Richard Canning gathered a diverse group of 50 writers and turned them loose to choose works of literature that have “GLBTQ resonance,” and then write about them. The result is this rich, provocative collection of essays on a wonderfully varied selection of well-known, not so well-known, and downright obscure gay and lesbian literature.
Aaron Hamburger contributes a witty, yet bittersweet essay on the story of David and Jonathan, told in 1 and 2 Samuel. Lisa Cohen’s case for Ivy Compton-Burnett’s novel More Women than Men could create renewed interest in this most delightfully queer of writers. Mark Merlis ingeniously connects A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad with the Columbine shootings, and sheds new light on these poems that were mostly read in adolescence. There are 47 more essays, just as intriguing.
Almost every writer tosses out a highly quotable observation that leaps off the page. Christopher Bram writes of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice: “Chickenhawks can get awfully longwinded describing their beloveds.” Regina Marley describes Olive Chancellor in Henry James’s The Bostonians as “demonstrating that the U-Haul joke has a long provenance.”
In his essay on Gore Vidal’s Palimpsest, Paul Reidinger says, “Literature is a layered confection, after all; a tiramisu of words.” Our GLBTQ literature has many layers, as these essays indelibly show. This book is a splendid source for book group selections, not only from the works discussed, but also from the contributors’ books listed after their essays. Fifty Gay and Lesbian Books Everybody Must Read is essential for libraries with collections of gay and lesbian literature.
Reviewed by, W. Stephen Breedlove
Reference and Interlibrary Loan Librarian
La Salle University Library
