital about how difficult it is to grow up feeling different in the world today. Amrou Al-Kadhi's memoir is like none I've read before as it describes their life growing up in a strict Iraqui Muslim household, moving to England and developing a fearless drag queen persona named Glamrou. 

Even though Amrou's life is very different from my own there were so many aspects of their feelings of alienation and moments of solace that I found relatable. From fancying a cartoon fox to intensely identifying with bizarre undersea lifeforms, I connected strongly with the experiences described. Other parts of this story felt new and surprising to me especially how Amrou became a perfectionist in their studies as a way of dealing with being rejected from their family. From the outside it's difficult to understand a mania to get everything exactly right but when a child feels like they have no value it makes perfect sense.

Amrou brings a meaningful level of context and critique to their own story – not simply describing the extraordinary experiences of their life but the meaning and reasoning behind their actions. A justified level of criticism is directed at their family as well as the patriarchal society and Islamophobia in Britain, but also at how Amrou participated in that prejudice after internalizing these sentiments. This self-critique shows an admirable level of maturity and understanding. There's also something so lively and playful about Amrou's tale which finds humour in the many missteps and confusion there has been along the way while taking seriously the blistering pain of growing up queer and misunderstood.

This is such an absorbing and emotional story which carries a heartening message that connections can be found in the most unexpected places.

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor

The year 1993 was incredibly important for me personally as I was just becoming a teenager at that point and awkwardly figuring out my own identity. This is the year in which Andrea Lawlor’s wickedly funny and absorbing novel is set. Its story bears all the marks of that era with references to zines, mix tapes and an increasingly assertive queer population that enthusiastically formed tight-knit communities outside of mainstream heterosexual culture. So I felt a strong affinity toward Paul, the novel’s 23 year-old hero who is more interested in hooking up with a wide variety of people than completing his college degree. We follow his journey navigating urban life between seedy gay hotspots, lesbian communes and leather bars while having lots of sex with men and women along the way. It’s quickly revealed that Paul has a special ability to morph like a mythological figure and physically transform into a woman. This allows Paul to change his body and genitals to suit the desires of any man or woman whether they are gay or straight. In this way he gains intimate access to the bedrooms and communities of a whole spectrum of people in his quest to understand where he belongs. It’s an inventive way of memorializing the many-varied and radical subcultures of this time period as well as questioning the meaning of gender identity.

There’s a great tradition of queer literature which Lawlor’s book references including many poets and novelists who’ve dealt with LGBT and gender issues, especially Woolf’s “Orlando” – though Paul self-consciously defines how he differs from this figure. Some other excellent recent novels that include protagonists who criss-cross or blur the line between male and female are “The Night Brother” and “The Lauras”. Lawlor’s novel gives another refreshing perspective on how gender is a social construct. However, it’s not didactic in the way it deals with this subject matter as Paul is portrayed as an extremely flawed and oftentimes superficial individual. In his relentless quest to transform himself to fit in with whatever subset of people he’s trying to ingratiate himself with Paul discovers that every community has different guidelines in how its members are expected to dress and act in order to be admitted. For instance, he hilariously becomes painfully self-conscious about the way he chops vegetables while in a kitchen full of lesbians or gets treated with contempt for not being suitably attired in a bar full of leather men until he reveals at the piss trough what a sizeable member he possesses. I admired the way this novel shows the superficial reasons by which people judge whether an individual can be allowed into a community or alienated from it.

Paul is highly cognizant of how to transform himself because he too quickly casts judgements about everyone he meets based on their manner and attire. When he reveals his true nature to someone at one point he gets his heart broken, but he’s also prone to breaking hearts by discarding people soon after having sex with them. I felt his complicated nature made him very sympathetic as well as the real-world economic struggles of a young adult living from pay check to pay check. The novel records in detail Paul’s ever dwindling bank balance and his frequent struggles with money. Lawlor also interjects several self-contained fables into the narrative in a way which brilliantly reconfigures the moral conundrums of Paul’s story. All these aspects made me fall in love with this book which encapsulates the way we function as social and sexual organisms. It’s bold how frankly Lawlor presents bodies in a wide variety of combinations and how these individuals constantly yearn to both satiate their desires and be desired themselves.

