Classic Gay and Lesbian Fiction
Explore timeless love stories with our curated list of classic gay and lesbian fiction books. Discover iconic LGBTQ+ literature that shaped queer narratives and celebrates diversity in historical and modern works.
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A Woman
by Sibilla Aleramo
For a book that sent shock waves through the European literary establishment and, since its original publication in 1906 has gone through seven editions along with highly cclaimed translations into all th principal languages of Europe, A Woman (Una Donna) by Sibilla Aleramo (1876-1960) has remained curiously obscure in America. Aleramo's lightly fictionalized memoir presented a kaleidoscopic series of Italian images—the frenetic industrialism of the North, the miserable squalor of the country's backward areas to the South, fin de siècle Italian politics and literary life—all set in the framework of a drama admiringly characterized by Luigi Pirandellow as "grim and powerful." For some other Italians, A woman touched ar aw nerve, and many critics reacted to Aleramo with extreme hostility. However, whether one liked Aleramo's novel or not, the book was an iceberg in the mainstream of Italian literary life, impossible to get around without careful inspection. --From the introduction
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Touchy Subjects
by Emma Donoghue
In this sparkling collection of 19 stories, the bestselling author of Slammerkin returns to contemporary affairs, exposing the private dilemmas that result from public controversies.
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Original Bliss
by A. L. Kennedy
"Kennedy is a world class writer."--The New York Times Book Review A brilliant American debut from one of Scotland's most acclaimed writers, named by Granta as one of the Twenty Best Young British Novelists. Emotionally numb, crippled with insomnia, and caught in a frightening, abusive marriage, Helen Brindle believes that God has recently left her. She spends her days performing banal domestic chores in front of a blaring television. On the BBC one day she watches a self-help guru expound on, among other things, the "rules" of masturbation and the importance of "interior lives." Edward G. Gluck, she discovers has developed a program that guides lost souls toward contentment. Helen seeks him out, hoping to find an answer. Instead she discovers Gluck's own sadomasochistic obsession, and his profound shame and disgust. And what they both encounter, painfully, is the love each fears and both yearn to embrace. "A darkly comic tale.... [that] is hilariously funny about sexual obsession and brilliantly perceptive about the dynamics of human relationships."--The Baltimore Sun
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Heartbreak Tango
by Manuel Puig
Awash in small-town gossip, petty jealousy, and intrigues, Manuel Puig's Heartbreak Tango is a comedic assault on the fault lines between the disappointments of the everyday world, and the impossible promises of commercials, pop songs, and movies. This melancholy and hilarious tango concerns the many women in orbit around Juan Carlos Etchepare, an impossibly beautiful Lothario wasting away ever-so-slowly from consumption, while those who loved and were spurned by him move on into workaday lives and unhappy marriages. Part elegy, part melodrama, and part dirty joke, this wicked and charming novel demonstrates Manuel Puig's mastery of both the highest and lowest forms of life and culture.
