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Bread and Wine
Award-winning science fiction author Samuel Delany and Dennis, a homeless New Yorker selling books from a blanket, discover sexual joy and explode stereotypes while exploring the possibilities for compassion and acceptance in this moving graphic novel -- all the more touching because it's true.
80 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1999
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629 people want to read
About the author
Samuel R. Delany
306 books2,246 followersSamuel Ray Delany, also known as "Chip," is an award-winning American science fiction author. He was born to a prominent black family on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem. His mother, Margaret Carey Boyd Delany, was a library clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany, Senior, ran a successful Harlem undertaking establishment, Levy & Delany Funeral Home, on 7th Avenue, between 1938 and his death in 1960. The family lived in the top two floors of the three-story private house between five- and six-story Harlem apartment buildings. Delany's aunts were Sadie and Bessie Delany; Delany used some of their adventures as the basis for the adventures of his characters Elsie and Corry in the opening novella Atlantis: Model 1924 in his book of largely autobiographical stories Atlantis: Three Tales.
Delany attended the Dalton School and the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Delany and poet Marilyn Hacker met in high school, and were married in 1961. Their marriage lasted nineteen years. They had a daughter, Iva Hacker-Delany (b. 1974), who spent a decade working in theater in New York City.
Delany was a published science fiction author by the age of 20. He published nine well-regarded science fiction novels between 1962 and 1968, as well as several prize-winning short stories (collected in Driftglass [1971] and more recently in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories [2002]). His eleventh and most popular novel, Dhalgren, was published in 1975. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was the Return to Nevèrÿon series, the overall title of the four volumes and also the title of the fourth and final book.
Delany has published several autobiographical/semi-autobiographical accounts of his life as a black, gay, and highly dyslexic writer, including his Hugo award winning autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water.
Since 1988, Delany has been a professor at several universities. This includes eleven years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo. He then moved to the English Department of Temple University in 2001, where he has been teaching since. He has had several visiting guest professorships before and during these same years. He has also published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. In one of his non-fiction books, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), he draws on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men, gay and straight, in New York City.
In 2007, Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. The film debuted on April 25 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.
Delany attended the Dalton School and the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Delany and poet Marilyn Hacker met in high school, and were married in 1961. Their marriage lasted nineteen years. They had a daughter, Iva Hacker-Delany (b. 1974), who spent a decade working in theater in New York City.
Delany was a published science fiction author by the age of 20. He published nine well-regarded science fiction novels between 1962 and 1968, as well as several prize-winning short stories (collected in Driftglass [1971] and more recently in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories [2002]). His eleventh and most popular novel, Dhalgren, was published in 1975. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was the Return to Nevèrÿon series, the overall title of the four volumes and also the title of the fourth and final book.
Delany has published several autobiographical/semi-autobiographical accounts of his life as a black, gay, and highly dyslexic writer, including his Hugo award winning autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water.
Since 1988, Delany has been a professor at several universities. This includes eleven years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo. He then moved to the English Department of Temple University in 2001, where he has been teaching since. He has had several visiting guest professorships before and during these same years. He has also published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. In one of his non-fiction books, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), he draws on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men, gay and straight, in New York City.
In 2007, Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. The film debuted on April 25 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
September 6, 2019
I read the 500-plus page "The Mad Man" in grad school & wholly LOATHED it. It was extremely antiart, it was too exotic/disgusting for my taste. It was repetitive, in a way only a sadist wannabe (A.K.A. Marquis de Sade imitator) could be. It was the same act repeated ad nauseum--I cannot believe I survived that type of... ugh. Anyway, this one is short, and it contains moments of tenderness that I DID find artistic & beautiful. Yeah. Wolff has a great skill! But then... the afterwords occur--the artist, the writer, & the real characters are together again--& everyone is talking about these crystallized moments in time (specks) and it becomes Pretentious. Then it ends. So, I'm sorry. I cannot consider myself a S. Delany fan, as much as it hurts to admit it. I feel pretty lame for feeling this way, but it's the truth.