XX by Angela Chadwick

There’s an interesting tradition of feminist utopian novels which speculate about futures or alternative societies that feature populations dominated by or entirely composed of women. These range from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “Herland Trilogy” to Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s witty parody “Sultana’s Dream” to Marge Piercy’s science fiction classic “Woman on the Edge of Time” to Mary E. Bradley’s “Mizora” where women can reproduce through parthenogenesis (reproduction from an ovum without fertilization.) These imaginative works radically envision places where men are of secondary importance or become entirely irrelevant. These idealistic visions offer a breath of fresh air and a welcome counter-reality to the patriarchy which has dominated society for centuries.

Given enormous recent advances in science, it’s not hard to imagine the prospect of a technology which enables women to reproduce without men. That’s exactly the premise of Angela Chadwick’s enthralling debut novel “XX” which tells the story of lesbian couple Rosie and Jules who enrol in the trial stage of a ground-breaking new Ovum-to-Ovum treatment. It allows them to become pregnant through an IVF technique using two eggs rather than needing a sperm-donor. Since there is no XY sex-determination system at play in this method of reproduction it means the child will always be born with the sex chromosome XX and must be female. But Chadwick doesn’t posit this advancement as an opportunity for a world-dominating matriarchy; it’s exactly the opposite. The great drama of the novel comes from the wide-scale social resistance to such an advancement which will enable a small group of isolated individuals a unique opportunity to reproduce together. A conservative backlash perceives this technology as a threat to the status quo as they assert all children need a mother and father. They also fear boys will be phased out of the species. Rosie and Jules find themselves at the centre of a horrific and politically-contentious media storm. It’s a vivid story of personal struggle reflecting how any advancement with society is sadly met with reactionary politics.

It’s a difficult fact for many same-sex couples who wish to have children that some alternative method is currently required to assist them in becoming parents. This can be very painful and complicated because it means both people in the relationship don’t have an equal genetic stake in their child. I admire how Chadwick addresses this issue in her novel by offering a solution and exploring the challenges that would arise from this. In doing so, she addresses how pregnancy, relationships and family life are filled with infinite complexities so the road to becoming parents is never simple or easy. But, in the case of this couple it’s particularly complicated given how they become the focus of media scrutiny from becoming pregnant with the first O-O child. The story is told through the perspective of Jules whose partner Rosie becomes pregnant from the treatment. As a journalist at a local newspaper, she finds herself in a unique position of being a reporter who is herself the top news story.

Filmmakers Debra Chasnoff and Kim Klausner editing their 1985 documentary ‘Choosing Children’ about lesbians who become parents

Jules strives to keep her personal life and work separate, but this sadly becomes impossible. The novel serves as an interesting commentary on our sensational media system which exploits individuals for the sake of broader attention-grabbing contentious issues. A local Tory politician named Richard Prior emerges as a spokesman and campaigner for an organization called the Alliance for Natural Reproduction. He’s recognizable as a composite of right-wing figures who develop platforms to rile up the public with paranoias and fears about threats to the “natural” order of things. The story meaningfully reflects how such cases have become more and more common in recent years regarding a whole range of issues including marriage rights, health care, education and immigration. It also comments on how a large section of the population now consumes such news stories by “flick-throughs and social media posts” and form opinions about issues without engaging with their full complexity or considering the real facts. It’s striking how Chadwick realistically envisions how an optimistic advancement such as this would be blown up into a much larger political issue with a vicious backlash.

“XX” is one of the debut titles from an exciting new imprint called Dialogue Books. The imprint’s goal is to publish writers and reach audiences from areas and groups of people currently under-represented by the mainstream publishing industry. It aims to spark a dialogue across different communities about subjects we ought to be talking about. This novel certainly touches on a number of subjects that feel relevant today and takes a refreshing perspective. It does this through a well-plotted story and characters that I grew increasingly attached to. There’s nothing flashy about the prose, but this feels completely appropriate for a story about a normal couple that find themselves swept into an extraordinary situation. It also feels positive how we might no longer need stories of extravagant extremes that envision all female societies as a correction for the gender imbalances in our world. Instead, Chadwick offers a very rational and practical vision of how incremental steps can be taken to create more inclusive communities and dynamic families for everyone.

