Gay books

[OrphanPip]

Someone has written up a list of the "Best" 100 Gay Books and posted it on the internet. I have read many of the books, and can say that it is a decent list. You can find it here:

http://www.publishingtriangle.org/100best.asp

It is a good list, but there are many I would dispute about the status of "gay," like Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf was bisexual and there are lesbian undertones to much of her work but she never wrote anything explicit or even highly suggestive. Likewise with Henry James, who was likely a lifelong closet case (and likely virgin), Bostonians is famous for coining the term "Boston Marriage" for an ambiguously sexual female couple, but the lesbian relationship isn't really explicit.

It reminded me of some I left off my list, like Gide, Proust, Vidal, and Genet. Although, I'm not sure I'd be so cruel as to recommend Proust to a casual reader.

Edit: I'm also mildly perturbed by two of the top five novels being about adult men sexually pursuing adolescent boys. Death in Venice and The Immoralist are great books though.

[Inchante]

It is a good list, but there are many I would dispute about the status of "gay," like Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf was bisexual and there are lesbian undertones to much of her work but she never wrote anything explicit or even highly suggestive. Likewise with Henry James, who was likely a lifelong closet case (and likely virgin), Bostonians is famous for coining the term "Boston Marriage" for an ambiguously sexual female couple, but the lesbian relationship isn't really explicit.

It reminded me of some I left off my list, like Gide, Proust, Vidal, and Genet. Although, I'm not sure I'd be so cruel as to recommend Proust to a casual reader.

Edit: I'm also mildly perturbed by two of the top five novels being about adult men sexually pursuing adolescent boys. Death in Venice and The Immoralist are great books though.

True, I think it is a bit loos at times with its definitions. Though, I think "Orland" is a very good book for gender bending and trans type narratives.

I agree with you on "Death in Venice", have not read "The Immoralist", however.

There is a short story by Henry Miller that had some intriguing bits in it I read once. I cannot remember the name of it or the name of the gay anthology that it was in, but I remember that it had a good deal of magical realism in it.

All in all, I think the person who created the list was interested in not only those books with homosexual content, but also GLBT authors. For instance, as far as I know, Mary Renault was entirely heterosexual but wrote books with homosexual content and while Henry Miller never wrote anything that was explicitly gay, it is generaly thought that he was a suppressed homosexual, as you indicated . . . besides which, "Daisy Miller" is great.

And no, no matter how many times I have started in on "Swans Way" I have never made it beyond the first 20 pages (blah). I do love me some Jean Genet, however. There is a wonderful quote of his from "Funeral Rights", "Staves and orchards issue from my Mouth", a play on words which can double as something quite different issuing from his mouth in the original French.

[ToddYoung]

My favourite gay novel is The Charioteer by Mary Renault, set in the Second World War.

[Inchante]

My favourite gay novel is The Charioteer by Mary Renault, set in the Second World War.

It is a very good one. She wrote several other books with gay themes to them. Most, however, were set in the Classical and even PreClassical period.

[East]

My recommendation would be Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin..

The first gay novel I ever read was The Front Runner by Patricia ? (forgot her last name).

[Inchante]

My recommendation would be Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin..

The first gay novel I ever read was The Front Runner by Patricia ? (forgot her last name).

Patricia Nell Warren

[jbd555]

A lot of Anne Rice books are homoerotic such as Interview with a Vampire also Queen of the Damned. I saw a short lived play in NYC a few years back called "Lestat". It was based on Anne Rice's character and the music in it was written by Eton John. The play ended early and the sountrack was never published on CD as promised.
I love Scifi based gay novels.

[Inchante]

A lot of Anne Rice books are homoerotic such as Interview with a Vampire also Queen of the Damned. I saw a short lived play in NYC a few years back called "Lestat". It was based on Anne Rice's character and the music in it was written by Eton John. The play ended early and the sountrack was never published on CD as promised.
I love Scifi based gay novels.

I saw the musical in San Francisco with a friend when it premiered . . . we should have gone to "Spamalot".