June is LGBT Pride Month
In the midst of our struggle as a community and nation to understand and accept the differences that make us interesting and valuable human beings, let us take time out and fill the void with literature. Authors and novels of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community commit to record engaging and striking narratives of life as an LGBT person - projecting the voices of a marginalized community into the cacophony of debate and uncertainty with stunning prose and courage.
The following reading list celebrates LGBT authors and novels, and recognizes that unfathomable beauty blooms in the diversity of our shared human experiences.
James Baldwin - "Giovanni's Room"
Set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin's now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.
Alice Walker - "The Color Purple"
"The Color Purple" is the story of two sisters—one a missionary to Africa and the other a child wife living in the South—who remain loyal to one another across time, distance, and silence. Beautifully imagined and deeply compassionate, this classic of American literature is rich with passion, pain, inspiration, and an indomitable love of life.
Christopher Isherwood - "A Single Man"
When "A Single Man" was originally published, it shocked many by its frank, sympathetic, and moving portrayal of a gay man in midlife. George, the protagonist, is adjusting to life on his own after the sudden death of his partner, and determines to persist in the routines of his daily life; the course of "A Single Man" spans twenty-four hours in an ordinary day. An Englishman and a professor living in suburban Southern California, he is an outsider in every way, and his internal reflections and interactions with others reveal a man who loves being alive despite everyday injustices and loneliness. Wry, suddenly manic, constantly funny, surprisingly sad, this novel catches the texture of life itself.
Truman Capote - "Other Voices, Other Rooms"
Truman Capote's first novel is a story of almost supernatural intensity and inventiveness, an audacious foray into the mind of a sensitive boy as he seeks out the grown-up enigmas of love and death in the ghostly landscape of the deep South.
Jeffrey Eugenides - "Middlesex"
The breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family. They travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, "Middlesex" is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.
Gore Vidal - "City and the Pillar"
Jim, a handsome, all-American athlete, has always been shy around girls. But when he and his best friend, Bob, partake in “awful kid stuff,” the experience forms Jim’s ideal of spiritual completion. Defying his parents’ expectations, Jim strikes out on his own, hoping to find Bob and rekindle their amorous friendship. "The City and the Pillar" remains a forthright and uncompromising portrayal of sexual relationships between men.
Jeannette Winterson - "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit"
Winner of the Whitbread Prize for best first fiction, "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" is a coming-out novel from Winterson, the acclaimed author of "The Passion" and "Sexing the Cherry." The narrator, Jeanette, cuts her teeth on the knowledge that she is one of God’s elect, but as this budding evangelical comes of age, and comes to terms with her preference for her own sex, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household crumbles.
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