2019 Over The Rainbow Fiction Titles
Genre Fiction
(Download PDF) 2019 Over The Rainbow – Genre Fiction
Alice Isn’t Dead. Joseph Fink. Harper Perennial, 2018. Keisha lives happily with her wife Alice until the day Alice disappears, presumed dead. After months of grieving, Keisha sees Alice in the background of a news report and takes matters into her own hands, becoming a long-haul truck driver, searching for her missing wife. Along the way, she stumbles across a secret American history, an inhuman serial killer, and a supernatural war being waged along the interstate highway system. This novel based on Fink’s podcast of the same name takes a haunting look at the liminal spaces along the open road, affirming the power of love in every mile.
Cabin at the End of the World. Paul Tremblay. William Morrow, 2018. Creepy and violent, Tremblay’s apocalyptic horror story features Eric and Andrew and their daughter Wen in a terrifying home invasion that forces the couple to make some horrific decisions in order to survive.
God Game: A Dan Sharp Mystery. Jeffrey Round. Dundurn, 2018. Private detective Dan Sharp has been hired to find the gambling-addicted husband of an aide in the Ontario legislature in Round’s fifth Dan Sharp mystery. Braving political intrigue and scandal, Sharp finds he has gone too deep into the seedy underbelly of Ontario’s political deal-making and government shenanigans. During the course of the investigation, Sharp’s life is further complicated by planning a graduation trip for his son to the West Coast and his own wedding to Nick, a Toronto cop. Round’s writing transforms Canadian politics into a fast-paced, thrilling page-turner.
Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion. Margaret Killjoy. Tor, 2017. While the apocalypse seems to draw close, Killjoy has already explored how an anarchist utopian might thrive, a group of marginalized outsiders with different races, genders, and sexual identities. When their protective demon familiar begins to destroy them, they band together even more tightly to try and survive. This is a quick and delightfully creepy read for sci-fi fans.
Sodom Road Exit. Amber Dawn. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018. Haunted by the 90’s? Starla returning home to live with her mother after incurring significant university debt. That’s not the only thing haunting her though – as she finds herself drawn to the Crystal Beach amusement park, rediscovering a high school friend who becomes her girlfriend, and a ghost with a need to be seen.
Trick Roller. Cordelia Kingsbridge. Riptide, 2018. The second book in the Seven of Spades series, Trick Roller is a gripping mystery that explores the new relationship between Levi and Dominic and the thrilling exploits of a serial killer who is not yet done with them.
Unkindness of Ghosts. River Solomon. Akashic Books, 2017. This Lambda Literary Award finalist crafts a challenging, oppressive world on a spaceship carrying the last of humanity into space. Dark-skinned and hyper-intelligent Aster, a resident of the lower decks, works as a healer under her upper deck friend Theo (the Surgeon of the ship), until she notices a mysterious illness suffered by the Sovereign of the ship. Then Aster and Theo (indeed, the whole ship) are plunged into a sinister mystery that they could never have imagined. This antebellum space opera is told with a queer, neuro-atypical slant: Aster and Theo are both gender-variant and neurodivergent and utterly brilliant.
Whisper of Bones: A Jane Lawless Mystery. Ellen Hart. Minotaur Books/Macmillan, 2018. Minneapolis PI Jane Lawless goes on a journey to discover a family secret in this twenty-fifth entry in the series. Britt Ickles, visiting genomics professor, remembers playing with her cousin Timmy the last time she visited her mom’s family; however, as an adult when she visits her aunts, they tell her that there was no Timmy. Naturally, Jane is intrigued. She rents a room at the aunts’ home and begins investigating all the inhabitants. Mysterious things begin to happen. With an interesting plot, nice misdirection, and unique characters, Hart writes an enthralling cozy mystery to entertain readers.
Witchmark. C.L. Polk. Tor.com/Macmillan, 2018. The first book in The Kingston Cycle is an Edwardian fantasy in which we are introduced to a class based magical network filled with political machinations that our main character Miles Singer has done his best to try to escape. But you can’t run away from fate or angels. This story is filled with mystery, romance, magic, fantasy, and a touch of science.
