The arrival of June, and thus Pride Month, is an annual opportunity for us to honor the lives of diverse L.G.B.T.Q.+ people and celebrate the ongoing movement for love and acceptance. It’s one that urgently continues today amidst a climate of transphobia and intolerance toward some of our most marginalized community members, and as such, tales of heartache and hardship join inspired true stories of queer artists making their mark on the world in our Pride Month book roundup.
The stories below offer a medley of perspectives: one charts the ebullience of gay music across the decades, while another takes comfort in unguarded self-portraits that contemplate what it means to be “ugly” in a society that celebrates beauty. In all, these books drive home the point that L.G.B.T.Q.+ lives can’t be distilled down into a single experience. Difference is what makes being queer so great; the same is true for these books.
‘Transcendent’ by Laverne Cox
Laverne Cox, the breakout Emmy-winning star of Orange Is the New Black, delivers a raw and sensitive self-portrait with Transcendent. It charts the 54-year-old trans actor’s struggles to overcome many obstacles in her life—childhood abandonment, early attempts at suicide and the guilt of surviving the experience while so many other trans folks didn’t—to become a lauded L.G.B.T.Q.+ icon representing the “transgender tipping point.” Her vulnerability and candor, conveyed in both her time living at the margins and facing the glare of the spotlight, will resonate with many readers sure to feel inspired by Cox’s unwavering courage.
‘Transcendent’ by Laverne Cox.
Gallery Books
‘My Bad’ by Hugh Ryan
From one vantage point, the 1990s were a period where being gay became more normalized: the advent of antiretrovirals to combat HIV/AIDS; an approach of tolerance via “Don’t ask, don’t tell”; even the promise of gay civil unions in some U.S. states. Still, for historian Hugh Ryan, this period, where queer people attempted to mask parts of their difference, was nevertheless not perfect. The ’90s, he writes, brought with it the power of online connection thanks to the internet and vibrant new subcultures, but also began to diminish past political efforts and wider activism found in the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community. My Bad thus proves an entertaining and sharp-eyed personal history capturing a time where queer identity underwent transformative social change.
‘My Bad’ by Hugh Ryan.
Bold Type Books
‘Nymph’ by Sofia Montrone
Nymph is an achingly beautiful coming-of-age novel retelling one young girl’s first love and the grief that can be wrought in its aftermath. Much like Call Me by Your Name (as it’s being billed by some), it follows two Italian summers that defined the childhood of Leonora: one when she was a wide-eyed 10-year-old searching for the validation of her alcoholic father; the other, at 18, seeking the affection of a beguiling butch woman. Author Sofia Montrone wields her poetic prose so well it truly elicits the pain borne of youthful desire and the desperation found when young queer people attempt their journey for self-knowledge through romance. Nymph‘s larger observations on vulnerability and sapphic desire also pack a hefty punch.
‘Nymph’ by Sofia Montrone.
Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
‘American Spirits’ by Anna Dorn
Chaos reigns in Anna Dorn’s American Spirits, a dark satire on fandom and desire between a pop star and an obsessive female fan. Not unlike Lana Del Rey, Blue Velour is an enigmatic and beloved singer who hires Rose to be her new assistant, not realizing Rose is the proprietor of a fanatical subreddit that tracks the entertainer’s alleged romantic forays. A complex entanglement ensues between the star, her assistant and current paramour when they are all forced to quarantine during COVID. American Spirits probes the depths of desire between women—one heightened by the media attention given to all three—while also commenting on the somewhat perverse addiction many of us have with celebrities and their intimate lives. It’s a memorable novel from an author already known for controversy—see Perfume & Pain.
‘American Spirits’ by Anna Dorn.
Simon & Schuster
‘Changing Gender’ by Susan Stryker
The current political environment might be a nadir for the trans community, but the efforts of activists like Susan Stryker give many of us hope. Changing Gender sees the celebrated L.G.B.T.Q.+ historian challenge the many reactionary orthodoxies rising around gender identity to ask us what life would be like if we stopped policing the body. It’s a noble quest that mixes history with memoir to retrace the opaque story of “gender,” one that moves from 19th-century phrenology to present-day anti-trans conspiracy theorists. In all, Changing Gender is an emboldened clarion call from one of the queer community’s most formidable voices—one who literally wrote transgender history with Transgender History.
‘Changing Gender’ by Susan Stryker.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
‘Mighty Real’ by Barry Walters
Music journalist Barry Walters uses Mighty Real to offer a glittering and exhaustive survey of history’s queer (and queer-friendly) musicians. From the Velvet Underground to k.d. lang, Bette Midler to Nirvana, this comprehensive account of queerness in music’s annals captures its radiance, bravery and ebullience—with countless artists and songs that challenged the status quo and celebrated difference. Walters, who spent almost a decade on this book, details how queer songs of suffering (Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”) finally gave way to anthems of affirmation (Madonna’s “Express Yourself”) across the years from music-makers who told the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community that you are never alone. A must-have music compendium.
‘Mighty Real’ by Barry Walters.
Viking
‘The Wonderful World That Almost Was’ by Andrew Durbin
Susan Sontag once commented that artist Paul Thek would be remembered in history as “a footnote.” While the observation may have been grim, it does reflect the reality that this queer artist—and his lover and sometimes rival, photographer Peter Hujar—experienced in the decades since the AIDS crisis punished him with an early death. Andrew Durbin, editor-in-chief of Frieze, delivers a potent and redemptive portrait of these lovers that captures the brilliance of their practices and the magic of their love. The Wonderful World That Almost Was is a restorative dual biography that beautifully remembers two vibrant artists who both made lasting contributions to America’s art history—and should no longer remain mere footnotes.
‘The Wonderful World That Almost Was’ by Andrew Durbin.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
‘Ugly’ by Stephanie Fairyington
Stephanie Fairyington is queer, gender non-conforming and a mother. Ugly has her offer a powerful cautionary warning to her daughter on a future facing our patriarchal world where beauty is everything. The “ugliness” Fairyington has long experienced starts at the cruel beauty standards she falls short on and extends to the complicated position she sits at around motherhood. The memoir-cum-manifesto on queer maternity is rousing and often affecting, charting the messy road self-understanding often takes and the power that queer theory can hold in empowering many to actualize queer selfhood. There’s great comfort and inspiration to be found in Fairyington’s counsel to her child.
‘Ugly’ by Stephanie Fairyington.
Pantheon
