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With: New Gay Fiction
With: New Gay Fiction, edited by Jameson Currier, features sixteen authors writing on relationships with men: gay men with their friends, lovers, partners, husbands, dates, tricks, boyfriends, hustlers, idols, teachers, mentors, fathers, brothers, family, teams, co-workers, relatives, and strangers.
Contributors include David Bergman, Michael Carroll, Lewis DeSimone, Jack Fritscher, Ronald M. Gauthier, Michael Graves, Shaun Levin, Dan López, Jeff Mann, Vincent Meis, Matthew A. Merendo, Joel A. Nichols, David Pratt, Tom Schabarum, Stefen Styrsky, and William Sterling Walker.
Contributors include David Bergman, Michael Carroll, Lewis DeSimone, Jack Fritscher, Ronald M. Gauthier, Michael Graves, Shaun Levin, Dan López, Jeff Mann, Vincent Meis, Matthew A. Merendo, Joel A. Nichols, David Pratt, Tom Schabarum, Stefen Styrsky, and William Sterling Walker.
278 pages, Paperback
First published November 4, 2013
41 people want to read
About the author
Jameson Currier
55 books30 followersJameson Currier is the author of five novels, Where the Rainbow Ends, nominated for a Lambda Literary award, The Wolf at the Door, The Third Buddha, What Comes Around, and The Forever Marathon, and four collections of short fiction: Dancing on the Moon; Desire, Lust, Passion, Sex; Still Dancing: New and Selected Stories; and The Haunted Heart and Other Tales, which was awarded a Black Quill Award for Best Dark Genre Fiction Collection. His short fiction has appeared in many literary magazines and Web sites, including Velvet Mafia, Blithe House Quarterly, Confrontation, Christopher Street, and the anthologies Men on Men 5, Best American Gay Fiction 3, Boyfriends from Hell, Mammoth Book of New Gay Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best American Erotica, Best Gay Romance, Best Gay Stories, Circa 2000, Rebel Yell, I Do/I Don't, Where the Boys Are, Nine Hundred & Sixty-Nine, Wilde Stories, Unspeakable Horror, and Making Literature Matter. His AIDS-themed short stories have also been translated into French by Anne-Laure Hubert and published as Les Fantômes. His reviews, essays, interviews, and articles on AIDS and gay culture have been published in many national and local publications, including The Washington Post, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, Lambda Book Report, The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, The Washington Blade, Southern Voice, Metrosource, Bay Area Reporter, Frontiers, The New York Blade, and Body Positive. In 2010, he began Chelsea Station Editions, an independent press for gay books, and the following year launched Chelsea Station, a literary magazine devoted to gay-themed writing. In 2013 he edited two original anthologies for the press: Between: New Gay Poetry and With: New Gay Fiction. He currently resides in Manhattan.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 25, 2024
The eclectic story collection, "With: New Gay Fiction," edited by Jameson Currier, author of "The Forever Marathon" and "Where the Rainbow Ends," examines the variety and complexity of gay men's relationships -- with their friends, partners, lovers and family members, as well as other random acquaintances, including teammates, colleagues, dates, tricks and strangers.
Much like relationships in real life, the temperament of these sixteen tales ranges from inspiring and uplifting, to puzzling and disconcerting. Some of the lengthier, more intricate examples are worthy of novella status, while others read like essays or diary entries. Style and substance aside, this comprehensive anthology represents a multitude of ages, races and historical time periods.
Perhaps saving the best for last, Jack Fritscher's "Blown with the Wind" provides a compelling and brutally honest seven-decade retrospective of gay history and identity, as told by Jack, born in Chicago during the Depression, and his life partner, Zus, a Holocaust survivor. Jack's painstakingly detailed account of their life together spans the globe and includes everything from Judy Garland and the baths, to Gloria Gaynor, AIDS and iPods.
Gay marriage is at the forefront of "Pride," Lewis DeSimone's profound portrait of a day in the life of Keith and Craig, a content couple together for only a little over the year, who join the Castro Street celebration of DOMA's dismissal. As the two take in the festivities and encounter friends with mixed feelings about this legislative victory, both silently ask themselves whether matrimony is the right thing for them.
