Dead on Your Feet
Page 30
Literary
The Genius of Desire by Brian Bouldrey
Hopelessly drawn to the romantic notion of a double life, young Michael Bellman spends summers in Monsalvat, Michigan, coming of age in a loving tangle of highly eccentric relatives: Great Uncle Jimmy speaks to his dead wife during meals; Cousin Anne torments Michael beyond endurance; reckless Cousin Tommy secretly smokes cigars and can’t wait to “kick butt in ’Nam” – and Michael watches every magical move he makes.
A few years and one driver’s license later, as family alliances change and long-silent desires surface, Michael begins to understand his attraction to the double life because he’s living one – at roadside rest stops, in library washrooms, and public parks. Coming out is the first step, coming to terms is the next....
A highly praised debut novel in 1993, this new edition includes a 2019 foreword by the author.
The Family of Max Desir by Robert Ferro
It was a family dealing with old values, acceptance and death. Max Desir loved his Italian roots and hearing his mother, Marie, recount tales of the old country. And he loved his American family, his father John a successful self-made businessman in New Jersey. As he came of age, Max discovered something else he loved – men – and met the love of his life in Italy. Now, at age 40, the family is split: Marie and his siblings accept Max and Nick as a stable, long-term couple but his father John does not. When a needlepoint family tree is to be hung at Christmas, it's too much for John. Then the spectre of death enters as Marie rapidly declines with brain cancer. Loyalties divided, acceptance of family is re-examined.
In this beautiful, haunting tale, told in Robert Ferro’s clear, impassioned narrative, he created a classic. “An honest, eloquent and entirely original novel … at once realistic and mythological, intensely personal and public ... a triumph,” opined Edmund White.
Originally published in 1983, this new edition includes a 2019 foreword by fellow author and friend Felice Picano.
Onyx by Felice Picano
Ray Henriques has success, love, friendship ... but lately it’s not enough. Yet it’s not just Ray who is on a quest for deeper meaning. For Jesse, Ray’s lover of ten years, it is a quest accelerated by his imminent death from AIDS. And for young married father of two Mike Tedesco, it is a search for the heart of masculinity. The sexual exploration which begins when Ray and Mike meet awakens a restlessness in both men, which resoundingly alters their future paths. As Ray’s life begins to draw him increasingly into the future, a future without Jesse, he attempts to tether himself to the here and now with frequent visits to a past where life’s answers seemed simpler and more meaningful. But when Jesse’s fundamentalist Christian mother rolls into town to take charge of her son’s final weeks, he is yanked from his reverie to face an opponent unlike any he has ever known.
Marked by shifting points of view, humor, descriptive brilliance and unexpected revelation, Onyx is a multifaceted exploration of inner lives, motivation, love, and the sometimes hollow center beneath a polished surface.
First published to acclaim in 2001, this new edition features a 2019 foreword by the author.
Horror / Paranormal
Steam by Jay B. Laws
San Francisco was once a city of music and laughter, of parties and bathhouses, when days held promise and nights, romance. But now something sinister haunts the streets and alleyways of San Francisco, something that crept in with the fog to seek a cruel revenge...
Flint, owner of a once thriving bathhouse, now ravaged by a disease that has no cure, gives himself over to the evil lurking in the steam. Dying men get tickets that say Admit One, hoping for release, only to be dragged into the maelstrom. David, a writer of gay porn, finds himself writing another kind of story. His friend Eddie disappears from his hospital bed, leaving slime and mold, then returns for David. Meanwhile, Bobby is searching for his lover, lost in the same horror.
In this new edition, Jay’s brother Gary D. Laws provides context, reminiscence and extensive quotes revealing what the author had in mind as he created this mini-masterpiece. Set at the height of the AIDS crisis, it is an allegory which chronicles the early days of the epidemic including the glittery discos of the seventies and an ominous abandoned gay bathhouse. Noted author Hal Bodner adds his voice and further context into a 1980s that suddenly turned dark and dangerous but one in which contemporary readers may know only through movies and urban legends.
This classic gay horror suspense tale was first published in 1991. It was nominated for Best First Novel by the Lambda Literary Awards.
The Unfinished by Jay B. Laws
Jiggs, a hearing-impaired gay man tortured by the recent death of his parents, moves into a long-vacant San Francisco apartment. The apartment is revealed to be haunted by the Unfinished, spirits whose lives ended prematurely through tragedy, violence or betrayal. Jiggs’s initially adversarial relationship with his spectral housemates soon becomes a partnership when both parties see each other as instrumental to ending their own suffering. The stories unfold via visitations by three Dickensian ghosts offering accounts of their deaths. In one story, a man dying from AIDS confronts the limits of his vanity when he realizes the terrible price of his wish to recapture his looks. In another, a car mechanic’s soul is left to ponder how his weakness led to his murder.
Laws’ second and final novel was published posthumously in 1993. This 2019 edition includes an introduction by Sasha Alyson, founder of the celebrated LGBT press Alyson Publications and a foreword by Greg Herren. Bonus content! Laws’ short story, “Imagined”, is also included in this edition.
COMING SOON ...
Like People In History by Felice Picano
In a book that could have been written only by one who lived it and survived to tell, Picano weaves a powerful saga of four decades in the lives of two men and their lovers, relatives, friends, and enemies. Tragic, comic, sexy, and romantic, filled with varied and colorful characters, Like People in History is both extraordinarily moving and supremely entertaining.
First published to acclaim in 1995, winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award for Best Novel, Gay Times Best Novel of the Year and Finalist for Lambda Literary Award Best Gay Fiction, this 25th Anniversary edition for 2020 features a new foreword by Richard “Bugs” Burnett and an afterword by the author.
In The Game by Nikki Baker
Ginny and Bev. Always there for each other – friends since business school, where their black faces were lost in a sea of white. As Ginny observes, “Lovers don’t last, but friends can be forever.” Now Bev is in trouble.
In the Game is sharp, funny, and on the mark – the auspicious debut of a Black writer who brings us a fresh perspective on today’s diverse lesbian community. First published to acclaim in 1991, this new edition features a 2020 foreword by the author.
Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square by Stan Leventhal
A series of discrete episodes among friends provide snapshots of one gay man's life. There are parties, concerts, dinners with every day life – and death – interwoven in the rich story-telling. An actress, a painter, a set designer, a writer – all sweating and surviving in Manhattan, all scoring their first successes. Part autobiography and part documentary, artfully written, it details the lives of these creative people. Young and professional, they know there is more to life than money. There is trust and the sort of love that trades in deeds of kindness.
Leventhal's debut novel was welcomed warmly garnering a Lambda Literary Awards Finalist in 1988, this new edition features a 2020 foreword by Christopher Bram.
Murder and Mayhem by Matt Lubbers-Moore
An Annotated Bibliography of Gay and Queer Males in Mystery, 1909-2018. This bibliography set out to identify mystery novels that include a gay or queer male in whatever role the author assigned him. The project began after an interview with Drewey Wayne Gunn who had suggested an open source website to accumulate gay mysteries. This required a deep dive into Gunn's own bibliography a
bout gay male sleuths, Anthony Slide's bibliography of gay and lesbians in mystery novels, Curtis Evans essays on gay and lesbians in mystery novels pre-Stonewall, and Ian Young's non-annotated bibliography of gay men in literature. Gunn's bibliography was the latest published in 2012. The hunt was on to extend a bibliography into 2018: searching publisher websites, Goodreads, Amazon, Facebook groups, Instagram hashtags, Twitter hashtags, and following many different authors.
An Original ReQueered Tales publication, this 2020 edition contains a bonus story by Arthur Conan Doyle.
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