Graphic Narrative
(Download PDF) 2019 Over The Rainbow – Graphic Narrative
Bingo Love. Tee Franklin. Image Comics, 2018. Hazel and Mari are teenagers when they first meet in the early 1960s. When their friendship blossoms into something more, they are forced apart by their families and society. Decades later at a bingo hall, the two find each other again and finally embark on the life of which they had been robbed. A graphic novel that will warm your heart.
Gumballs. Erin Nations. Top Shelf Productions, 2018. Nations created an autobiographical graphic novel with his unique square headed style of characters, exploring what it meant to grow up as an identical twin in a set of triplets, and how his life and body shifted when he started his gender confirmation journey. This collection is really fun and accessible, a great overview of one man’s trans experience.
Lie and How We Told It. Tommi Parrish. Fantagraphics, 2018. In this beautifully-rendered graphic novel, old friends Cleary and Tim run into each other at the grocery store one day and reconnect. Over the course of a night, they discuss the choices that they made and the paths each has traveled since they parted. With subtlety and dexterity, Parrish weaves an honest tale, brimming with struggle and self-realization over one’s sexuality and being true to one’s self.
My Brother’s Husband Volume 2. Genoroh Tagame. Pantheon, 2018. At its heart, this is the story of a man coming to terms with the unquestioned cultural assumptions about sexuality he’s harbored all his life and rediscovering the meaning of family, for his own and his daughter’s sake. The genius of Tagame’s art lies in its ability to suggest without insistence that Yaichi’s real journey of discovery has just begun. A joyous and hopeful work.
Sugar Town. Hazel Newlevant. Newlevant Comix, 2018. This fun and colorful graphic novel jubilantly celebrates bisexuality, queer love, and polyamorous relationships. There’s good information about how to make polyamory successful but the story doesn’t get pedantic or weighed down. Topics like sex work, jealousy, and domination add to a sweetly romantic story.
Literary and General Interest
(Download PDF) Over the Rainbow – Literary and General Interest
Bastarda. Trifonia Melibea Obono. Feminist Press, 2018. Seventeen-year-old Okomo lives in the tribal town of Ayá Esang in Equatorial Guinea with her grandparents. From the beginning, we learn that Okomo’s mother is dead, that her father is a scoundrel, and that she is illegitimate because her father did not pay a dowry before sleeping with her mother. She deals with cultural and familial strictures and personal abuse but fights for her life and love. Obono is the first woman writer from Equatorial Guinea to be translated into English. Her novel brings a refreshing take on the coming-of-age story and on feminist and queer culture in Central Africa.
Book of Hats. Dov Zeller. Tiny Golem Press, 2018. In this mystical epic, Ida is a trans boy coming of age during the early to mid-20th century surrounded by her family’s hat-making business. (Although it’s obvious Ida is trans, the pronoun used throughout is she.) When the truth about Ida begins to unravel, she escapes to New York where she falls in with fellow queers who help create the community and family she is seeking.
Boy at the Edge of the World. David K. Yeh. Guernica Editions, 2018. In this dramedy we follow the romantic adventures of Daniel from coming out to his best friend Karen in high school to university in Toronto and the city’s queer culture. Filled with diverse characters on the universal pursuit of love and intimacy.
The Daddies. Kimberly Dark. Brill, 2018. A multi-faceted rich exploration of masculinity, patriarchy, and domination from a lesbian perspective. This work is part novel, part memoir, and part social analysis all combined–a surprising and challenging read.
Drapetomania: or, the narrative of Cyrus Tyler and Abednego Tyler, lovers. John R. Gordon. Team Angelica Publishing, 2018. When Abednego, a house-servant, is sold away, his lover Cyrus, a field-hand, realizes that he must go after him in this thrilling tale of the love between gay slaves in captivity set in the 1860’s. Drapetomania is a groundbreaking tale of black freedom and devotion.
