LGBTQ Literature: Gay Romance Novels – Daily Kos
LGBTQ Literature is a Readers and Book Lovers series dedicated to discussing literature that has made an impact on the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. From fiction to contemporary nonfiction to history and everything in between, any literature that touches on LGBTQ themes is welcome in this series. LGBTQ Literature posts on the last Sunday of every month at 7:30 PM EST. If you are interested in writing for the series, please send a message to Chrislove.
I’m new to writing for Kos LGBTQ Literature so I should start with a bit about myself.
I’ve reached senior status, I’m single and gay. It took me a long time to figure that last bit out because there were so few examples of LGBTQ people when I was growing up and most of those were negative.
My screen name and avatar are about handbells. I’ve been performing on tuned sets of bells since middle school and am a published handbell composer. My fall season has begun and my performing group is rehearsing to give concerts in December.
I am very much a loner. I live alone and I’m not lonely. The last time I dated was in college. So it seems strange that I enjoy a good gay romance. In this post I’ll discuss those I’ve read through the pandemic.
Of course, I read other gay stories. I also read science fiction – though forget the ones centered around saving humanity from the latest version of Ultimate Evil. I enjoy biographies (usually someone space related), stories of people from a different background, and some things in the Literature section of the local Barnes & Noble. In general, whatever catches my interest. My shelf of books yet to read is heavy, my list of books to buy is long.
When one has read a lot of gay romance stories one can see a basic formula, one that likely applies to straight romances. The two men meet (sometimes in a cute manner). They fall in love, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly after they get to know each other. Their love is challenged, sometimes through something they did, sometimes through the world around them. Their love conquers the challenge and comes out stronger. The story ends, or at least the book does. Sometimes there are sequels showing them in later stages of life facing fresh challenges. Many readers, including me, like this formula. We expect the love to conquer and assume that to be the case when we buy the book.
The challenges vary a lot. He had a horrible childhood so doesn’t trust anyone. He feels constrained by world expectations. He is bound by duty. He is distracted by another lover. They met briefly and one can’t find the other. He hasn’t yet realized he’s gay. He’s too caught up in projecting a personality to recognize love. And many more.
Another thing that makes one book different from another is the setting and characters. What do we learn about the setting? How does the setting affect the characters? Are the characters appealing or do they change through the tale? There seems to be one constant through these stories – the characters, especially the lovers, are quite physically appealing. Would we buy the books if they weren’t? Probably not, we want to see a projection of our fantasies.
I’ll start with the two books that prompted me to write this post.
Over the last 15 years I’ve done a lot of thinking and writing about how so many humans spend so much effort trying to show they are better than those around them. I consider this to be the definition of sin and of evil. A lot of that writing is in my personal blog (which I usually don’t mention around here because so much in the blog is links to Kos stories). I also contributed a few Kos posts on the topic a few years back – didn’t get much reaction at the time
Given that it is surprising that the two romance books I’ll start with feature a gay prince of England. What drew me is the clash between tightly bound traditions of the monarchy faced with a disruption of those traditions. Also of interest, both books feature the prince falling in love with an American, from a place that proclaims we don’t have a monarchy in which one family is declared to stand above all the others (yeah, recent history…).
Back in Pride Month of 2021 I visited the nearby Barnes & Noble. On their display of LGBTQ books were two featuring gay princes. I chose one, then looked them up on the B&N website to see which got the higher customer rating. Of course, it was the one I didn’t buy. Not that the one in my hands was bad …
That book is Playing the Palace by Paul Rudnick. Carter is the American. He works as an “event architect” and is in the United Nations building setting up displays for Crown Prince Edgar. The prince comes in to practice his speech and asks Carter for tips on how to be less bland and boring.
In this case Edgar is openly gay, with the approval of the Queen. With that setting we learn a bit about what it is like to be a working royal. Carter and Edgar make appearances together to get England used to them as a couple. Of course, the American gets tangled in the differences in culture. From there we follow the formula.
It is a breezy read and enjoyable. The idea the crown prince and eventual king could be a gay trailblazer is refreshing.
The second American / Prince romance is Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. The stakes are much higher because the American is Alex Claremont-Diaz, son of the first female president. Alex is half white and half Mexican. And he hates the idea of Prince Henry (I wondered about the similarities between this Prince Henry and the real Prince Harry).
The part of the formula about challenges to their love comes from Alex being afraid coming out will hurt his mother’s reelection chances and from Henry being weighed down by the traditions and expectations of his birth. He is definitely not out to his grandmother the queen and his older brother.
This one was much more substantial and consequential. It also had its moments of humor, such as Alex, on his way to a personal meeting with Henry, is handed a 15 page non disclosure agreement.
This is the time to mention the Netflix series Young Royals. Young Prince Wilhelm of Sweden is sent off to a boarding school. There he meets Simon, a person not of the aristocracy, who lives in the nearby town. The conflicts are rather obvious.
