There are lots and lots of new books in the literary pipeline to choose from this spring for every color on the personality rainbow and beyond. If you’re desperate to take a breather from all the negative political press, grab one of the new books we will be highlighting in our Spring Books Round-Up series. Books and reading can make a world of difference!
FICTION
“A Thing Is Only Known When It Is Gone” by Joe Baumann; $18.95 (Univ. of Wisconsin)
Experimental and surreal, Baumann latest collection of short fiction pushes the boundaries of queer reality and infuses the extraordinary into the ordinary. Tucked masterfully into these twenty stories are characters with serious corporeal issues.
Some who wake up in a panic after discovering their left hand has vanished; or after finding a mysterious, blooming “splotch” lodged in between their pecs after a night of passion; or smiling after a sweet morning text message when the water coursing through a man’s veins “feels a touch warmer, like a faucet in his heart has finally clicked toward hot.”
There is bizarre and then there is beautiful all wrapped together in Baumann’s impressive collection, which culminates in a brilliantly realized final story populated by two retired superheroes who move into an abandoned nursing home and find themselves interviewed by an inquisitive journalist. These immensely creative stories are crafted with a flair for the fantastic. Don’t miss this one. www.uwpress.wisc.edu
“Shelby’s Vacation” by Nancy Beverly, $19.95 (Henry Gray Publishing)
Initially written as a feature-length screenplay and eventually emerging as a 40-minute prize-winning short film in 2016, Beverly’s energetic novel about self-discovery, love, and identity chronicles the travels of Shelby, a lesbian woman nursing the wounds of unrequited love and a past filled with regret and unrealized desire.
She finds herself traversing through the southeastern California desert and up into the Sierra Nevada mountains where, tucked into the mountainous terrain, is the Sierra Glen Cabins where she meets Carol, the business manager and dynamic innkeeper.
Though their initial attraction is palpable, both women struggle with painful histories and frequently flashbacked, bittersweet memories, and each must work through them to truly heal in order to discover what might possibly be blossoming just beneath the surface of all that trauma. Could it be love?
Decorated with black-and-white photographs peppered throughout the novel, this cleverly narrated, heartwarming, character driven story brims with good-natured characters and atmospheric scenery based on real California high country locations.
For some lighthearted but extremely engaging feel-good storytelling about lesbians on the hunt for love and belonging, seek out Nancy Beverly’s easy, breezy, and thoroughly enjoyable debut. www.henrygraypublishing.com
“Futbolista” by Jonny Garza Villa, $16.99 (Levine Querido)
Author Garza Villa is better known for young adult novels like last year’s “Canto Contigo” and “Ander & Santi Were Here,” but this year, he breaks out into adult fiction territory with this outstanding story about a group of college classmates and their surprising revelations about identity and sexuality.
Gabi Pina is a freshman at Texas A&M and a star soccer player with the kind of immense potential that even ESPN has begun recognizing. But while pretty classmate Leana catches his eye, it is the lips of handsome philosophy major Vale who excites him most when they kiss on a dare at a frat party.
This sexual spark ignites a conflict deep inside Gabi and he must choose between following his true heart and going for the gold in the sports arena. This tale of self-discovery, soccer, and sweet coming-of-age love is written with passion and a true sense of desire and longing as a boy comes out and makes the right choices for himself. www.levinequerido.com
“A World Worth Saving” by Kyle Lukoff, $17.89 (Dial Books)
Prolific YA trans author Lukoff sets his latest triumphant novel in the realm of fantasy and sets the action in 2023 where 14-year-old Ashkenazi Jewish transgender youth, A Izenson, discovers he has magical powers and must save the world from demonic forces bent on eradicating queer and questioning kids.
A’s parents are determined to “rescue” him from his identity struggles by way of a conversion therapy group called “Save Our Sons and Daughters,” which causes his only friend Yarrow to tragically vanish. While investigating his friend’s disappearance on his own, a mystical golem appears to assist him and protect him from harm.
The magical being also draws out A’s powers to save those from certain doom, which comes in handy when rescuing lesbian friend Sal from a soul-devouring demon. Incorporating themes of heroism, identity, abuse, transphobia, and the struggle of trans youth in contemporary society, Lukoff, again, comes out swinging with this brilliant tale of resilient trans youth and their fight for survival. www.penguinrandomhouse.com
NONFICTION
“Hello, Stranger: Musings on Modern Intimacies” by Manuel Betancourt (Catapult Press)
Queer culture analyst Betancourt’s 2023 book “The Male Gazed” was a memorably personal exploration of how popular culture shaped his sexual identity and queer desire. In his latest, he tackles the spark and the thrill of intimate encounters through a series of ponderous, insightful essays.
Referencing a variety of print and digital media resources, Betancourt, a self-described “shameless flirt,” examines how fleeting encounters with strangers can evoke yearning, shame, desire, love, danger, recklessness, and, best of all, explosive carnal release. Queer male readers will certainly find something recognizable in these pages. Grab it while it’s hot! www.books.catapult.co
“Cleavage: Men, Women, and the Space Between Us” by Jennifer Finney Boylan, $29 (Celadon)
Author of more than thirteen books, Boylan’s dynamic new essay collection delves into her experiences as a transwoman more than twenty years after she transitioned. Serving as a bookend to her national bestselling memoir “She’s Not There,” this release examines the differences she’s observed in her years living as a man, and now, as a woman, and how her transition has alleviated a lot of confusion and internal conflict, but it has not cured all of the longing and sadness living deep within her.
She also writes about her own daughter’s gender transition and the implications of what that means for her, as a mother. An effortlessly entertaining prose stylist, Boylan is clever with a phrase or an anecdote, and endlessly entertaining to observe as a transwoman navigating a world in constant flux through a gentle yet impactful lens. www.celadonbooks.com
MEMOIR
“Encounters with Men” by Bob Ostertag, $25.95 (Black Lawrence Press)
Multitalented author (yoga, social justice, sex sciences, etc.), podcaster, filmmaker, and touring musician Ostertag has assembled a carefully curated book of memories based on his life as a queer man navigating love, lust, and, especially, unbridled sex.
Frankly written and spanning the author’s very active, eventful lifetime, Ostertag meticulously and entertainingly details encounters with a wide variety of men and openly admits that sex, for him, “is more like a crowbar with which to quickly pry away the layers of life’s detritus and put my heart close to the heart of another.”
He believes he is an outlier in the gay community for his propensity to fall in love with the men he has sex with, and the pages of his unique memoir are filled with heady experiences involving coaches, boyhood friends, creepy psychologists, a man vacationing in America from Jerusalem who tells the author about the parks there at night “full of Palestinians fucking Jews,” and a particularly memorable story about a musclebound, sandy-haired, corn-fed former hustler who regales Ostertag with a client whose fetish was inserting frozen gummy worms into his urethra, only to ejaculate them out during masturbation.
Stranger than fiction and oddly hypnotizing, this voyeuristic treasury will keep you glued to the page for hours. The best thing about reading these encounters is Ostertag’s honest confession that from each man, he learns a little bit more about himself and how his life has become shaped by sex, love, passion, desire, and truth. www.blacklawrencepress.com
Bob Ostertag will discuss and read from his memoir at Fabulosa Books on April 10, 7pm, 489 Castro St.
POETRY
“Super Gay Poems” by Stephanie Burt, $29.95 (Harvard University Press)
In this door-stopping, 400-page anthology, Harvard English instructor Burt collects a whopping 51 poems with the collective theme of queerness and inclusivity on American soil.
Assembled chronologically, the poems are embellished with Burt’s commentary on why she selected the piece as well as some background information on why the poem remains relevant and has stood the test of time, such as works by Frank O’Hara, and moving across subjects of identity, trans-awareness, gender, genderqueer sex, and the intrinsic queerness of art and the written word. Packed with awe and wonder, this is a must-have collective for any queer poetry reader. www.hup.harvard.edu
“Cowboy Park: Poems” by Eduardo Martinez-Leyva, $17.95 (Univ. of Wisconsin)
In this striking debut collection, Latino poet Martinez-Leyva crafts a story about Angelo, the narrator’s brother who has gone missing physically, but whose spirit thrives within the carefully calibrated words of these poems.
The imagery the poet conjures is striking: a hand moving through dark hair, galloping horses in the dust, the masculinity and bravado of cowboys, and how the desert landscape can be compared to the dryness, loss, and desolation of queer identity for those who become emotionally isolated by it.
Martinez-Leyva stays true to his Hispanic heritage by incorporating both English and Spanish languages within works of extremely moving, memorable poetry that examine life within the gritty terrain of cowboy territory, made tender by the insistence and impatience of queer desire. www.uwpress.wisc.edu
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