January 29, 2022
This was lovely. The reprint edition has an introduction by Alan Moore and is book-ended by interviews with artist Mia Wolff and both Dennis and Delany themselves, looking back on the events of how they met. It is an extraordinary story by any account: The academic and author who strikes up a conversation with a homeless man in New York, and eventually invites him for a night of sex in a rented hotel room. After a bath and a good scrub, of course: The issue of Dennis’s personal hygiene is cause for much humour. An excellent showcase for Delany’s descriptive writing, this is not for the fainthearted.
A few detours later, and Dennis and Delany have been together ever since. Much of the story presented here in graphic-novel format is relayed in more detail in ‘Letters from Amherst’. What gives ‘Bread & Wine’ a particular poignancy is that it is such a wonderful representation of two of Delany’s abiding concerns, the ethics (and mechanics) of pornography and comic books (or graphic novels, as they are now known) as a form of ‘para’ literature.
Wolff’s drawings give the book a sense of a realistic fairy tale, if that description makes any sense. Being Delany, his sense of dialogue and detail in the text itself is mesmerising, intercut as it is with quotations from the long poem ‘Brod und Wein’ or ‘Bread and Wine’ by Friedrich Holderlin, which begins:
Round about the city rests. The illuminated streets grow
Quiet, and coaches rush along, adorned with torches.
Men go home to rest, filled with the day's pleasures;
Busy minds weigh up profit and loss contentedly
At home. The busy marketplace comes to rest,
Vacant now of flowers and grapes and crafts.
But the music of strings sounds in distant gardens:
Perhaps lovers play there, or a lonely man thinks
About distant friends, and about his own youth.
A few detours later, and Dennis and Delany have been together ever since. Much of the story presented here in graphic-novel format is relayed in more detail in ‘Letters from Amherst’. What gives ‘Bread & Wine’ a particular poignancy is that it is such a wonderful representation of two of Delany’s abiding concerns, the ethics (and mechanics) of pornography and comic books (or graphic novels, as they are now known) as a form of ‘para’ literature.
Wolff’s drawings give the book a sense of a realistic fairy tale, if that description makes any sense. Being Delany, his sense of dialogue and detail in the text itself is mesmerising, intercut as it is with quotations from the long poem ‘Brod und Wein’ or ‘Bread and Wine’ by Friedrich Holderlin, which begins:
Round about the city rests. The illuminated streets grow
Quiet, and coaches rush along, adorned with torches.
Men go home to rest, filled with the day's pleasures;
Busy minds weigh up profit and loss contentedly
At home. The busy marketplace comes to rest,
Vacant now of flowers and grapes and crafts.
But the music of strings sounds in distant gardens:
Perhaps lovers play there, or a lonely man thinks
About distant friends, and about his own youth.
February 22, 2021
A brief graphic novel memoir about Delany finding love on the dirty streets of New York.
April 3, 2020
Love win yani. Adam aşkını çöpten çıkarmış baş tacı yapmış. O ne inceliktir. Valla aşka inancım tazelendi. İlişkinin devamını da anlatsaya bir başka kitapta.
Ünlü yazarın, New York City’de kitap satan bir homeless ile tanışması ve bu tanışıklığın uzun yıllarca süren ilişkiye dönmesini anlatıyor, içerimize umut salıyor.
Ünlü yazarın, New York City’de kitap satan bir homeless ile tanışması ve bu tanışıklığın uzun yıllarca süren ilişkiye dönmesini anlatıyor, içerimize umut salıyor.
January 2, 2011
A wonderful, extremely atypcial gay love story in graphic novel form. An absolute must-read.
May 23, 2020
A quick read with layers of meaning and resonance, even if the blurbs and introduction are over the top. This simple memoir explores a life-changing meeting between a teacher/writer and a man making do with life on the streets. They fumble their way towards each other and then build a life together. Simple yet profound. Plus penguins!
