Guilty Pleasures discussion

The Beebo Brinker Chronicles

It's totally fabulous!!! (Though not especially affirming. All of the relationships end bitterly, and platonic hetero partnership ends up being seen as the ultimate fulfillment by two of the main characters. But from what I understand that was the only kind of "message" that could get published back then.)

The Erl-King by Michel Tournier when I was thirteen-ish. Unless you count the friendship between Philip and Jack in the Enid Blyton Adventure series---

The Lost Language of Cranes by David Leavitt

I was in my teens when I read it, and I remember being so impressed by it that I couldn't wait to check out the other books in the tiny GLBT section of the little discounted bookstore in my neighborhood at the time. (Damn, now I miss Crown Books!!! Come back, Crown Books, come back! ;-))

Hm. I think it is was Sunday's Women and/or Lesbian/Woman - a true classic. I know Rubyfruit Jungle was after those. At least from what I remember.

I am not really sure. There are three possibilities: The Front Runner, Maurice or Giovanni's Room. But I was about twelve, I think.

Dancer from the Dance: A Novel

I am not sure if this was my very first "gay novel", but I remember longing totally and completely to have lived during the 70's in New York City as I was currently growing up on a farm in rural Indiana in the 90's. Very profound story.

Of course, I was also reading my mother's Johanna Lyndsey romance novels - that's pretty gay.

*hee hee*

Like some others, I don't really remember my very first lgbt book, but I remember reading *Rubyfruit Jungle* and *The Front Runner* (both already mentioned) as well as *Fancy Dancer*. The first one I remember buying for myself was *A Boy's Own Story* by Edmund White. I recall being attracted by the cover as well as the title and reading it undercover! The first lgbt book to make a real impression on me was *A History of Shadows* by Robert C. Reinhart. I've been wanting to re-read that one for several years but haven't had the time.

theGayEditor
http://www.theGayEditor.com

Patricia Neil Warren's The Front Runner (1974), about a love affair between a track star and his coach. The humanizingly beautiful, natural and passionate relationship offered in this tender novel stood as stark contrast to the demonizing of gay people throughout American life. Nell's alternative universe liberated me from the small-minded, poisonous intolerance I experienced in the 1960s/70s Midwest... and inspired my imagination toward other narratives.

How could I have missed The Front Runner? I like to think I am up on all the "classic lit" gay novels, but I have totally never heard of this novel. It is totally my bag! I will have to read this ASAP.
Thanks!

I'm not sure... maybe Running with Scissors

Andrew Holleran’s DANCER FROM THE DANCE was the first gay novel I read, and it was so depressing I almost didn’t read any more. John Rechy’s CITY OF NIGHT was even more dark and nearly did me in!

But I didn’t give up. I went on to THE FRONT RUNNER (Patricia Nell Warren), which was lovely if a little saccharine, and then BOY MEETS BOY (David Levithan) finally made me say, “All right, my turn!” I really wanted to write books that were well written, that didn’t necessarily end in unmitigated hopelessness, that weren’t all about the act of sex, and that didn’t paint rainbows and flowers across every page. I didn’t see that out there, so I started writing.

A SECRET EDGE and THINKING STRAIGHT are my two published books so far, and both of them tell hopeful stories about boys in real life situations. Maybe they won’t be the first books you’ve read, but I hope you’ll give them a try!

Does the Wizard of Oz series count? Those were all pretty gay....

I remember sneaking "The City and the Pillar" in high school and staying up all night to read the whole thing. The next day I was sick and depressed, but I'm not sure if it was from the story or lack of sleep.

But soon after that I read "The Boy Who Picked Up the Bullets," which I remember being very HOT.

... i liked this book, but loved Leavitt's Family Dancing---his best work, to my mind.

i understand, but still have a strong reference to that novel. if there ever was a work of fiction that anticipated the AIDS crisis, it was Holleran's Dancer from the Dancer. haunting, lyrical and sad with a sense of foreboding. i read that novel just before the AIDS crisis struck---or before I became conscious of its ravaging nature, back in the mid 1980s---and I've often wondered what Holleran knew, or was he merely prescient. Read one other of his books: Nights of Aruba; can say i remember it, frankly.

i loved Rechy's book. actually, there was an interview with him in the last issue of the Gay & Lesbian Review. I don't remember knowing that the novel was unabashedly autobiographical... and he was quite a terror to agents, book reviewers, etc.