Great Believers. Rebecca Makkai. Viking, 2018. A saga that begins in 1980s Chicago with Yale, a young gay man about to discover the art find of the century while all his friends around him die of AIDS, including his friend Nico. Reaching forward into present day Paris, Nico’s younger sister Fiona desperately tries to rescue her estranged daughter from a cult, and winds up meeting a photographer who documented the AIDS crisis in Chicago. Two spectacular stories intertwine to teach the lessons of love, friendship, community, and family.
Heart’s Invisible Furies. John Boyne. Hogarth/Penguin Random House, 2018. A tour de force about one man’s struggle to accept his sexuality in Ireland’s homophobic society throughout much of the modern era. The story begins in 1945. Cyril Avery is adopted by an eccentric Dublin couple, who always told him that he was not a real Avery. Cyril’s life is told in seven-year intervals. With equal parts sadness and humor, Boyne conveys to the reader the hardship and toll that repression can bring when a people are not able to be true to themselves.
House of Impossible Beauties. Joseph Cassara. Ecco/HarperCollins, 2018. For fans of the FX show Pose or the documentary Paris Is Burning, Cassara lovingly documents the NYC ball scene of the 1980s when queer people of color were able to compete in a vicious and loving environment of fierce queens with even fiercer support. Tough issues like AIDS and racism are addressed head on as the vivid characters navigate love, life, and loss with their wigs tightly secured and their lipstick unsmudged.
Into?: A Novel. North Morgan. Flatiron Books, 2018. Morgan paints an insipid and shallow portrait of a sex, drug, and alcohol-addicted subculture of young gay musclemen. Obsessed with image and social media, each chapter is a groundhog’s day of hook-ups and gym selfies with a side of delusion and childish narcissistic temper tantrums. A wonderfully satirical portrayal of a privileged and selfish – but very visible – segment of the gay community.
Jonny Appleseed. Joshua Whitehead. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018. Finalist: Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. Longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, must return to the reservation that he grew up on to attend his stepfather’s funeral. The resulting narrative is a soaring, chaotic, stream of consciousness spanning Jonny’s memories of growing up gay on the rez, remembrances of his kokum (grandmother), his work webcamming, falling in love with one of his best friends, and struggling to build a life in Winnipeg. Whitehead’s vivid, startling prose paints a picture of Jonny’s struggles to reconcile the pieces of his life in this startling debut novel.
Less. Andrew Sean Greer. Lee Boudreaux Books/Little Brown/Hachette, 2017. How should you go about avoiding your problems? Arthur Less, a middle-aged writer who receives an invitation to the wedding of his young ex-boyfriend runs away from them. He has accepted every award and invitation to speak, no matter how obscure the destination. He’ll do anything to make himself unavailable for the next year. He travels from San Francisco to New York, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India, and Japan. Naturally, things don’t go according to plan and hilarity ensues. Figuring out who is actually telling the story is one of the most fun parts of this 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
My Ex-Life. Stephen McCauley. Flatiron Books/McMillan, 2018. Gay fifty-something David Hedges is suffering a mid-life crisis of sorts. He has a successful career in San Francisco but he was recently dumped by his boyfriend and his rent-controlled apartment is up for sale. When he receives an unexpected email from his ex-wife describing her high school daughter Mandy’s poor decisions, David decides to head east to New England to help them. During this process, the pair rediscover a strong friendship. Witty and topical, McCauley’s prose is fun and light-hearted. “All couples start off as Romeo and Juliet and end up as Laurel and Hardy.”
So Lucky. Nicola Griffith. Macmillan, 2018. Mara Tagarelli’s life is seemingly perfect until in the space of a week, her wife leaves her, she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and she loses her job. At first, when everything begins to feel threatening and terrifying and Mara feels utterly helpless, she assumes it is simply the vulnerability of the new illness. When other MS survivors begin to turn up on the news, murdered in their own homes, she realizes that the threats are unshakably real. How does anyone defend themselves when their own body can’t be trusted? Griffith’s work is equal parts mystery, horror, and disability narrative.
