{"id":1131,"date":"2013-06-02T15:19:49","date_gmt":"2013-06-02T20:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/?p=1131"},"modified":"2013-05-29T15:22:02","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T20:22:02","slug":"best-gay-stories-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/best-gay-stories-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Gay Stories 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cover<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Gay Stories 2012. Ed. by Peter Dub\u00e9.\u00a0Lethe Press, 2012. Hardcover. 200p. $23. 978-1-59-21-387-2.<\/a><\/p>\n

This annual series began in 2008 with the first three volumes edited by Steve Berman, the founder of the press.\u00a0I gave both the 2009 and 2010 volumes a \u201cthumbs up\u201d rave review.\u00a0Last year (2011), the editor torch passed to Peter Dub\u00e9 of Montreal\u2014novelist, biographer, and cultural critic\u2014who, like Berman, is \u201cinto\u201d queer, speculative and surreal fiction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cGay\u201d refers to the stories but not to the authors; this collection has one female author. All the stories were copyrighted in 2011 were previously published.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The fifteen stories range in length from two pages to 25 pages for the first story, a \u201cspeculative surreal\u201d story about a bar run by angels who all fly away toward the end of the story.\u00a0Two victims of suicide (a brother in one case, a former lover in the other) find each other.\u00a0The second story is about \u201ccaking\u201d in which a guy gets his Latino trick to sit on a fancy wedding cake who is, unfortunately, lactose intolerant. Absorbing too much, he suffers all night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Many authors are relatively unknown, but some are well-established gay writers, including Felice Picano, Noel Alumit, Jeff Mann, and Ian Young.\u00a0\u00a0Picano\u2019s piece is taken from his volume of memoirs of people who impacted his life (True Stories, Chelsea Station Editions, 2011).\u00a0\u00a0Two pieces are described as essays, rather than fictional stories. Mark Ambroise Harris\u2019 charming memory of \u201cBeautiful Books\u201d in his local public library as he was growing up includesWilliam Burrough\u2019s\u00a0Naked Lunch\u00a0and a book of Robert Mapplethorpe\u2019s photographs of naked men.\u00a0\u00a0The second essay is Jeff Mann\u2019s meditation on bondage play with a hunky Hungarian while his partner watches and gets upset.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The single story written by a woman, \u201cAction\u201d by Cecilia Tan, is a nice story but lacks gay content.\u00a0\u00a0Two actors starring in a \u201cgun movie\u201d become friends until one is accidentally killed when blanks bullets turned out to be real; later the other actor commits suicide.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This volume portrays more sex than last year\u2019s offering, for example, \u201cGay for Play\u201d by Conner Habib, a college professor turned porn star.\u00a0\u00a0The story also provides philosophical speculation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All but one of the stories\/memoirs\/essays are told in a straight-forward narrative fashion and are well-crafted. One story, William Henderson\u2019s \u201cWords between Words\u201d is a kind of stream of consciousness, repeating the same words over and over again, reminiscent of the movie\u00a0Last Year at Marienbad.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A common theme is overcoming lost love and seeking new love.\u00a0\u00a0A prime example is the last story \u201cThe Fermi Paradox\u201d: nothing works out for the characters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These stories are all notable works. The collection is recommended for all libraries and readers serious about current gay writing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewer: James Doig Anderson<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Professor Emeritus of Library and Information Science Rutgers University<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Best Gay Stories 2012. Ed. by Peter Dub\u00e9.\u00a0Lethe Press, 2012. Hardcover. 200p. $23. 978-1-59-21-387-2. This annual series began in 2008 with the first three volumes edited by Steve Berman, the founder of the press.\u00a0I gave both the 2009 and 2010 volumes a \u201cthumbs up\u201d rave review.\u00a0Last year (2011), the editor torch passed to Peter Dub\u00e9 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}