Reading LGBTQ+ Books

 

Reading LGBTQ+ Books

As most people are aware, June is Pride Month so our thematic book club chose LGBTQ+ as our theme.

Why read LGBTQ books if you don’t identify as someone who is? You may find you arrive at a greater understanding of people you love or just know through reading. Personally, I’ve tended to shy away from LGBTQ fiction books, particularly with romances, because I like to be able to imagine myself in the main character’s place. What I have found in my reading, is that 1 – good writing is good writing, and 2 – emotions are universal.

I’ll start with Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan, my book club selection.

Boy Meets Boy is a 2005 YA book, one of his first, but has always been highly recommended and I liked the idea of a YA book. In my opinion, YA writers are some of the best and create the most accessible reading.

I started out reading this on my e-reader but moved to the full cast recording available in our Hoopla catalog because time was running out and I could listen in the car.

This was a delightful read, not because it doesn’t deal with difficult issues, but because of the relentlessly optimistic tone of one high school sophomore, Paul.

Paul talks about his school in shining terms, his community sounds idyllic. The star quarterback of the football team is Infinite Darlene, formerly Darryl, who is also the homecoming queen. It just seems like the whole school, and town, is perfectly fine with everyone being exactly who they are. (Would that it were so in real life!)

But really, it’s how Paul thinks about it. You see, he talks about the first time he was jumped for being gay as if it were no big deal. He was out to a movie with the fencing team and they soon routed the bullies who attacked him.

No, all is not perfect in this utopia. His best friend, Joni, gets involved with a boy of questionable intentions, Chuck. Paul meets a wonderful boy, Noah, who is leery because he has been burned in a past relationship. Then Paul’s ex-boyfriend, Kyle, pushes his way back into his life.

One of Paul’s closest friends, Tony, has to hide that he even has gay friends from his parents. Tony’s homophobic aunt sees Tony and Paul in an innocent hug of friendship and support. She goes running back to Tony’s mother and Tony is grounded. Paul is very worried for what might be happening to Tony.

It all seems to have gotten very complicated, very fast. Paul is daunted, but not defeated, and it’s how he deals with these challenges that make the book so lovely. I highly recommend.

A Spindle Splintered is another YA but this is a novella. I have not been disappointed by anything Harrow has written and I think I’ve read it all at this point. Harrow is a wonderful writer who offers literary quality prose with good action and solid plotting. She is in my top 5 current writers.

This is a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story with a distinctive story line. Zinnia Gray has always been fascinated by Sleeping Beauty because she has a mystery illness. No one who has it has survived past their 21^st birthday. Her best friend creates a Sleeping Beauty themed party for her on her 21^st birthday. Of course, her story doesn’t end there, and Zinnia finds herself in a fight, not only for her life, but other sleeping beauties as well. I can’t recommend this one enough. It’s short and sweet, and beautiful and courageous.

Finally, I listened to the audio of Samantha Irby reading her collection of essays – Wow, No Thank You, based on the recommendation of a fellow author. I laughed so much, and commiserated a whole lot. I’ve read a lot of negative reviews but it seemed like they were from people who simply couldn’t relate. I could thoroughly relate to her problems with chronic digestive disease. Some people seemed to think those were potty humor, but I think they just don’t get it because they don’t live with this type of chronic illness and couldn’t put themselves in her shoes. It was very honest.

The essays on writing for Hollywood were funny and interesting. She also struggles with depression and I think people who can’t relate simply didn’t understand what they were reading/hearing. Even the things that I couldn’t relate to, going out clubbing until the wee hours of the morning, were interesting.

There was one essay that seemed to mostly be a music play list of artists I mostly didn’t recognize, but that was the low point of the collection for me. Honestly, if you’ve struggled with something similar to what Irby has, or can at least bring some empathy to bear, and enjoy honesty, you’re going to love this book.