Sparsholt Affair. Alan Hollinghurst. Knopf, 2018. A tale of honesty and being true to oneself, this novel tackles themes of lust, sex, and societal expectations in post-WWII Great Britain. In 1940, David Sparsholt, a dashing, first-year engineering student at Oxford, has an affair with a man, causing a scandal. David’s son, Johnny, lives with the aftermath of his father’s sordid past. Johnny is an artist and trying to live honestly as a gay man in the homophobic Britain of the 1960s. The consequences of his choices affect all parties involved and expose the cultural and sexual revolutions that have happened in the twentieth century in Britain.
Speak No Evil. Uzodinma Iweala. Harper, 2018. The story focuses upon two privileged teenagers from different backgrounds and experiences. A gay African American, Niru and his friendship with a white heterosexual female, Meredith. We see how shame and silence lead to a tragic event with devastating consequences that change lives forever.
Stray City. Chelsey Johnson. Custom House/William Morrow, 2018. Andrea Morales is a dedicated member of Portland’s thriving 1990s queer scene whose life is utterly changed when she sleeps with a man, gets pregnant, and decides to keep the baby. This warm and heartfelt debut goes back and forth in time between the late 1990s and 2009, showcasing the evolving queer community in Portland as well as the ways in which Andrea grows and builds a life with her chosen family and young daughter.
Tin Man. Sarah Winman. Penguin Random House/GP Putnam’s Sons, 2018. Ellis and Michael are childhood friends who eventually become lovers. As adults, Ellis marries Annie and the three share an unbreakable bond, until Michael vanishes from their lives. This beautifully written tale of friendship and love will break your heart into a million pieces.
White Houses. Amy Bloom. Penguin Random House, 2018. Bloom’s latest novel recreates the clandestine romance between Eleanor Roosevelt and journalist Lorena “Hick” Hickock. Told in reminiscences after their relationship has ended shortly after FDR died, Hick’s bittersweet narrative conveys to the reader the depth of her continued feelings for Eleanor. Poignant tales of the two together will tug at the heartstrings. The juxtaposition of the relationship between Eleanor and Hick and the world-changing events happening around them are very well-played, driving the narrative forward, but ultimately cause the women’s relationship to end. It’s all about the journey, not the destination.
Poetry
(Download PDF) Over the Rainbow – Poetry
Black Queer Hoe. Britteney Black Rose Kapri. Haymarket, 2018. Sit up and pay attention to this in-your-face no-apologies collection of poetry from a proud Black woman. Based out of Chicago, Kapri is a teacher, an award-winning writer, and an outspoken activist for the Black, Queer, and sex-positive communities. This fiery debut trumpets the arrival of an electric new voice.
Carnival of Affection. Philip F. Clark. Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018. In this collection of poetry, everyday experiences in the life of a gay man are elevated in lyrical exploration. Clark makes the ordinary trials of a life something utterly new.
Full-Metal Indigiqueer. Joshua Whitehead. Talonbooks, 2017. This collection of queer poetry borrows from myriad influences from the past and present, ranging from Shakespeare to Lana Del Rey. Whitehead deconstructs to decolonize, bringing the lives of two-spirit/indigiqueer youth into sharp focus and giving them a new space.
Junk. Tommy Pico. Tin House Books, 2018. A full-length love poem/break-up poem about stuff: the detritus of a relationship; of consumerism and pop culture; of loss of identity as an indigenous person; even of Chili Cheese Fritos in a constantly shifting barrage of enjambed couplets. Pico uses Junk as a collective term, similar to a junk shop of old things awaiting their next purpose. It’s transgressive, fast-paced, and a constant blending of the somber and the flippant.
Lord of the Butterflies. Andrea Gibson. Buttonpoetry, 2018. Gibson’s fifth collection takes a nuanced look at gender, grief, love, and the personal as political. Gibson tackles every subject (a wide litany: Lyme disease, a family member’s drug addiction, gun violence, mental illness, falling in love, and figuring out their identity as genderqueer just to name a few) with love. Lord of the Butterflies is a celebration of queer community and indefatigable hope. Though the poems are best read aloud (Gibson is a performance poet), they come through clearly on the page.