An actual same-sex wedding is about to take place, in post-Katrina New Orleans between Timmy Paul and Quenton, in "Second Life," Ronald M. Gauthier's revealing story about the effect tragedy and a near-death experience has on how one man chooses to live his life and decides his future.
The most lighthearted entry, "Sunflower," from Matthew A. Merendo, is narrated by Mark, a youngster with an incorrigible crush on his swimming instructor, Logan. Despite his efforts to suppress his lustful fantasies that seemingly appear everywhere, including his video games, Mark learns to try to take it all in stride, courtesy of Logan's encouragement.
Michael Graves' "Gold Mines" is also about a young teen, Nelson, from small town Massachusetts, who (unlike Mark from "Sunflower") is so proud of his fondness for Travis, a soldier in Iraq, that he moves in with his Gram to avoid his religious zealot mother. Although Nelson fears Travis has been killed, the young man works fastidiously to hang a sign over a highway to welcome him home. Equally moving and enraging, "Gold Mines" will surely bring a tear to the reader's eye.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention "What Is Real" by David Pratt, an intriguing, cathartic retelling of events from a man's encounter with a hitchhiker, as though the events never actually took place. Similarly albeit less inviting, "The Beautiful Boy" by Shaun Levin is an essay-style diatribe from a self-professed old, fat and ugly gentleman about our stereotypical preoccupation with age and vanity.
While some of the stories are either odd, bleak or arguably too lengthy, each is noteworthy in some fashion and the indisputably readable collection, as a whole, is impressive and thought-provoking, because we all have something in common with at least one, but more likely several of the men represented here.
Much like relationships in real life, the temperament of these sixteen tales ranges from inspiring and uplifting, to puzzling and disconcerting. Some of the lengthier, more intricate examples are worthy of novella status, while others read like essays or diary entries. Style and substance aside, this comprehensive anthology represents a multitude of ages, races and historical time periods.
Perhaps saving the best for last, Jack Fritscher's "Blown with the Wind" provides a compelling and brutally honest seven-decade retrospective of gay history and identity, as told by Jack, born in Chicago during the Depression, and his life partner, Zus, a Holocaust survivor. Jack's painstakingly detailed account of their life together spans the globe and includes everything from Judy Garland and the baths, to Gloria Gaynor, AIDS and iPods.
Gay marriage is at the forefront of "Pride," Lewis DeSimone's profound portrait of a day in the life of Keith and Craig, a content couple together for only a little over the year, who join the Castro Street celebration of DOMA's dismissal. As the two take in the festivities and encounter friends with mixed feelings about this legislative victory, both silently ask themselves whether matrimony is the right thing for them.
An actual same-sex wedding is about to take place, in post-Katrina New Orleans between Timmy Paul and Quenton, in "Second Life," Ronald M. Gauthier's revealing story about the effect tragedy and a near-death experience has on how one man chooses to live his life and decides his future.
The most lighthearted entry, "Sunflower," from Matthew A. Merendo, is narrated by Mark, a youngster with an incorrigible crush on his swimming instructor, Logan. Despite his efforts to suppress his lustful fantasies that seemingly appear everywhere, including his video games, Mark learns to try to take it all in stride, courtesy of Logan's encouragement.
Michael Graves' "Gold Mines" is also about a young teen, Nelson, from small town Massachusetts, who (unlike Mark from "Sunflower") is so proud of his fondness for Travis, a soldier in Iraq, that he moves in with his Gram to avoid his religious zealot mother. Although Nelson fears Travis has been killed, the young man works fastidiously to hang a sign over a highway to welcome him home. Equally moving and enraging, "Gold Mines" will surely bring a tear to the reader's eye.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention "What Is Real" by David Pratt, an intriguing, cathartic retelling of events from a man's encounter with a hitchhiker, as though the events never actually took place. Similarly albeit less inviting, "The Beautiful Boy" by Shaun Levin is an essay-style diatribe from a self-professed old, fat and ugly gentleman about our stereotypical preoccupation with age and vanity.
While some of the stories are either odd, bleak or arguably too lengthy, each is noteworthy in some fashion and the indisputably readable collection, as a whole, is impressive and thought-provoking, because we all have something in common with at least one, but more likely several of the men represented here.
Want to read
June 10, 2020Individual story reviews will pop up as part of my ongoing Short Stories 366 project, over on my blog, under this tag.
July 31, 2014
This anthology features sixteen authors writing about all different types of relationships between gay men and others, including, but not limited to, lovers, family, friends, and acquaintances.
"Gold Mine" by Michael Graves
Gold Mine is an engaging and deeply emotional read written from two points of view. First, we have the boy anxiously waiting for his lover's return from the Iraqi War, and then we have boy's grandmother whose keen observations are shared with the reader. Graves uses both perspectives to explore the boy's relationship with his lover, the grandmother's love and acceptance, as well as the rejection he experiences from family members and the lover's family. This piece is engrossing in style with a political flavor that feels a bit dated, but not so much that it is not pertinent today. Particularly since there are lovers still waiting for their loved ones to come home safely.
"In Pride" by Lewis DeSimone
Lewis DeSimone's In Pride focuses on today's issue of gay marriage and all the changes that the new laws bring to individual lives and to the gay community as a whole. It's a beautiful thing and San Francisco is celebrating. But it all comes down to analyzing change and effect in the life of his main character, and as he joins the throngs of those celebrating, the effect it will have on a few of his friends who come from an older generation as opposed to the younger members of the gay community. There are questions: Is this something he wants in his life? Should he settle for the young lover who's already in his life or should he search for the right person? Does he want to? Is there still a chance for him? This is a fantastic piece by DeSimone who hits the right tone while addressing the new choices available to the modern gay man from the perspective of an experienced, mature generation.
"Werewolf" by Michael Carroll
Werewolf by Michael Carroll is one of those stories that just about anyone can relate to. It is about childhood friendships, you know, the ones that we let go with almost a sense of relief and later regret, usually when it's too late, because there are unresolved issues and feelings. In this case, Carroll's main character got there in time to say those last loving words to a dying friend and came to terms with rough realities. This is a deeply emotional, reality-based story that touches on the truth of those teen-year friendships that span years and in so many ways shape us.
I only highlighted three short stories as examples. It took me a while to finish this anthology because I read each story between other books. As a final assessment I will say this, the editor chose the right stories and writers for this anthology, and each one of the 16 stories included is definitely worth reading. As a bonus, I found a few new-to-me authors whose works I will be reading. This is B+ read for me.
"Gold Mine" by Michael Graves
Gold Mine is an engaging and deeply emotional read written from two points of view. First, we have the boy anxiously waiting for his lover's return from the Iraqi War, and then we have boy's grandmother whose keen observations are shared with the reader. Graves uses both perspectives to explore the boy's relationship with his lover, the grandmother's love and acceptance, as well as the rejection he experiences from family members and the lover's family. This piece is engrossing in style with a political flavor that feels a bit dated, but not so much that it is not pertinent today. Particularly since there are lovers still waiting for their loved ones to come home safely.
"In Pride" by Lewis DeSimone
Lewis DeSimone's In Pride focuses on today's issue of gay marriage and all the changes that the new laws bring to individual lives and to the gay community as a whole. It's a beautiful thing and San Francisco is celebrating. But it all comes down to analyzing change and effect in the life of his main character, and as he joins the throngs of those celebrating, the effect it will have on a few of his friends who come from an older generation as opposed to the younger members of the gay community. There are questions: Is this something he wants in his life? Should he settle for the young lover who's already in his life or should he search for the right person? Does he want to? Is there still a chance for him? This is a fantastic piece by DeSimone who hits the right tone while addressing the new choices available to the modern gay man from the perspective of an experienced, mature generation.
"Werewolf" by Michael Carroll
Werewolf by Michael Carroll is one of those stories that just about anyone can relate to. It is about childhood friendships, you know, the ones that we let go with almost a sense of relief and later regret, usually when it's too late, because there are unresolved issues and feelings. In this case, Carroll's main character got there in time to say those last loving words to a dying friend and came to terms with rough realities. This is a deeply emotional, reality-based story that touches on the truth of those teen-year friendships that span years and in so many ways shape us.
I only highlighted three short stories as examples. It took me a while to finish this anthology because I read each story between other books. As a final assessment I will say this, the editor chose the right stories and writers for this anthology, and each one of the 16 stories included is definitely worth reading. As a bonus, I found a few new-to-me authors whose works I will be reading. This is B+ read for me.
March 18, 2014
I have a story in here, so I'm not really impartial. It's a great collection!!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews