Great Gay Fiction
Explore the best in Great Gay Fiction with our curated list of top books. Discover compelling stories, diverse characters, and unforgettable LGBTQ+ narratives.
Book
A Density of Souls
by Christopher Rice
Take the sensuous, fecund New Orleans setting, add a generous helping of tangled Southern family history, and season liberally with a sensitive teenage boy rejected by his friends and frightened of his own homoerotic impulses and you wouldn't be surprised to discover that the novel containing all of the above was written by someone named Rice. But a few paragraphs into the first page, it's clear that Anne Rice's son's first novel isn't about vampires or witches and does not otherwise read like one of her exceedingly popular books. The only family resemblance is in the setting, the sexual orientation of the lovingly described male characters, and the scent of overripe magnolias.There's murder, suicide, and madness at the heart of this rather clumsycoming-of-age story, which focuses on the youthful friendship of Stephen Conlin, Meredith Ducote, Greg Darby, and Brandon Charbonnet. This friendship is destroyed by a sexual incident that takes place just before the foursome enters Cannon, an exclusive prep school. There, Stephen is ostracized by his former friends, now the most popular kids on campus, who'd just as soon forget their own complicity in the event. Envy, passion, and rage drive the narrative, but the emotions are as juvenile as the characters, and the long passages depicting the rituals and cruelties of high school, from pep rallies to football games, slow down the pace without really illuminating character or motivation. The novel reads like a roman ß clef. Rice might have been wiser to tell someone else's story rather than his own. --Jane Adams
Book
Perfect Freedom
by Gordon Merrick
They were the fabulous Coslings of St Tropez -,dapper American expatriate Stuart Cosling, his,ravishing French wife Helene, and their stunningly,handsome son Robbie. to his parents, Robbie was,still a boy - until on a cruise of the Greek,islands, Robbie discovered the pleasures of,manhood - with a deckhand on his father's yacht. A,sweeping novel of first love and sexual discovery,by the man the Los Angeles Times hailed as,""indisputably the Harold Robbins of gay fiction"".
Book
Wrong
by Dennis Cooper
A collection of short stories that provide an evolution of the author's writings. Daring to use death to look at life, Cooper provides a new perspective on the reader's deepest fears and needs.
Book
Jeremy Thrane
by Kate Christensen
Jeremy Thrane seems to have everything. As the long-time boyfriend of the handsome (but deeply closeted) movie star Ted Masterson, he lives rent-free in a beautiful apartment on the top floor of Ted's Manhattan brownstone and has an easy job that gives him plenty of time to read books and write his novel. When an influential gossip columnist overhears Jeremy talking about Ted, Jeremy's perfect world begins to crumble: in just a few hours Ted asks him to leave. Although Ted says he needs to spend more time with his wife and daughter, Jeremy suspects another man is involved. With little more than his books, his sprawling manuscript, and his fickle little bird Juanita, Jeremy finds that he needs to re-connect with the eccentric family whose love he has taken for granted, and determine which of his friends have his true well-being in mind. In a dizzying world of art galleries, rock clubs, trendy restaurants, casual sex, dry wit, and drier martinis, Jeremy Thrane must finally figure out what it means to grow up and fall in love.
Book
Tangled Up In Blue
by Larry Duplechan
A love story of three people bound together by ties of love, passion, and friendship until a crisis threatens to destroy them all. "The breezy, hedonistic mood of the typically Californian characters in this arresting, heartwrenching novel is shattered by the AIDS virus... This moving, inspirational story commands attention whatever one's sexual orientation." - Publishers Weekly
Book
Comfort and Joy
by Jim Grimsley
And wouldn't you know it's Christmas when these two families reveal their true natures."--BOOK JACKET.
Book
Glamourpuss
by Christian McLaughlin
Alex Young, the twentysomething heartthrob of the hottest Hollywood soap is still marveling at his good fortune for landing such a plum part when all hell breaks loose. A notoriously disreputable supermarket tabloid catches Alex in a steamy kiss with another man, causing Alex to wonder if the glamour of Hollywood is worth all the trouble and heartache.
Book
Winter Birds
by Jim Grimsley
Eight-year-old southerner Danny Crell recounts his premature entry into manhood, precipitated by a violent quarrel between his father, an abusive drunk, and his mother, whose emotional detachment is nearly as frightening.
Book
Dream Boy
by Jim Grimsley
In a novel as stunning and heartbreaking as his acclaimed debut work, Grimsley recounts the story of a painful first love--between two adolescent boys who bravely sustain each other in a world of domestic disintegration.