Not Everything Thrown Starts a Revolution. Stephen S. Mills. Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018. Collection of queer poetry explores parallels through time through interwoven haunting narratives from the 18th and 21st centuries. Mills brings the current life and struggles of a 21st century gay man in parallel with the struggles of agrarian life and incarceration.
Not Here. Hieu Minh Nguyen. Coffee House Press, 2018. There are aching confrontations of family, trauma, and history in this collection of poetry from a queer Vietnamese American exploring desire and loneliness. Nguyen imagines himself a monster in his concise even prose that is at once shocking and clear.
On My Way to Liberation. H. Melt. Haymarket Books, 2018. This chapbook of poetry follows the realities of a gender-nonconforming body moving through the world. Melt, a proud and openly trans writer, writes about being misgendered in queer spaces and their family’s home, creating conscious spaces for trans people, and their grandfather’s liberation from Dachau. Melt’s simple, matter-of-fact poems advocate for a larger world of trans literature and shed light on their experiences.
Othered. Randi M. Romo. Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018. Romo shares her history of growing up a Mexican American girl with special mention of growing up in the South and the idiosyncratic use of language in that region. She celebrates the lives of lost friends and in her poem “I Am” explains both who she is and how she is labeled by others.
Prayers for My 17th Chromosome. Amir Rabiyah. Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017. Rabiyah’s prose poems are easy to read as they describe their journey from being a young girl into non-binary adulthood and self. Their rhapsodic explanation of the experience of chronic illness and living with pain invites understanding and empathy.
Rummage – poems. Ife-Chudeni A Oputa. Little A/Amazon Publishing, 2017. Read Oputa’s poems aloud for the full resonance. She writes loving paeans to the ordinary that require a pause between each, to let her words roll through your mind. Her collection has 4 sections, each taking you through a different cycle of girlhood.
Subject to Change: Trans Poetry & Conversation. H. Melt, ed. Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018. An anthology of the work of five unapologetically trans poets: Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Christopher Soto, Beyza Ozer, Cameron Awkward-Rich, and Kay Ulanday Barrett. A selection of poems by each poet is paired with an interview with editor H. Melt discussing their work, identities, and lives. This collection encompasses a wide variety of themes and poetics: a selection of clear, talented voices examining what it means to be trans.
Touched. Luther Hughes. Sibling Rivalry Press. 2018. This collection of poetry takes an unflinching look at the black body, exploring both tenderness and bruising. Hughes uplifts the body, examining it with detailed care.
Short Stories
(Download PDF) Over the Rainbow – Short Stories
Her Body and Other Parties. Carmen Maria Machado. Graywolf Press, 2017. Machado’s 8 short stories weave between the ordinary and the surreal, exploring disgust, delight, and all varieties of queerness. Her characters are both flawed and fantastic, impossible to forget. Her retelling of a classic ghost story is insidious, the reader both knows what will happen and is shocked by it.
London: Skin and Bones. Ian Young. Squares and Rebels, 2017. Collection of colorful short stories featuring gay skinheads and scoundrels of the Finsbury Park blue collar area of North London in the 1980’s.
Merry Spinster. Mallory Ortberg. Holt, 2018. Delightfully dark collection of fairy tales retold, swapping genders, changing roles, and playing irreverently with the classic stories. Both feminist and witty, Ortberg subverts and shifts tales like “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast” for adults-only.
Night Beast. Ruth Joffre. Grove Press/Black Cat, 2018. Debut collection exploring the lives of queer women in a variety of fantasy, speculative, and realistic settings. A filmmaker waits for her soulmate as a timer counts down, until one day, suddenly, it begins to speed up. Actors in an avant-garde television show wake up together every weekend to begin their show, confusing television with real life. These doomed and unsettling stories are haunting in their simplicity.
Two Moons: Stories. Krystal A. Smith. BLF Press, 2018. Speculative fiction collection of stories. They are ethereal, transcend time, space, and being in whimsical journeys.
