Novels that have touched your soul.

[James Matthews]

A friend once said to me. You HAVE to watch Beautiful Thing, you have to. Whatever you do this weekend go out and buy it. This was back in early 2000s. I wondered what all the fuss was about but he was insisted it would change my life. Those were his words - it would change my life. I went to a few shops and looked around but they didn't have it. I settled on HMV who said they would "order" it in for me but it would take a week. I was so egged on to watch this move by my friend a week seemed like an eternity.

Anyway... It did change my life and I think I watched it over 20 times. Then I got into reading gay novels on sites such as this. And I've read a few stories which really stayed with me. Domluka had a way of writing that really got into my head and some novels by Mark Arbour and my first LTR was with a guy in the Royal Air Force. I love romance and coming of age as it takes me back to my own experience of coming out and finding your first love. I'm in my 30's so although it was a while back I still remember that first kiss, and the first night I went to bed with another male. Books can really take you back to that time.

So I'm wondering if there are any stories you guys have read on here or elsewhere which have, well touched your soul where the novel lingered in your mind for a long time and where you couldn't get away from what you had read?

[Greg_A]

For a story that can really grab your heart and soul I highly recommend It Started With Brian - conveniently located right here at Gay Authors:

I will freely admit I'm a bit biased though.  I personally knew Sam and the most of the rest of the cast in this autobiography.  I even helped Sam come up with the story description.  We were pretty darn close and I can honestly say I still miss him and think of him pretty much every day.

[TetRefine]

Dancer From The Dance by Andrew Holleran is one of the few novels that has profoundly impacted my life. Despite the novel being set/written in the 1970s, I felt such a deep connection to the main character and saw so much of my own life in him and his surroundings. I could very much relate to the feeling of trying to drown out the baggage of a past life through hedonism, and getting swallowed up in the process. 

[Krista]

I think I've said this in a different thread, but there's a local author here that wrote stories about impoverished people set in Kentucky and Michigan back during WWII. Two of her novels I really fell in love with and I actually take time to read them every year. Harriet Simpson Arnow's, The Dollmaker, and Hunter's Horn. They're not novels that would typically touch everyone that reads them, as it does focus (sometimes to the extreme) how people in Kentucky lived. I found her when I was in college and my professor had a poster of Local writers on the wall in her office. I had never heard of her before then, but I'm glad I got nosy enough to buy both books when I saw them on the shelves of a local bookstore that has since went out of business. 

[BigBen]

Halfway Home, by Paul Monette

[James Matthews]

6 hours ago, Krista said:

I think I've said this in a different thread, but there's a local author here that wrote stories about impoverished people set in Kentucky and Michigan back during WWII. Two of her novels I really fell in love with and I actually take time to read them every year. Harriet Simpson Arnow's, The Dollmaker, and Hunter's Horn. They're not novels that would typically touch everyone that reads them, as it does focus (sometimes to the extreme) how people in Kentucky lived. I found her when I was in college and my professor had a poster of Local writers on the wall in her office. I had never heard of her before then, but I'm glad I got nosy enough to buy both books when I saw them on the shelves of a local bookstore that has since went out of business. 

Wow, I love historical novels, especially WWII. I don't think enough is written about them from a LGBT perspective. I guess that's because there is not a lot of source material to call on seeing as it was all hidden back then... and illegal! I am going to check these out.

 

Thank you Krista, that's great!

 

James

[Krista]

9 hours ago, James Matthews said:

Wow, I love historical novels, especially WWII. I don't think enough is written about them from a LGBT perspective. I guess that's because there is not a lot of source material to call on seeing as it was all hidden back then... and illegal! I am going to check these out.

 

Thank you Krista, that's great!

 

James

They're not LGBT novels though. I didn't think we were 'only' discussing LGBT novels within this discussion. They both have distinctly religious and superstitious elements in them.  So I wouldn't suggest them if you're only looking for LGBT representation as those definitely won't have them in there. Woops. 

To add, I've not sat down and read any life changing LGBT novels, most of my outside of GA reading with those elements have been rather mainstream and common themed. 

Edited August 26, 2021 by Krista

[Mawgrim]

Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy is set during WW1 and the main character is bi. It's one of the few books that can set me off crying.

[BigBen]

On 8/26/2021 at 2:48 AM, James Matthews said:

Wow, I love historical novels, especially WWII. I don't think enough is written about them from a LGBT perspective. I guess that's because there is not a lot of source material to call on seeing as it was all hidden back then... and illegal!

Yeah, Truman started the process of racially integrating the U.S. Army, but it took decades longer for being gay to stop being a reason for a dishonorable discharge.  I know gay guys who served before Don't Ask, Don't Tell was implemented, and they had to be extremely careful, especially during the periodic witch hunts.  Depending on what they were caught doing, they could well have ended up in Leavenworth, as well as discharged.  I was very fortunate that the Viet Nam draft ended just before my number got called up.

[W_L]

@James MatthewsI think the first gay fiction stories I read was over on Nifty Archives, it was a forbidden pleasure that I just stumbled on and most of the stories were sexually explicit.

At some point in 2003, I ventured into the High School section and found Brew Maxwell's Tim, it changed my outlook on being gay as it wasn't explicitly sexual, it was warm and comforting, something masculine that called to me. I continued reading the Foley-Mashburn Saga as the series would be called from that point on, Brew Maxwell taught me a lot of lessons that as a young gay teen I had no one to ask or fictional characters to look up to. It was my escape into a world where there wasn't homophobia, fear, or other things. An old friend of mine online called it "Leave it to Beaver" series of gay fiction, Brew has a formula in his story that you will figure out after a while. I understand its wholesome (despite the nudity and lack of shame about PDA with partners, it had actually very little sex), but being a gay teen in the 2003, it was hard to find that.

