I came out as a gay man later in life (at age 24) just as the AIDS crisis was beginning, and the deaths and societal backlash during that time almost pushed me back in the closet. The books I listed here were instrumental in helping me find my author’s “voice” while I struggled to fully accept my identity. I feel passionate about the list because the books contain elements essential for every decent fiction author: humour, pathos, grief, joy, empathy, love, and understanding of the human condition. In developing this list of books, I’m reminded of how crucial it is for writers to read and often study the work and style of other authors.
This book affected me profoundly as a teenager who was questioning his own sexual identity in the early 1970s.
The novel is a study of friendship between two teenage boys at a boarding school after World War II. They’re co-dependent, and the elements of suppression and the threat of violence between the two mirrored my own confusion with close male friends “in real life” at the same time.
This is a book that shaped my early understanding of sexuality, even though the author denied any homoerotic undertones in the story.
'A novel that made such a deep impression on me at sixteen that I can still conjure the atmosphere in my fifties: of yearning, infatuation mingled indistinguishably with envy, and remorse' Lionel Shriver
An American coming-of-age tale during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to the second world war.
Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual.…
I am long overdue in re-visiting this book, which was first read several years before I understood my sexual identity as a gay man.
It is a love story, a romance between a coach and his star athlete, and at the time I initially read it, it validated for me that two men could fall in love and be unashamed.
I grew up in a time when homosexuality was not even discussed in “polite” company, and this novel aided my journey to self-acceptance.
Disappointed with life and his faltering relationship, forty-nine-year-old Stan is charmed when he meets a younger man named Asher—in his dreams. Asher grants Stan an irresistible gift: the chance to be five years younger every time they meet. As their connection deepens, Stan knows he can’t live in Asher’s dreamworld,…
I read this book years ago after first knowledge of Noel Coward’s gay persona as the writer of smart, witty songs (e.g. Mad Dogs and Englishmen, 1955) and plays.
Pomp and Circumstance was his only novel, and its satirical take on the upper classes set on a fictitious tropical island before a royal visit was inspiring to my own aspirations of becoming an author at some point in my life.
I think of this novel even today when I’m writing characters who are either over-the-top or complete, self-absorbed boors!
First published in 1960, Pomp and Circumstance, Coward's only novel, was greeted with wide critical acclaim. 'A South Sea Bubble of a book it is, with a Royal Visit expected on the Island of Samolo, and the narrator, a mother of three, dealing with everything from chicken-pox to the amours of a visiting Duchess' (Daily Telegraph); 'If there is anywhere on earth where the old Coward world still credibly lingers on, it is probably a fairly peaceful tropical colony ruled over by a British Governor General ...Coward's long cast list might have walked out of one of his better comedies'…
The witty duo from Blue Heaven invade the entourage of a tasteless real estate/media magnate, attempt to turn his talentless wife into a chanteuse, and vie for the affections of a suave magazine editor, in this deftly delicious comedy of bad manners, financial skullduggery, and romantic infighting.
Disappointed with life and his faltering relationship, forty-nine-year-old Stan is charmed when he meets a younger man named Asher—in his dreams. Asher grants Stan an irresistible gift: the chance to be five years younger every time they meet. As their connection deepens, Stan knows he can’t live in Asher’s dreamworld,…
While I’m not normally a consumer of short stories, I greatly admire authors who have mastered the craft, including the late Ethel Wilson and Alice Munro, two fellow Canadian writers.
My favourite story from Wilson is "A Drink with Adolphus," as it was written using opposite points of view from two characters at the same party.
I love fiction in which I can be immersed, while learning from the writing style of other authors.
The eighteen pieces collected in Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories bring together the many and subtle voices of Ethel Wilson, demonstrating her extraordinary range as a writer. From the gentle mockery of the title story to the absurdist reportage of “Mr. Sleepwalker,” Wilson exerts unerring narrative control. Revealing what is “simple and complicated and timeless” in everyday life, these stories also venture into irrational realms of experience where chance encounters assume a malevolent form and coincidence transmuted into nightmare.
First published in 1961, Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories is a diverse and rewarding collection, unified by Ethel Wilson’s distinct and…
At the age of 20, in 1979, small-town boy Rory Rafferty only knows he wants to own a seafood restaurant someday. When he’s hired to work in the dining room of a private women’s club in the big city, he feels he has started his climb to success and adulthood.
It’s the height of the disco era and a burgeoning gay subculture prior to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. It’s also a time when more women were ascending the corporate ladder, and Rory is caught in the middle of not knowing what his sexual identity is or how he can effectively make it as a young restaurateur. His rollercoaster ride to success is simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking, and ultimately results in an optimistic future.