... and of course there are the Ken-and-Ken Gordon Merrick novels, The Lord Won't Mind and An Idol for Otheres---beauty, beauty and more beauty! i should think they wouldn't survive a second reading, but for me they were gifts from the gods back in the 70s/80s.

I read the first two Merrick novels when I was younger and didn't feel like I could relate to them as a young midwestern guy - it was about the elite of East Coast society and the writing was very surreal - the only issue they had in their world was dealing with each other's faults. Otherwise, they were educated, lived in a mansion, and took trips to Europe.

I did actually drag them out last week though and intend to read them again from a more mature viewpoint.

For me, the first book that comes to mind is Some Girls by Kristin McCloy. I wouldn't be surprised if I had read other gay-ish books before that, but this was the one that twanged the rubber band in my gut with an emotional resonance and for once felt like something that related to me. AKA, I thought the book was hot. ;-)

Harriet the Spy. I didn't think of Harriet that way, exactly, when I read it as a kid, but for some reason I loved her and was so drawn to her. She wore her father's bulky glass frames, jeans and tee-shirts. Her best friend was a boy who wore an apron to cook meals. She rode her bike like a powerful free spirit all over town.

As an adult, I discovered that the author, Louise Fitzhugh, was a lesbian. Ah ha.

Mine was The Well of Loneliness, by Radcliffe Hall, which I read when I was fourteen. I cried at the end.

The Best Little Boy in the World, which at the time was written by John Reid. The Best Little Boy in the World

Cry to Heaven
by Anne Rice. This one is something totally different from her Vampire novels. Sensuous and poignant. My favorite book.
ali

I Loved Dancer from the Dance. I am not sure if it was the first one I read but, I do know it is one I still think about on occasion. I also really liked Pawn To Queen Four, light campy funny but well written.

The first gay novel I read was Patricia Nell Warren's "The Front Runner"; the novel influenced me to become the writer I always wanted; however, I think I read a novel previous to this - that although - not considered a gay novel, was written by a gay writer; the plot very homoerotic; "Good Times/Bad Times" by James Kirkwood - still the novel I remember to this day as once that helped me to realize that caring so deeply for another boy was normal...All the earlier books folks have mentioned I read as well: Dancer From The Dance, Fancy Dancer, A Boys Own Story, the Merrick Novels; The Boy Who Picked Up Bullets -and does anyone remember these early mystery/suspense novels? China House, A Little Death, Golden Boy, How Town, the Stevenon Donald Strachey mysteries; the Tom & Scott msysteries...love 'em all....

I read Golden Boy, Thats a Michael Nava book right?

The Burning Plain this is another great book by Michael Nava.

I was about to post "oddly, The Dyke and the Dybbuk was my first LGBT read but I read Rubyfruit Jungle right after" and then I paused and realized that was AFTER I came out.

Before, before, I had read loads, but mostly political or random. First would be either [Book: And the Band Played On] or a history of the LGBT movement I snagged at a Borders' clearance sale. And then anything by David Sedaris. Unless you count Howl, Junk or Leaves of Grass. Which brings up a whole other set of issues. But mostly generally queer or specifically gay. Didn't really start reading the ladies until after I came out. Now I am a junkie.

The first consciously queer book that I read would be either
or

I remember being so worried that the librarian would notice those books, so I buried those books beneath other books by E.M. Forster and Anne Rice when I checked out those 'queer' books.

I remember being confounded by the choices that the writers presented, even though the milieu of both books could be completely opposite of my Southern suburban existence.

It was about five years later when I finally read Edmund White and Andrew Holleran. When I read Dancer from the Dance A Novel, I got worried and depressed as I was in the process of coming out in high school. I recently re-read "Dancer" and I was struck by the biting satire and the generosity of the writer, which made for a pleasurable read.