We’ve also been talking about banned books in preparation for Banned Books Week at my library. In looking at the current list of the most banned books, I was struck at how many deal with being LGBTQ+. A good reason to read. Here is a list from Esquire magazine. https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g39908103/banned-books/

Finally, some suggestions from other sites for great reading —

40 Fantastic LGBTQ+ Books to Read for Pride Month (and Beyond) by Lizz Schumer Jun 7, 2022 These inspiring picks are from a variety of genres, including romance, YA and non-fiction. https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/g27814264/best-gay-lgbt-books/

Curated site of LGBTQ reading by Dahlia Adler https://lgbtqreads.com

Goodreads LGBT lists https://www.goodreads.com/genres/lgbt

GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Educational Network) National Student Council book list https://www.glsen.org/sites/default/files/2021-07/GLSEN_NSC_Booklist_High_School_2021.pdf

ALA Rainbow Book List https://glbtrt.ala.org/rainbowbooks/

 

Book Musing: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

 

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

by Michael Chabon

I came across an article a little over a week ago that suggested 10 books that anyone who loves science fiction ought to read as they had won both the Nebula and the Hugo awards. I immediately added them to my Goodreads list.

I honestly can’t remember where I saw it, but here is one such list - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/the-novels-that-won-both-the-hugo-and-nebula-awards-ranked/

Connie Willis and Joe Haldeman are both familiar names from their short stories in Nebula award collections, but I’d never read a Michael Chabon before.

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union immediately appealed to me, perhaps because I spent so much time watching Seinfeld as a teen and perhaps because I have always had a fascination with Jewish culture as someone who was raised in upstate New York.

I’ve also enjoyed hard-boiled detective fiction since my late teens, which led me to take a course in Detective Fiction in college. This is right up there with them. Detective Landsman is both incorrigible and self-destructive, single-minded, and fumbling his way in the dark. It’s a characterization of fascinating contrasts.

This is an alternate history but not much of a “science” fiction otherwise. The setting is Sitka, Alaska, where a sixty year temporary haven for Jewish people was set up after World War II. It opens as the area is about to undergo “Reversion” when the government takes back the land. The residents have to either apply for permission to stay or find somewhere else to go.

Detective Meyer Landsman, the main character, is living in a long term stay hotel, drinking his life away. The manager comes and gets him when another tenant is found dead. Landsman quickly deduces that this was not an accidental death.

Landsman is a divorced police detective and the police department is about to be taken out of Jewish control as well. His ex-wife, Bina Gelbfish, is placed in charge of his department. He and his half Tlingit, half Jewish partner, Berko Shemets, are ordered to make a good faith attempt to clear up any outstanding cases, then a bad faith attempt, and finally to simply mark them as cold cases.

Landsman is not about to go gently into the good night though. The connections that get made along the way are great action-adventure writing, there’s a little schmaltz and plenty of heart, and the prose that caries you along is first rate.

The omniscient narrator is not all that common in a lot of what I read, but allows for a depth of description that you don’t find in much genre fiction. It gets into the perceptions and thoughts of a multitude of characters. The descriptions are lengthy and literary in their parallels, but also very often amusing, which is fairly common with noir detective fiction.

The prose is beautiful – so many times I was struck by the incongruity and yet correctness of the metaphors he used to describe things. Some might eschew it as too flowery but I loved it. I went and put several more of his books on my Goodreads list. It’s a book that takes a long time to get where it’s going but I loved every minute of the drive. (Yes, I also prefer to drive on secondary roads instead of highways.)

Are the characters sometimes a little too ridiculous? Yes, sure. The two main Tlingit characters we run into are both police officers with one being tall and extremely heavy set while the other is a mere four foot nothing. As the only characters we hear much of who are Tlingit, it’s a little too absurd.

I’ve seen a lot of positive reviews for this book, some lukewarm ones, and some downright negative, but that just recommends a book to me. When you get a good spread of opinions about a book, it generally means there’s going to be a lot to engage with, and this is no different. There’s a particular style here that people may or may not like. I loved it.

Chabon is one of those authors who both makes me feel small and insignificant as an author and also inspires me to want to write more and better. His first novel came out to some acclaim when he was twenty-four and it seems he has been writing hard and fast, but mostly steadily, ever since.  

It’s a first rate, rollicking, fascinating, gorgeously written book. I highly recommend.

Oh, and the reader who brings the audio to life is wonderful, allowing me to get the intonation in my head that I never would have gotten just by reading it.