Never Anyone But You by Rupert Thomson

There are innumerable unsung and compelling figures from history who never quite achieved the fame or long-lasting influence you’d expect. One of my favourite books from the past few years is Megan Mayhew Bergman’s collection of short stories “Almost Famous Women” which fictionalizes the stories of several striking women who were figures of marginal significance in their times but not widely remembered. A couple of her tales deal with people around the notoriously vibrant art scene in Paris between the Wars. In Rupert Thomson’s wonderful new novel he reimagines the lives of two particularly fascinating women from this period. Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe were a life-long couple both born into prosperous intellectual families in France near the turn of the century. They were artists and progressive thinkers who questioned static gender roles in the way they presented themselves and by adopting the gender-ambiguous names Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore. We follow their lives from childhood to mingling with significant Parisian artists to their dangerous anti-Nazi activism in occupied Jersey to the post-War years. It’s a sweeping and thrilling novel that gives an entirely new perspective of early 20th century Europe and a powerful account of a significant long-term same sex love affair.

It’s clever how Thomson chooses to narrate his novel through the perspective of Suzanne/Marcel becomes she’s in many ways the more stable and practical partner of this intriguing pair. Lucy/Claude is daringly defiant in her opinions and actions, but she’s also erratic and if the narrative were steered by her voice it would probably grow too unwieldy. Instead we follow their experiences through the dogged and perceptive point of view of Suzanne who is enthralled by Lucy’s radical ideas and cavalier attitude. At one point she recounts Lucy declaring “Masculine, feminine,’ she said. ‘I can do all that. But neuter – that’s where I feel comfortable. I’m not going to be typecast or put in a box. Not ever. I’m always going to have a choice.” It’s impressive how forward-thinking and brave this couple were to live in a way which so stridently defied the gender norms and conventions of the time. While this spurred their artistic visions in writing and the visual arts, their refusal to be categorized and the fact it was a male-dominated milieu probably contributed to the fact that this couple’s work isn’t as well remembered as that of some of their peers.

Something I love is the empowering self-determined way these women choose uncertainty over a safe and predictable life. In practical terms it would have been much easier for them to settle down into stable lifestyles, but they chose each other and they chose to question instead of being complicit. They declare their stance as such: “The path I had chosen was the one that I could not imagine.” Given the time period and sex they were born into it’s very easy for them to imagine straightforward conventional lifestyles, but they strike out into uncharted territory in their love affair as well as dealings with the founders of the Surrealist movement and in undermining the imposed authority of the Nazis. Although they are faithful in their love for each other, this refusal to adhere to convention also includes not settling down into a strictly monogamous relationship – something which naturally becomes a source of friction for the couple over the years.

Anyone enamoured with the glamorous intellectual circles which have been frequently mythologized in fiction and nonfiction accounts of the interwar periods of Paris will take pleasure in the many cameos of noteworthy eccentric figures. These include Gertrude Stein and her “melancholy lover, the one with the drooping eyelids”, Salvador Dali who is “a dapper, narrow-shouldered man with slicked-back hair and a moustache… up close, he smelled of old gardenias, their petals browning at the edges” and Andre Breton who “wore a green suit and a pair of spectacles, and he carried his famous cane on which were carved vaginas, erect penises and slugs.” There’s a strong sense of how these groups were self-consciously fashioning legacies at the time. Also, the warring egotism of different artists meant that “The movements came and went more quickly than the seasons, and the rifts between people we knew were perennial and vitriolic.”

Claude Cahun & an unknown woman

However, this novel comes most grippingly alive when Suzanne and Lucy move to Jersey seeking stability and quiet, but find the war comes to their doorstep. Their actions are incredibly brave and it leads to some very tense scenes. There are also some funny observations about how easy it was, in some cases, to fool the Nazis by simply signing their anti-German fliers as if they were a soldier because “No one looking at the word ‘soldier’ would think of a woman.” However, the very narrow-minded misogyny which ironically allows them to get away with their subversive activities for so long also gets them into hot water when the Germans refuse to believe they were simply two older ladies acting alone. The fact that I had no prior knowledge about this couple and how their lives would play out added to making this novel such a tense read for me.

“Never Anyone But You” is also an especially compelling and heartfelt novel. It’s wonderful reading about a historical same sex relationship portrayed in such a compassionate way. There is an intensity and beauty to breaking taboos to be with the person you’re naturally drawn to, but there’s also a sense of isolation which comes from finding love which cannot be celebrated within the larger society: “Since we were excluded, we became exclusive.” This is a powerful sentiment that’s also echoed in Matthew Griffin’s novel "Hide" about a long-term gay relationship. I also admired how Rupert Thomson avoids sentimentality in how he presents the bond between these women: “It’s a mistake to think that a long relationship is boring. The longer you’re with someone, the more mysterious they become.” Following the harrowing story of this dynamic couple which is brought so vividly to life in Thomson’s novel made me appreciate how complex these women were and grateful that they’ve been rescued from obscurity.