Afer thinking some more about the first queer book I've read and I realized the first one for me would be D.V.



This is a "faction" memoir of the long-time fashion editrix, Diana Vreeland, in which she recounts her encounters with Josephine Baker, Coco Chanel, Charles Lindburgh, the Duchess of Windsor, Balenciaga, Andy Warhol, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. A heady read!

Mine was either Michelle Tea's 'Valencia,' or Carissa Halston's 'A Girl Named Charlie Lester.' Both are incredible for completely different reasons.

Well of Loneliness-by Radclyffe Hall. It was very depressing but I found the history of its publication fascinating. Then I read Flying by Kate Millett- sitting in the library because I couldn't read it at home. Rubyfruit Jungle was the first one that made me laugh and think maybe everything would be alright.

Anne, the idea of not being able to read a specific book at home makes me so sad. :(

Well, it was the very early 70's and I had (and still have) very conservative parents. I did most of my "inappropriate" reading while babysitting. Luckily I babysat a lot.

That reminds me of the time I went with my mother as she went around cleaning houses for her clients, and at a client's house, I came across Joy of Sex

wow.... Maupin was like that to you?

Have you met Edmund White?

"stinky" as in smelly? body odor? burroughs is a strange fella, even tho he's good looking.

EWWW!

Hi Rambling Reader
I work in a bookstore in Princeton NJ and we just had an author event with Edmund White and I can tell you he is a wonderful man not like Maupin or Burroughs at all.
David Sedaris is also great person to meet he always stays after his readings to meet and great his fans.

wow what about other gay writers?

Alison Bechdel who wrote Fun Home and the Dykes to watch Out For comics is also really nice to her fans. I've been to a couple of her readings and she'll sign and chat to everyone. Damian McNicholl who wrote a great book called A Son Called Gabriel about an Irish boy coming to terms with his sexuality in Ulster in the 60's and 70's (the book is based on the authors life) is another great guy he has a blog that i like to read you should check him out.
Chris

Not one of the very first ones that I read, but one that made an early impression on me, was Bending the Landscape: Horror.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27...

It has many beautiful stories in it and just touched me in a way that not many books have. I highly recommend it.

i can't remember if it was something by william s burroughs or the fried green tomatoes book. i know i was 13 though.

I believe the first queer book that I read was Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden. I remember I didn't even take it out of the library for fear someone would tell my parents that I was reading it. Oddly enough, before I read my first queer book, I was writing queer stories. The characters of course, were loosely based on people that I knew, but what twelve year old writer doesn't write something that is basically a fantasy of how they wish their life to be?

My first LGBT book was "Love Rules" by Marilyn Reynolds. I really liked it!

Love Rules was a great book, one of the first few lgbt books I read.

Hi, All. I'm new here and wanted to just jump right in.
(BTW, I recently closed my bookstore - one in Seattle with a 30 year history and the stories I could tell about LGBT writers...yowza...)

My first was also The Front Runner. Do you think we all found it because it was so easily available? I found mine in The Book Bazaar, a little mall shop in central Illinois when i was in 7th grade. Followed closely by Dancer From the Dance. Then Rubyfruit Jungle.

I can't speak for anyone else but I can't imagine the coming out process without these essential titles. I wonder what queer boys and girls today come out to? There's so much LGBT YA out there...do any of you youngsters mind telling Gramps if you had to search out our old classic or was there a shelfload of YA LGBT books in your junior high school library?

I was maybe 12 or 13. I remember reading it in secret and hiding it because I thought I would get in trouble.

A Density of Souls was my first LGBT book-actually bought it at Costco of all places.

I jumped in at the deep end! Querelle de Brest by Genet - I could not believe the graphic depictions of anal sex - and the effect of being penetrated on the mind. I was 14-15... I immediately started walking my dog constantly around the docks of the town I was living in, hoping to meet rapacious sailors.

Davidberlin wrote: "I jumped in at the deep end! Querelle de Brest by Genet - I could not believe the graphic depictions of anal sex - and the effect of being penetrated on the mind. I was 14-15... I immediately start..."

...and did you??? Inquiring minds would like to know!