After the six episodes of season one I felt the story had gotten only half way through the formula. Love has not yet conquered the challenges. I enjoyed what’s there, though I’m glad to hear a season two is in production.
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman is well known because of the movie starring Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer. Chalamet played Elio, who is 17 and the son of a professor who lives on the Italian coast. Hammer played Oliver, an American graduate student who comes to work for the professor for the summer.
The first half of the book is Elio trying to figure out his attraction to Oliver, whether Oliver attracted to him, and what he wants to do about it. Compared to the movie, in the book Elio seems more smitten, obsessed, and conflicted. I enjoyed both the book and movie.
Spoiler alert, this paragraph: The story does not follow the formula in that Oliver goes home at the end of the summer – without Elio. There is a marvelous scene in which the professor accepts and honors Elio’s first love and another scene at the end when Elio responds to a Christmas phone call from Oliver is what prompted reviewers to consider Chalamet to be a fine actor.
There is a sequel titled, Find Me. It is what prompted me to read the book after seeing the movie. But I found the sequel confusing (it takes forever to identify the characters from the first book) and very little of it is about Oliver and Elio. And that part seemed contrived.
I think men with children are sexy and have read many books about gay fathers. That may or may not be a topic for another post. So I was intrigued with a book described as portraying a gay couple that become guardians of three brothers. But this was a middle book in a series and I thought I should start at the beginning.
That beginning is A Better Place, by Mark A. Roeder. In 1980 Brendan is in high school and the captain of the football team. Girls are trying to get his attention and he’s afraid someone will find out he’s gay. He’s attracted to small and skinny Casper. The usual high school angst is superseded by genuine terror when Brendan’s parents discover he’s gay and send him for conversion therapy.
Since this is the first of a series and the second book is titled Brendan and Casper we know Brendan escapes. He and Casper flee town and make their way to Verona, Indiana, probably the only gay friendly rural area in the state. They live on a farm where some of the other farmhands are gay.
In the second book the couple have established themselves in town – Brendan as the high school football coach – and have bought their own farm. They become guardians of their nephews who are teen and pre-teen.
The third in the series is Brendan & Casper Older and Better. The nephews are grown and Brendan and Casper contend with late middle age.
Once Brendan and Casper get to Verona the story is rather idyllic. I think the author was trying to show gay couples could lead normal lives the same way straight couples do.
However, I have a few complaints of the series. First, I think there was way too much description of the menu of every family meal. Second, and more important, the third book lists books in the series – and there are actually eighteen. They include what happened to other gay kids in Verona and what happens to various gay kids when Brendan and Casper go to college in Bloomington. The second and third books refer to relationships and incidents in those other books and pointedly leave out the details. I understand if one has read all the books in order one may not want a rehash of the details. But if one hasn’t they’re left hanging.
The books I read were pretty good, but not so great that I would want to read the other fifteen.
Under the Big Sky by S. Bryan Gonzales is about Cash McCollum in his senior year in high school in Miles City, Montana. He’s also an impressive rodeo rider. Travis Hunter is a football player and corners Cash. And Cash takes too little time to say I guess I’m gay.
Much of the challenge is that Cash is way too quick to assume things about Travis based on too little evidence. Cash is also distracted by Liam, another teen in the rodeo circuit.
I got interested in this one because the sequel is about Cash being given custody of a child (see above about men with children). The last 100 out of 500 pages is a setup for that sequel. But descriptions of that book imply Cash and Travis will do a great deal of arguing, so I haven’t bought it yet. There is a third book in the series and that one involves ghosts, so I’m not interested (though see below).
I enjoyed it, though have a small complaint. Cash is described as having strawberry blond hair. So I was disappointed that the model used for the front cover had brown hair. The model was definitely portraying Cash and not Travis.
A few other gay teen romance novels I’ve read are We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra. What if it’s Us by Albertalli & Silvera (I haven’t read the sequel yet), and the award winning Aristotle and Dante by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (also with a sequel I haven’t read).
After several romances featuring teenage angst I figured I should stop looking for recommendations from Hope in a Box, which donates LGBTQ books to schools. Instead, I turned to Lambda Literary and their awards for romances.
A Lambda Literary award prompted me to get The Ghost and Charlie Muir by Felice Stevens. I’m sure the title is meant to bring to mind the movie The Ghost and Mrs. Muir from 1947 in which a young widow moves into a seaside cottage, finds it is haunted by an old sea captain, and falls in love with him.
Yes, there is a ghost, but Charlie doesn’t fall in love with her. Charlie grew up in a series of foster homes and, now in his 20s and definitely gay, learns he is the only living relative of a deceased great-great-aunt and inherits her house. Which has a ghost who scares away “inappropriate” boyfriends. His new neighbor is Ian, who thinks he’s straight, though he finds Charlie’s kisses to be pretty hot.
The ghost gets these two men together while telling the story of her brother Eddie who lived in Ian’s house and was in love with Robert who lived in Charlies house. They were lovers, but during WWI could not reveal their love.