White Houses by Amy Bloom

“White Houses” must be one of the most touchingly romantic stories I’ve read in a long time. This is also a novel with searing political insight that offers an alternative view of history. Amy Bloom writes from the perspective of Lorena Hickock who was a journalist and author of the early-mid 20th century. She also shared a strong relationship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The enormous affection between these two women is well documented but historians still disagree about whether their relationship was physical or not. In Bloom’s novel, Lorena and Eleanor’s enduring love for each other is unequivocal and she frequently takes the reader into their bedroom – not in a gratuitous way, but to show the transformative effect and power of the intense love they shared. At the same time she portrays the seat of government throughout crucial years of US history when FDR led the country through The Depression and the Second World War. This was also a time in LGBT history when FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sought to persecute “subversive” behaviour and specifically kept a large file on Eleanor who was a famed liberal and civil rights activist. The result is a tale which is large in scope while also offering an achingly intimate portrait of a love affair cruelly shaken by extraordinary circumstances.

Lorena’s narrative weaves together fragments from her long relationship with Eleanor from blissful moments of their “honeymoon” when they escaped together to enjoy some solitude to the painful time when Lorena moved out of the White House to avoid embroiling Eleanor in a scandal. Lorena also recounts the story of her life from an impoverished childhood to the tricky position of being a female reporter in a male-dominated newsroom trying to hide her lesbianism: “I pretended that even though I hadn’t found the right man, I did want one. I pretended that I envied their wives and that took effort.” What’s particularly interesting about the way her past is related is that its in the context of a scene where Eleanor invites Lorena to tell the story of her life. While the reader receives the unedited version, Lorena leaves out parts that she knows will particularly distress Eleanor such as the sexual abuse she suffered from her father as an adolescent and her moment of sexual discovery with an individual named Gerry who is “brother and sister in one body” at a carnival she worked at for a brief period. This strikingly shows the complexity of how lovers exchange stories of their pasts which are carefully edited or modified, not necessarily in order to deceive their partner, but to drip feed what they know their lover can take.

Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickock

Something I loved so much about this novel is the way Bloom realistically portrays the physicality of these women’s relationship. Lorena and Eleanor are aware that they aren’t “conventional beauties” but in bed “what may not look beautiful does feel beautiful.” It’s so moving the way she describes how features which would be scorned in public can become desirable qualities in the intimate space of romance. What’s more she describes how empowering this can be: “In bed, we were beauties. We were goddesses. We were the little girls we’d never been: loved, saucy, delighted, and delightful.” It’s a safe area where these individuals can reckon with their pasts and identity can become fluid to escape the confines of the roles they have to play in public. The only novel I can recall that comes close to exploring this kind of complexity is Garth Greenwell’s “What Belongs To You” – especially in the way that both books portray how LGBT people seek out spaces where desire can be honestly expressed as a way to enact all the multifaceted aspects of their personalities which aren’t socially acceptable to reveal in public.

What’s so especially engaging about this novel and makes it so compulsively readable is that Lorena’s voice is exremely witty and engaging. She’s a plain-talking journalist who often cuts through the social niceties of high society’s pomp. Lorena speaks frankly to many characters including Eleanor’s duplicitous daughter, a tortured gay cousin named Parker who comes close to ruining the family and Franklin D Roosevelt’s lover. She hilarious recounts her frank disdain for the “pink turkey parts” men have between their legs. There’s also a mesmerising intensity to her insomniac wanderings through the White House late at night where she sometimes encounters FDR to share a nightcap. She remarks of him that “He was the greatest president of my lifetime and he was a son of a bitch every day.” But, despite her hardened attitude which she acquired from such a challenging life, Lorena maintains a touching idealism and hope in her relationship with Eleanor that “Our love would create its own world and alter the real one, just a little.” It’s an important message and one which makes this historical novel all the more relevant today given that the US is more politically divided than ever and the echoed message of “America First” carries with it such stifling reactionary sentiments. “White Houses” gives us a portrait of the past which makes it clear how America has always been a nation where there are multiple meanings of the word home. 