November 29, 2013
A (literally) gritty but heartfelt true story of an unusual romance. More proof about the power of love and humanity.
February 21, 2016
This is an endearing love story, well-told and an enjoyable read. Despite the sensational surface (famous black gay SF writer falls in love with unknown and dirty homeless man on New York streets) this graphic novel tells a typical love story. The chance encounter of members of different worlds, the unexpected pairing of minds and bodies, the hesitations and enthusiasms, the mythic resonances and the banal homeliness. The title comes from the title of a poem by Holderlin, which is cited from the first page and throughout the book. The poem tells us: "Bread is the fruit of the earth, yet it's blessed also by light. The pleasure of wine comes from the thundering god. We remember the gods thereby, those who were once With us, and who'll return when the time is right". The message seems to be, in both cases, that love lives by flashes of the union of earth and sky, of filth and cosmos, flashes of the return of the gods in pagan communion.
January 3, 2016
He said it better:
"It is perhaps the most entirely moving piece that he has ever written, this in one of the most deeply felt bodies of work to grace contemporary literature." -- Alan Moore
"It is perhaps the most entirely moving piece that he has ever written, this in one of the most deeply felt bodies of work to grace contemporary literature." -- Alan Moore
Read
December 30, 2016Rather endearing.
*
MEAN PEOPLE SUCK, NICE PEOPLE SWALLOW
*
The two things I find most fascinating about Delany are, first, his obsession with guys with big rough hands who bite their nails, and, second, the fact that he's a hyperpromiscuous gay man who doesn't like anal sex.
Our fetishes may constitute the irreducible contingency of our existence, and so it's probably a mistake to try and attribute too much direct meaning to them. Nonetheless their mystery remains inexhaustible. We never really get to the end of them.
*
MEAN PEOPLE SUCK, NICE PEOPLE SWALLOW
*
The two things I find most fascinating about Delany are, first, his obsession with guys with big rough hands who bite their nails, and, second, the fact that he's a hyperpromiscuous gay man who doesn't like anal sex.
Our fetishes may constitute the irreducible contingency of our existence, and so it's probably a mistake to try and attribute too much direct meaning to them. Nonetheless their mystery remains inexhaustible. We never really get to the end of them.
July 30, 2013
Don't be fooled by the secondary title of this Graphic Novel, this is not erotica. It's a love story.
Samuel R. Delany writes the true tale of how he met his current partner, Dennis, and Mia Wolff illustrates the very plain and simple prose with gorgeous drawings that shift between detailed realism and simple sketches. All of this combines for a wonderful love story without extra bells and whistles. Just something nice. In some ways, it is reminiscent of (my memory of) The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima in that there are no real stylistic literary devices being used to make the tale more than something simple. And it is in that very simplicity that the whole thing works.
Fans of Delany may be a bit put off by how stripped down the prose is, but I, for one, feel that once again he has tied an appropriate style to the story. I did feel that the intrusion of the quotes from the poem "Bread and Wine" were jarring in a strange unsettling way, but those are mainly relegated to the first few pages anyway.
For those of you fond of memoirs and interested in a quick read, this is a great little book. For those of you who want a beautiful love story, this is a fantastic little book. For those of you who want your faith in humanity restored - just a little bit - this is an essential book. Check it out, you'll be glad you did. And definitely read the interviews at the end, for that is where the true climax of the story takes place. That is where the true love is expressed.
Samuel R. Delany writes the true tale of how he met his current partner, Dennis, and Mia Wolff illustrates the very plain and simple prose with gorgeous drawings that shift between detailed realism and simple sketches. All of this combines for a wonderful love story without extra bells and whistles. Just something nice. In some ways, it is reminiscent of (my memory of) The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima in that there are no real stylistic literary devices being used to make the tale more than something simple. And it is in that very simplicity that the whole thing works.