I enjoyed that one, even though I usually avoid ghost stories.
There is another interesting aspect of this book – it’s a gay romance written by a woman. Does she do it because she has a brother or son in need of such stories? Does she do it for herself? I found the Felice Stevens website and see she has written a lot (maybe three dozen) of male/male romance stories. And the covers show a lot of quite handsome men.
Her About page says in each of her books she’s going to toe the formula line. It says:
I have always been a romantic at heart. I believe that while life is tough, there is always a happy ending around the corner, My characters have to work for it, however. Like life in NYC, nothing comes easy and that includes love, but getting there is oh so fun and oh so sexy.
Yup, they meet, they have challenges, their love endues. I’m not sure that answers my question of why she is a woman writing gay romance novels.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is a retelling of the Iliad, the ten year battle for Troy, the one that ends with the Trojan Horse. However, there are a couple differences.
Patroclus, a minor character in the original, is the narrator. Achilles chooses Patroclus as his companion, a lad who will grow into a trusted advisor. They meet when young, a few years before the war. Since Patroclus always describes Achilles in golden terms, even when both are pre-teens, we get an idea that Patroclus and Achilles will end up as lovers.
Their love makes a difference when captured Trojan women are brought into the Greek camp and Achilles claims several of them because he knows many of the other Greek leaders will treat them roughly and he and Patroclus will not.
I recommend this one. And since I hadn’t read the Iliad before I’m pleased this was a great way to learn that bit of culture.
When I travel (at least to English language countries) I like to visit a local bookstore to take home local stories. A few years ago I was in Australia and made a point of visiting an LGBTQ bookstore. I bought several, though not all of them were romances. One of them is a romance, though a great deal more. It is Holding the Man by Timothy Conigrave, his autobiography. He grew up in a Catholic school, which has many, though not all, of the things we American gays associate with Catholic schools. He fell in love with John and they forge a life together and try to fit into society in spite of the disapproval. Timothy works as an actor and playwright. Spoiler alert, rest of this paragraph: Timothy and John were infected with AIDS and Timothy endured John fading and dying. Timothy died just after completing the manuscript.
I recommend this one. A movie was made of this story and is available for streaming. I haven’t seen it yet.
A few other more adult novels I’ve read are Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan, Lie With Me by Philippe Besson and translated from the French by Molly Ringwald, and Vanity Fierce by Graeme Aitken (also Australian).
While I’m at it, during the pandemic I started streaming a movie every Sunday evening. Of course, several were gay romances. Streaming allows me to see movies from around the world.
Proud is a three part French miniseries of three stages in Victor’s life, a gay man who wants a son.
José is Guatemalan and not much happened.
And Then We Danced takes place in the Asian country of Georgia. Merab is trying out for the premier folk dance troupe and is frequently told his dancing isn’t masculine enough.
Giant Little Ones is Canadian. Franky and Ballas are teens trying to figure out life. Understanding one’s orientation doesn’t happen all at once.
Kanarie is South African and features a gay man in the Canaries, a choir that’s part of the white South African military and trying to give it a positive image in spite of Apartheid. It’s a kinder story than Moffie, which I haven’t seen.
God’s Own Country takes place on a sheep farm in England, so it starts like Brokeback Mountain but with a better ending.
My Beautiful Laundrette of 1985 features Omar and his extended Pakistani family living in London. Omar falls in love with Johnny, played by a very young Daniel Day-Lewis.
The Strong Ones takes place in southern Chile. A young man from the capital falls in love with a local.
I Carry You With Me is the story of Iván, an undocumented Mexican trying to make a life in America, with the difference that he is gay, yet has a son back in Mexico he can never visit.
The Wedding Banquet in which Wai Tung and Simon are gay lovers and stage a straight wedding for Wai Tung’s parents from Taiwan.
Alex Strangelove in which Alex is trying to figure out if he is straight or gay.
Cicada is modeled on the real lives of its main actors, Matthew Fifer and Sheldon Brown. They play Ben, who is white, and Sam, who is black. They fall in love and work through the conflicts with their pasts.
Finally, Breaking Fast in which Mo, an observant Muslim, falls in love with American Kal during the month of Ramadan, in which Mo doesn’t eat until sundown. Kal breaks the fast with him every evening.
I’d love to hear your suggestions for romance novels, gay romance for me, lesbian romance for our friends. Please put them in the comments (and please say which they are).
LGBTQ Literature Schedule (2022):
If you are interested in taking any of the following dates, please comment below or send a message to Chrislove. We’re always looking for new writers, and anything related to LGBTQ literature is welcome!
January 30: Ushka Waso
February 27: OPEN
March 27: Chrislove
April 24: Clio2
May 29: Chrislove
June 26: ChrisloveJuly 31: OPENAugust 28: OPEN
September 25: bellist
October 30: OPEN
November 27: OPEN
December 25: OPEN