The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis (translated by Michael Lucey)

It’s difficult enough for many gay people to come out, but for a boy to grow up gay in a working class family in rural France presents its own unique challenges. Eddy, the hero of debut author Édouard Louis’s semi-autobiographical novel, comes of age in the late 90s and early 2000s in a large family that treads close to the poverty line. Almost all the young men in their small town within the Picardy region work in the local factory once they are legally allowed to leave school at an early age. They are expected to conform to a certain type of masculinity: hard-drinking, aggressive and sexually voracious. For naturally effeminate Eddy this presents a problem at an early age when he’s branded a “faggot” – a label he can never shrug off no matter how hard he works to self consciously appear to be a tough guy. His perceptive story recounts the themes and individuals he contends with during his development towards becoming an adult who eventually accepts his nature and finds a place where he can achieve a sense of belonging. It’s filled with the brutal and intimate reality of his journey and makes statements which are at once deeply emotional and highly political.

It’s striking how for much of his early childhood Eddy is well-liked and admired for the things which make his personality unique: polite, intelligent and creative. Yet, at a certain point, these qualities don’t fit into the standard behavior associated with young men. He’s mocked by his family, friends and the other children at school – two of whom regularly and brutally bully him. Having no way to defend himself against these attacks he resolves (in a way he later realizes is akin to Jean Genet) “I thought it would be better if I seemed like a happy kid. So I became the staunchest ally of this silence, and, in a certain way, complicit in this violence.” This is the point at which his life becomes sharply divided; there is the private life and the public face he shows to the rest of the world. Rather than living freely and naturally he becomes self consciousness and begins to modify his behavior to try to conform to those around him. Of course, it doesn’t work. It leads only to humiliation, secrecy and painful self-loathing. All he wants is to fit in, but he’s uniformly rejected.

While things are often difficult for any queer teen navigating through a largely heterosexual society, there are unique hardships for those from a socio-economic background like Eddy’s. He and the people around him have been excluded from the narrative of society. The working class are often ignored and scorned. The author proposes that this causes many to become insular and disdain any “outsiders” or the values of mainstream intellectual society: “To philosophise meant talking like the class enemy, the haves, the rich folk.” It leads to intense levels of homophobia as well as racism and sexism. Eddy concludes that “the crime was not having done something, it was being something. And especially, looking like one of them.” The “them” are the people who don’t conform to the conventional masculine mode which is stringently reinforced in every aspect of this working class community. Because the novel is written in retrospect from the point when Eddy has become Édouard, he’s able to understand the context of his upbringing. However, the physical and emotional pain from his difficult and warped development remain sharp in his memory. The author thoughtfully unpacks the social milieu of Eddy’s life which leads him to feeling like he has no options to leave or find support elsewhere because this is the only home he knows.

There are certain kinds of trauma from which a person can never recover from. Eddy’s many justified grievances will no doubt remain with him throughout his life and the anger he feels is palpable in this narrative. Not only was his self worth viciously lowered by trying desperately to conform, but he suffered numerous painful injustices. These ranged from being mocked by his mother for having asthma while she stubbornly smoked around him to the broken window in his bedroom which was left unrepaired for the majority of his teenage years. Then there are the atrocious contradictions of the people around him. He engaged in willing sexual activities with his male cousin and friends, yet he is the one publicly shamed for participating where the others are not. Also, his father’s homophobia and racism which he continuously vocalizes are forgotten on a couple of occasions when presented with a real gay person at a party or a black man he befriends in another city. Nevertheless, at home his father continued to berate him for his effeminate nature. At times the story feels all the more painful for the way it relates these details as the narrator struggles to make intellectual sense of them while holding the full fury of his emotions at bay.

It feels important that we have more books like “The End of Eddy” which pay tribute to the perspective of those who have been excluded from mainstream society. Notably, novels by Lisa McInerny and Kerry Hudson also sympathetically address this perspective of the working class. It’s been speculated that it was primarily this section of society that voted for Brexit and have elected deeply conservative leaders. Most often it’s their vote which influences government policy to become more insular in focus. Certainly this seems to be the perspective which Zadie Smith proposed in her article ‘Fences’ published in The New York Review. It’s also vital that we continue to have more stories from younger queer generations such as Chinelo Okparanta’s “Under the Udala Trees” and Garrard Conley’s “Boy Erased” where homosexuals still feel intensely pressured to live as heterosexuals. Luckily Eddy was able to eventually go to university, accept his nature and articulate his experience, but there must be countless people like Eddy who have fatally never been able to leave or speak about their constrictive circumstances. However – and this is really important - you don’t need to read “The End of Eddy” because it’s worthy. Read it because it’s a devastatingly honest and moving story in itself.