Fans of Delany may be a bit put off by how stripped down the prose is, but I, for one, feel that once again he has tied an appropriate style to the story. I did feel that the intrusion of the quotes from the poem "Bread and Wine" were jarring in a strange unsettling way, but those are mainly relegated to the first few pages anyway.
For those of you fond of memoirs and interested in a quick read, this is a great little book. For those of you who want a beautiful love story, this is a fantastic little book. For those of you who want your faith in humanity restored - just a little bit - this is an essential book. Check it out, you'll be glad you did. And definitely read the interviews at the end, for that is where the true climax of the story takes place. That is where the true love is expressed.
Read
December 16, 2025the forward by junot díaz was so unsparingly bad it almost ruined this otherwise quite tender story.
i hadn’t heard of delany before, let alone his reputation in the sci-fi space (something i thought i knew at least a little about) so coming into this expecting a queer love story and coming out of it with both that and a whole new person to wikipedia feels really nice
i hadn’t heard of delany before, let alone his reputation in the sci-fi space (something i thought i knew at least a little about) so coming into this expecting a queer love story and coming out of it with both that and a whole new person to wikipedia feels really nice
April 5, 2017
fuck :')
November 7, 2024
*3.5 a fast read but so so beautiful, the writing and the art!
November 8, 2024
*2.5 stars; i didn’t really find it particularly moving, but it was a pretty good story nonetheless. the art was gorgeous, especially the last page
April 29, 2016
For the first time, there exist a love story full of intimacy without romance. In Bread & Wine, the love story of Samuel Delany and Dennis Rickett crosses the social normative boundaries that exist in gender, class, and romance. Samuel and Dennis are just two men from different classes that sparked a connection in the streets of New York City one early morning. Although this love story on paper may be argued as being non-relatable to the mass because of its interweaving of class, gender, and absence of a passionate courtship, I found glimpse of Bread & Wine to be more present in my personal love life compared to the classic love stories such as Romeo and Juliet, and fairly recent published stories like The Notebook.
Even though my partner and I identify ourselves as heterosexuals and come from similar class, our relationship is centered on the casual ease of building a friendship which I picked up between Samuel and Dennis. Their moments of drinking coffee while having conversations in the streets of New York City, talking about sex beforehand, and taking the time to let the experience of first time sex sink in before meeting up again resonates with what love is capable of achieving which is individual growth.
Therefore, I believe Bread & Wine is groundbreaking in its capability to pull together a love story that crosses the social normative boundaries that exist in gender, class, and romance to allow readers to see love in action outside the social pressures. What we discover is that love is an asexual, classless, and an unfanciful developmental process.
Even though my partner and I identify ourselves as heterosexuals and come from similar class, our relationship is centered on the casual ease of building a friendship which I picked up between Samuel and Dennis. Their moments of drinking coffee while having conversations in the streets of New York City, talking about sex beforehand, and taking the time to let the experience of first time sex sink in before meeting up again resonates with what love is capable of achieving which is individual growth.
Therefore, I believe Bread & Wine is groundbreaking in its capability to pull together a love story that crosses the social normative boundaries that exist in gender, class, and romance to allow readers to see love in action outside the social pressures. What we discover is that love is an asexual, classless, and an unfanciful developmental process.
May 2, 2008
This is one author that I could fully write a list called "a million and one reasons I love them..."
I thought Delany was an amazing author, then I saw him naked standing next to giant penguins...most beautiful thing ever.
I thought Delany was an amazing author, then I saw him naked standing next to giant penguins...most beautiful thing ever.
September 27, 2008
Very lovely book, in all aspects. I'm so pleased it's a true story. It's simple and complex in all the right ways.
December 19, 2010
What a great story! Not very believable until you find out it's true. Then, very lovely!
November 6, 2017
It’s a love story. It’s a romance. The title’s a misnomer.
I’ve got the 2013 edition which includes two sets of follow up interviews, dated 1997 and 2013. The follow ups made this from a four star to five for me, because they’re like marvelously detailed ‘behind the scenes’ shorts you watch after you’ve seen a movie you seriously enjoyed.
The story’s told in such a brief, dry matter of fact tone by the narrator (Delaney - we don’t get his partner’s POV until the interview section after) that if glorious excerpts from Friedrich Holderlin’s poem, Bread & Wine, weren’t inserted almost as subtext to the story unfolding on the page, you might not understand the depths of emotion contained in this quiet story.
Strongly recommended.
I’ve got the 2013 edition which includes two sets of follow up interviews, dated 1997 and 2013. The follow ups made this from a four star to five for me, because they’re like marvelously detailed ‘behind the scenes’ shorts you watch after you’ve seen a movie you seriously enjoyed.
The story’s told in such a brief, dry matter of fact tone by the narrator (Delaney - we don’t get his partner’s POV until the interview section after) that if glorious excerpts from Friedrich Holderlin’s poem, Bread & Wine, weren’t inserted almost as subtext to the story unfolding on the page, you might not understand the depths of emotion contained in this quiet story.
Strongly recommended.
August 21, 2022
I wanted to give this book 5 stars but some elements like the ending (with the rings) kinda went nowhere and did not work for me.
This is a beautiful love story between a literature professor and a homeless man. While the main story covers how they met and ended up together, the interview at the end was an equally interesting read that expanded on what happened after and the origin story of how the book.
There are nudity and a few full on sex scenes. Recommended for senior secondary and older.
This is a beautiful love story between a literature professor and a homeless man. While the main story covers how they met and ended up together, the interview at the end was an equally interesting read that expanded on what happened after and the origin story of how the book.
There are nudity and a few full on sex scenes. Recommended for senior secondary and older.
January 8, 2023
A short, honest, well-told story of an unlikely relationship. The art is beautiful and sexy. The story feels a bit thin, but given how little text there is it's pretty remarkable how authentic and economic Delany's voice feels in this, relating enough to let us know what happened and what was memorable about it. I was glad to have an updated version that has a bit of an epilogue. I'm curious to read some of Delany's sci-fi.
January 20, 2019
The story is touching and very real I just wish that there was more of it. It feels like a sneak peak into a story instead of a full length story but even so it was good. The art was well drawn and I could tell that the narrative came from a place of real caring. I would love to read more stories from this author and maybe get some more background from the two of them.
January 24, 2022
A lovely, romantic, erotic story. The two men at the center of it seem like wonderful and fascinating people. Started this because I heard of Delany as a seminal but often overlooked science fiction writer, and when I was looking at his bibliography this came up. Looking forward to reading his fiction.
May 26, 2022
Samuel Delany book club presses on. If Empire (Delany's other graphic novel) is a world-hopping, sci-fi action adventure with a (probably over)stuffed plot, this one is straightforward in scope and execution as it tells the story of Delany's growing romantic and erotic relationship with Dennis, who he first meets homeless and selling books on the street.
November 12, 2024
Chip meets Dennis, who lives on the street. It’s everything. It’s romantic, it’s hot, it’s matter-of-fact. It only gets better by knowing they are still together. I’m not usually one for graphic novels (graphic novellas?), but this one … yup, nope, made me cry. And also will make me read Hölderlin, wtf.
April 11, 2018
graphic memoir of Chip Delaney and his husband Dennis. It doesn't shy away from gay male sensuality or the bare truth of Dennis' years living on the street. I read the 25th anniversary edition of this which has two afterwords.
July 6, 2020
A wonderful companion piece to The Mad Man, this quick graphic novel tells the tale of the beginning of Delany's enduring partnership with Dennis Rickett, whom he met as a homeless book vendor on the streets of New York City. The artwork by Mia Wolff brings this story to life in spare, accessible panels. Highly recommended!
September 14, 2017
So sweet, a great story. The illustrations really add depth.
May 26, 2018
I was not expecting this detailed of a story and learned too much personal information about Delany and yet was left wanting to know more about their tale when it ended.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews