Gay Fiction Books to Read!

A small selection from stock which includes a huge range of gay fiction of all types.

Man’s World – Rupert Smith
London today: a world of sex and drugs and designer clothes, where Robert searches for fulfillment in gay clubs. London 50 years ago: Michael enters a secret queer underworld, negotiating the dangers of the law and the closet. Past and present collide when Robert moves into a new block of flats, and discovers that history is alive and kicking in his doorstep. Robert keeps a blog – a chronicle of the contemporary gay experience that would have been unthinkable 50 years ago. Michael kept a diary – a secret record of his experiences that could have landed him and his friends and lovers in prison. Two parallel narratives – two generations – two worlds that barely recognise each other. But do Robert and Michael have more in common than they think? “Man’s World” is a funny, sexy and moving story about how much the world has changed – and how little.

‘Funny, dirty, deeply romantic, Man’s World is a wonderfully evocative novel that hurtles between now and our recent history in a wild and emotional waltzer ride’ – Jake Arnott

Children of the Sun – Max Schaefer
1970: Fourteen year old Tony becomes seduced by the skinhead movement, sucked into a world of brutal racist violence and bizarre ritual. It’s a milieu in which he must hide his homosexuality, in which every encounter is potentially explosively risky. 2003: James is a young TV researcher, living with his boyfriend. At a loose end, he begins to research the far right in Britain, and its secret gay membership. He becomes particularly fascinated by Nicky Crane, the leader of the movement who came out as gay before dying of AIDs in 1993. The two narrative threads of this extraordinarily assured and ambitious first novel follow Tony through the seventies, eighties and nineties, as the skinhead movement splinters and weakens, and James through a year in which he becomes dangerously immersed in his research. James starts to make contact with individuals on far right websites. He starts receiving threatening phone calls. And then the lives of these two very different heroes unforgettably intersect.

London Triptych – Jonathan Kemp
Three men, three lives and three eras sinuously entwine in a dark, startling and unsettling narrative of sex, exploitation and dependence set against London’s strangely constant gay underworld.

Jack Rose begins his apprenticeship as a rent boy with Alfred Taylor in the 1890s, and finds a life of pleasure and excess leads him to new friendships — most notably with the soon-to-be infamous Oscar Wilde. A century later, David tells his own tale of unashamed decadence while waiting to be released from prison, addressing his story to the lover who betrayed him. Where their paths cross, in the politically sensitive 1950s, the artist Colin Read tentatively explores his sexuality as he draws in preparation for his most ambitious painting yet – ‘London Triptych’.

Rent boys, aristocrats, artists and felons populate this bold début as Jonathan Kemp skilfully interweaves the lives and loves of three very different men across the decades.

‘Astonishingly textured prose and wonderfully defined narrative voices…I recognised the characters immediately and wanted to follow them.’ -Joanne Harris

Call Me By Your Name – Andre Aciman
‘Call Me By Your Name is a beautiful and wise book, written with both lightness and concentrated care for the precise truth of every moment in its drama…it has always been clear from Aciman’s non-fiction that he would write a wonderful book, but this is a miracle.’ Colm Toibin

Set during a restless summer on the Italian Riviera, Call Me By Your Name tell the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blooms between seventeen year old Elio and his father’s house guest Oliver. Currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire threaten to overwhelm the lovers, who at first feign indifference to the charge between them. A romance barely six weeks’ duration will prove to be an experience that will mark them both for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing they both already fear they may never truely find again: toial intimacy. An amazing novel and highly recommended.

Metro – Alasdair Duncan
Metro ayrıcalıklı ve ateşli Avustralyalı üniversite sporcusu Liam Kelly’nin hikayesidir. Kızlar onu istiyor, erkekler de onun olmak istiyor. Ama kız arkadaşı Avrupa turunda altı aylık bir yolculuğa çıktığında Liam, onun erkeklerin istediğine ve Liam’ın ne elde etmesini istediğine karar verir… ama yeni gizli hayatı için ne kadar riske girmeye hazır? Metro, kentsel gençlik kültürünü özgünlük ve içgörü ile keşfeden yeni, etkili ve seksi bir roman. Hem modern bir hiciv hem de ahlak hikayesi, sınıflandırmaya direnen ve onun için daha güçlü olan bir kitap.

A The Enemy of the Good – Michael Arditti
The Granvilles are an extraordinary family. Edwin is a retired bishop who has lost his faith. Marta, a child of the Warsaw Ghetto, is a controversial anthropologist. Their son, Clement, is a celebrated gay painter traumatised by the death of his twin. Their daughter, Susannah, is a music publicist recovering from an affair with a convicted murderer. Over three remarkable years, the family goes through a sequence of events that causes it to reassess its deepest values and closest relationships. Clement’s work and reputation are violently attacked and his private life exposed. Susannah’s exploration of the Kabbalah takes her into the closed world of Chassidic Jews and a seemingly impossible love. Edwin’s illness forces Marta to confront the horrors of the past. Each must find a way to escape the abyss. Michael Arditti is also the author of Easter, The Celibate and Good Clean Fun.

I Must Confess – Rupert Smith
I Must Confess is the fictional autobiography of Marc LeJeune and his remarkable but chequered show-biz career. Hapless and heart-warmingly pretentious, Marc is a star who knows that real talent comes at a price. Petty jealousies and envious detractors, it would seem, always shadow the truly gifted. This is a sophisticated and wildly entertaining satire of pop-culture history.

Finding initial fame as ‘The Regular Guy’ in a laxative-product advert and later notoriety as the star of certain ‘artistic’ films, Marc sometimes suffers for his art and for taking his talents a little too seriously. Indeed, at times it would seem his inflated ego is ready to pop. Every page of his fabulous odyssey makes you smile. I Must Confess provides a catharsis for the drama queen in all of us. Engaging, moving and hilarious, I Must Confess is an outstandingly entertaining read.

The Indian Clerk – David Leavitt
The extraordinary true story of the discovery of one of the greatest mathematicians.

On a January morning in 1913, G. H. Hardy – eccentric, charismatic and, at thirty-seven, already considered the greatest British mathematician of his age – receives a mysterious envelope covered with Indian stamps. Inside he finds a rambling letter from a self-professed mathematical genius who claims to be on the brink of solving the most important unsolved mathematical problem of his time. Some of his Cambridge colleagues dismiss the letter as a hoax, but Hardy becomes convinced that the Indian clerk who has written it – Srinivasa Ramanujan – deserves to be taken seriously.

Aided by his collaborator, Littlewood, and a young don named Neville who is about to depart for Madras with his wife, Alice, he determines to learn more about the mysterious Ramanujan and, if possible, persuade him to come to Cambridge. It is a decision that will profoundly affect not only his own life, and that of his friends, but the entire history of mathematics.

Based on the remarkable true story of the strange and ultimately tragic relationship between an esteemed British mathematician and an unknown – and unschooled – mathematical genius, and populated with such luminaries as D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Indian Clerk fashions from this fascinating period an exquisitely nuanced and utterly compelling story about the fragility of human connection and our need to find order in the world.

Nights Beneath the Nation – Denis Kehoe
Sixty-seven-year-old Daniel Ryan returns to Dublin after fleeing to New York decades earlier, following the end of his love affair with Anthony. His return to the city is a reluctant but necessary journey to exorcise the ghosts of his past. Homosexuality in 1950s Ireland was a furtive, dangerous pursuit. Daniel and Anthony’s relationship was conducted amid the relative security of their bohemian theatre group, run by Maeve, a glamorous woman without much regard for social norms or concern for her reputation among the chattering classes. Cut to the 1990s and not much has changed – liaisons are still conducted in alleyways and seedy saunas. In an effort to escape attention on his return, Daniel tells people he is American, but a promiscuous young man embroils him in a cat and mouse game which threatens to expose his buried history.

Wings – Mikhail Kuzmin
New to St Petersburg, young, naive Vanya Smurov finds a mentor in the enigmatic and intellectual Larion Stroop, who initiates him into a fascinating sphere of art and beauty. As Vanya is drawn into Stroop’s world of aesthetic sensuality, he also becomes aware that Stroop is a frequenter of bathhouses: a homosexual. Disturbed by this revelation, Vanya abandons Stroop and moves to the Volga countryside in search of a more traditional existence. Yet he soon finds that the alternatives offered there are equally unsettling, leading him to question his initial reaction to Stroop’s hedonistic lifestyle. Published in a new translation, Wings was the first Russian novel to focus on homosexuality. Greeted with outrage when it appeared in 1906, this unjustly neglected work is a groundbreaking and sensitive study of a young man’s struggle to come to terms with his identity.

This Breathing World – Jose Luis de Juan
Traslated from the Spanish original, these are two stoires placed in front of each other like mirrors. The first is set in first-century Rome and relates the rise and fall of Mazuf, a homosexual Syrian scribe who becomes a renowned man of letters and a murderer. The second is a confession by a present-day American named Laurence; it seems to be simply a record of his sexual exploits during his student days at Harvard, but we xoon find out there is much more to his tale than first appears. Laurence, a disaffected and sophisticated narator, is a murderer too. But what is the connection between the two men? Is the key an old copy of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? And can stories change, not only the future, but more compellingly, the past? In a playfully unsettling and wonderfully sensual novel, prize-winning author Jose Luis de Juan explores the secret history of desire and the dark desire to make history.

The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second – Drew Ferguson
Being Charles James Stewart (AKA Charlie the Second) means never “fitting in.” Tall, gangly and big-eared, he could be the poster boy for teenage geeks. An embarrassment to his parents (he’s not to crazy about them, either), Charlie is a virtual untouchable at his school, where humiliation is practically an extra curricular activity. Charlie has tried to fit in, but all of his efforts fall on a glorious, monumental scale. He plays soccer–mainly to escape his home life–but isn’t accepted by his teammates who basically ignore him on the field. He still confuses the accelerator with the brake pedal and has failed his driving exam six times. He can’t work on his college application essay without writing a searing tell-all. But what’s freaking Charlie out the most is that while his hormones are raging and his peers are pairing off, he remains alone with his fantasies.

But all of this is about to change when a new guy at school begins to liven things up on the soccer team–and in Charlie’s life. For the first time in his seventeen years, Charlie will learn how it feels to be a star, at least off the field. But Charlie discovers that even cool guys have problems as he embarks on an unforgettable, risk-filled journey from which there is no turning back….

Between Men 2 Original Fiction by Today’s Best Gay Writers Anthology
‘Between Men 2’ features nineteen diverse and unexpected stories that are erotic, beguiling, provoking and ground-breaking:

In the collection Alan Hollinghurst offers the ‘Highlights’ of a doomed romantic break in Rome. Andrew Holleran surveys how the internet makes, and breaks, gay passion. Mark Merlis takes us back to the sometimes-not-too-pretty 1960s. Ethan Mordden invites us into Bud’s world, among the savvy gay Manhattanites of his acclaimed ‘Buddies’ stories. Randall Kenan introduces the tall striking Brazilian everybody wants; Aaron Hamburger, the Ukrainian mother no gay son wants.

The quality writing continues with everything from Kevin Killian’s star-gazing ‘Yellow Sands’ to Douglas A. Martin’s account of sexual intrigue on campus, ‘Academic Boyfriend Material,’ and from Tennessee Jones’s mean, forgotten America in ‘Down at Texas Beach,’ Patrick Gale’s trip through the charms of rural England in ‘Hushed Casket’ and Eric Karl Anderson’s ‘Breathe.’

His Master’s Lover – Nick Heddle
His Master’s Lover is a tribute to all those forgotten gay men who fought in the First World War – not only those who died, but also the walking wounded, the shell-shocked and the survivors. In 1919, handsome and gay 22-year old Freddy returns to England from the trenches of the Somme with his Victoria Cross expecting to find Prime Minister Lloyd George’s land fit for heroes. This is his story.

Blue Sky Adam – Anthony McDonald
The long awaited sequel to the bestselling novel Adam. At 22 Adam learns that he has come into some property: a vineyard in southern France. Leaving old loves and friends behind he moves, only to find himself somewhat isolated. Stephane, Adam’s sexy new neighbour comes to his rescue, and is soon giving Adam much more than advise on managing his vineyard…When Adam’s teenage lover reappears on the scene, Adam must decide exactly what, and who, he really wants.

Eternal queer questions are explored with astute insight – and bracing erotic interludes – in McDonald’s stellar, thoughtful sequel.’ Richard Labonte

Straightening Alki – Amjeed Kabil
For Ali Mirza, a young British born Pakistani man, life takes a sudden dramatic turn when his family arranges for him to get married even though he has told them he is gay. How will he survive his wedding night when he’s not even turned on by his new bride, whom he has only met once for five minutes? Sajda, his wife, claims she is in love with him, but she does not even know him. For Ali, this is the tip of the iceberg as his boyfriend has moved to France and is hesitant to support Ali. Ali is torn between running away to join the love of his life, or staying to live the life his family has arranged for him. If he does run, will they find him and force him to be straight? Will he ever reunite with his lover? Ali must decide what is best for him and does in a matter of days. Straightening Ali is a riveting story about family ties, conflicting cultures and the basic dynamics of human relationships.

Grief – Andrew Holleran
Newly out in paperback this is the winner of the 2007 Stonewall Award for Literature from the author of Dancer From the Dance. Reeling from the recent death of his invalid mother, an exhausted, lonely professor goes to Washington to escape. What he finds there – in his handsome, solitary landlord; in the city’s sombre mood and sepulchral architecture; and the strange and impassioned letters and journals of Mary Todd Lincoln – shows him unexpected truths about America and loss. As he seeks to engage with the living world around him he comes to realise that his relationship to his grief is very different than he had thought. A masterwork from a writer beloved for his depth of feeling, humour, the elegance of his prose, and his unflinching honesty.

Skin Lane – Neil Bartlett
At forty-seven, Mr. F’s working life on London’s Skin Lane is one governed by calm, precision and routine. So when he starts to have frightening, recurring nightmares, he does his best to ignore them. The images that appear in his dreams are disturbing – Mr. F can’t for the life of him think where they have come from. After all, he’s a perfectly ordinary middle-aged man. As London’s crooked backstreets negin to swelter in the long, hot summer of 1967, Mr. F’s nightmare becomes an obsession. A chance encounter adds a face to the body that nightly haunts him, and the torments of his sweat-drenched nights lead him – and the reader – deeper into a labyrinth of rage, desire and shame.

The list was compiled from Gay’s The Word Lesbian & Gay Bookshop.
Gay’s The Word is the UK’s pioneering first lesbian and gay bookshop. Established in 1979 and had located in the historic Bloomsbury district of London.