Boy Erased by Garrard Conley

It’s especially emotional reading a book about someone’s real experiences when it feels like they could have so easily been my own. As a teenager in Maine during the mid-90s, I came to terms with my sexuality and defiantly came out to my family at an early age. Although it was incredibly difficult and damaging in some ways, I feel extremely lucky that some help was available to me. A counsellor at my school advised my parents that this was healthy and a local LGBT youth support group provided me with connections to other teenagers like me – this was something so important and dearly needed after feeling for so long like I was the only one. Without this institutional support I think things could have turned out very differently. I could have been pushed back in the closet or worse. So it feels like with a twist of fate I could have gone through what the author does in this heartrending and beautifully written memoir. It describes a period of young adulthood when Conley entered into “treatment” at an ex-gay therapy religious organization after he was outed as gay to his parents. He recounts this painful experience as well as the events leading up to them in a way which masterfully examines his development and the way in which it was severely interrupted by this dangerous ill-founded program.

At one point Conley and another man listen to 'Pagan Poetry' on a loop in a way which reminded me of my young adulthood.

One of the things I found most touching about the book is the poetic way Conley describes a period in his teenage life when he played video games with a hypnotic obsession. Like many teenagers, I did the same. This is an activity many young people devout countless hours to and it’s often remarked that this is a mindless exercise. But Conley gets in this memoir how it’s more like a period of gestation where an adolescent can slip in and out of the self while coming to terms with the reality of new desires. Certainly it can be a way of avoiding reality, but it’d be wrong to think that nothing is going on in the mind of a boy completing adventurous quests on his game console. It’s not so much a way of wasting time as allowing oneself to float free from the constrictions that you’ve only just realized you’re entangled in.

It feels like this is a memoir which has become increasingly relevant considering that Mike Pence will become the next vice-President of the United States. This is a Congressman who advocated for funding conversion therapy and opposed LGBT rights. This ridiculous form of pseudo-treatment has been decreasing in America recently, but it could very well grow again if the prevailing sentiments expressed by the government are anti-LGBT. Conley powerfully describes the perverse way people who enter ex-gay therapy are expected to surrender aspects which are vital to their personality: “We had to give over our memories, our desires, our ideas of freedom, to Jesus our master.” The book movingly works up to the reasons why its author entered this program and how it felt like there was no other option. It drives home how vulnerable young people are and how easily they can be manipulated when brought under misguided influences. This is a book with a lot of heart that has something important to say.

The Surrender by Scott Esposito

I only realized in the past couple of years how dreadful many adults are about articulating what they really desire – also how dreadful I am at saying what I desire. Superficial desires might be easily expressed, but what someone really wishes to experience or become is often much harder to put out in the world because its buried under years of socialized behaviour. It's much easier to conform to expectations and slot into a category. In this short, powerful memoir “The Surrender”, Esposito describes his lifelong journey to giving into his desire to dress as a woman. At a certain point in his childhood he learned that his compulsion to dress girlish wasn't compatible with the masculine image imposed upon him so it remained secret and dormant for many years. Only through a surprising identification with Kiarostami's film Close-Up and gradually admitting to others his desire, does he begin to dress in a feminine way outside of the private sphere. This provokes Esposito to formulate a strikingly original meditation on the meaning of identity and desire in the modern world.

I was really struck by the profundity and beautiful simplicity Esposito has for articulating how burying what you desire is a grave dishonesty. He discovers “My needs were not compatible with the logics bred into my mind, and it was up to me to change them.” It takes a lot of patient reasoning and difficult confrontations with himself to truly understand why he fears his transvestitism being exposed. It also takes a lot of trust to confide in someone how he really feels, but how surprising and wonderful it can be to get a positive response to such a confession. He describes with heartrending emotion the feeling of being observed and why dressing openly as a woman was so difficult: “If personality is a performance, then there are certain parts of it that one only experiences in the presence of others. Shame, affection, desire, vulnerability; these are quantities whose experience in solitude is like the sound of a sonata heard by one faulty ear.” It takes many years for him to build up the certainty of character to allow his private self to be seen publicly.

One of the most touching things is the way Esposito describes the evolution of his identity in sync with the theory, literature and films he consumes. He meaningfully enters into a dialogue with those whose ideas feed into his experience helping him to better articulate his own desires. It made me aware of why reading feels like such a vital part of my life and how all the feelings produced from the things I read aren't just abstract concepts, but things that apply directly to my day to day life. I think this book makes a perfect companion to Maggie Nelson's “The Argonauts” which I only read recently. Both reflect strikingly on the dynamics of gender in a deeply personal and intelligent way.