Interestingly enough, I can't remember if I discovered @Bill WCastaway Hotel around the same time as I was reading Brew Maxwell's series. Brew left a bigger impression on me, but I know I read Bill's stories in 2000's as well on Nifty.

It also opened me up to reading stories from Crvboy.org, where the Foley Mashburn saga now sits and other authors outside as well like Jeff Allen or Sara Bell. That led me here to GA, when I was recommended DanKirk's Do-Over Series as I wanted something with gay Science-Fiction.

Edited August 27, 2021 by W_L

[Joseph_Vallecillo]

On 8/24/2021 at 11:53 PM, James Matthews said:

A friend once said to me. You HAVE to watch Beautiful Thing, you have to. Whatever you do this weekend go out and buy it. This was back in early 2000s. I wondered what all the fuss was about but he was insisted it would change my life. Those were his words - it would change my life. I went to a few shops and looked around but they didn't have it. I settled on HMV who said they would "order" it in for me but it would take a week. I was so egged on to watch this move by my friend a week seemed like an eternity.

Anyway... It did change my life and I think I watched it over 20 times. Then I got into reading gay novels on sites such as this. And I've read a few stories which really stayed with me. Domluka had a way of writing that really got into my head and some novels by Mark Arbour and my first LTR was with a guy in the Royal Air Force. I love romance and coming of age as it takes me back to my own experience of coming out and finding your first love. I'm in my 30's so although it was a while back I still remember that first kiss, and the first night I went to bed with another male. Books can really take you back to that time.

So I'm wondering if there are any stories you guys have read on here or elsewhere which have, well touched your soul where the novel lingered in your mind for a long time and where you couldn't get away from what you had read?

Truth be told, my soul was hooked by Amok. Stefan Zweig

[Mattyboy]

Sam Miller's  Art of Starving was a fascinating read. 

 He manages to paint a picture of some issues  that I don't have much experience with  but that I recognize are really important,  and that I've been trying to think about.   Some very fun moments,  and some haunting  traumas, that somehow work together  without clashing. 

Sam Miller seems to be  what you might get if you crossed daBeagle  with Yann Martel. (I wouldn't normally  recommend such a thing,  but I'm stuck on the thought)   

[AC Benus]

On 8/25/2021 at 8:04 AM, TetRefine said:

Dancer From The Dance by Andrew Holleran is one of the few novels that has profoundly impacted my life. Despite the novel being set/written in the 1970s, I felt such a deep connection to the main character and saw so much of my own life in him and his surroundings. I could very much relate to the feeling of trying to drown out the baggage of a past life through hedonism, and getting swallowed up in the process. 

Holleran and his Dancer From The Dance, which he consciously wrote to be a Great Gatsby for the 1970s, are among the very, absolute 1% best of Gay writers and fiction. I couldn't agree with you more for mentioning it here

 

[TetRefine]

On 3/6/2022 at 8:11 PM, AC Benus said:

Holleran and his Dancer From The Dance, which he consciously wrote to be a Great Gatsby for the 1970s, are among the very, absolute 1% best of Gay writers and fiction. I couldn't agree with you more for mentioning it here

 

Absolutely.

The part that never ceases to amaze me, as a gay man living in New York around the same age as many of the characters, is how little has changed about the fundamentals of gay life here. The names of the place have changed, and the faces have turned over, but the "thumpa thumpa" of the clubs, the parties, the sex, the drugs, the wandering of lost souls in a big city and gay island, remains so eerily similar almost 50 years later. 

[AC Benus]

1 hour ago, TetRefine said:

Absolutely.

The part that never ceases to amaze me, as a gay man living in New York around the same age as many of the characters, is how little has changed about the fundamentals of gay life here. The names of the place have changed, and the faces have turned over, but the "thumpa thumpa" of the clubs, the parties, the sex, the drugs, the wandering of lost souls in a big city and gay island, remains so eerily similar almost 50 years later. 

I've decided to post an excerpt or two in the Mirror prose collection. One section that really sticks out in my mind is before the central character comes out, he falls in love with the boy who cuts the grass of his suburban home. What other segments do you feel GA readers might enjoy; the ones that really stick in your mind and have meaning?

[TetRefine]

2 hours ago, AC Benus said:

I've decided to post an excerpt or two in the Mirror prose collection. One section that really sticks out in my mind is before the central character comes out, he falls in love with the boy who cuts the grass of his suburban home. What other segments do you feel GA readers might enjoy; the ones that really stick in your mind and have meaning?

So the last time I read it (my 5th or 6th time), I marked all the memorable lines and/or quotes from the book. I'm going to go home today and look through it again and find some! 

[Warrior1]

I absolutely loved the relation between Malon and Frankie before Malon's cheating. But, while that was heartbreaking, it was also realistic believable for his character and the story.

[NavajoKnight]

There are two main stories that have stuck with me that stick with me that I wish the authors were still around.

One is all of DomLuka's stories. 

The second being Milos and his story Lem.  

[TetRefine]

23 hours ago, AC Benus said:

I've decided to post an excerpt or two in the Mirror prose collection. One section that really sticks out in my mind is before the central character comes out, he falls in love with the boy who cuts the grass of his suburban home. What other segments do you feel GA readers might enjoy; the ones that really stick in your mind and have meaning?

I've felt this feeling so many times coming out into the early morning light of a Sunday: "...and they would walk up Broadway together, exhausted, ecstatic their bones light as a bird's a flotilla of doomed queens on their way to the Everard Baths because they could not come down from the joy and happiness." 

Someone I know fits this to a T: "He wanted to be desired, not possessed, for in remaining desired he remained, like the figure on the Grecian urn, forever pursued. He knew quite well that once possessed he would no longer be enchanted-so sex itself became secondary to the spectacle..."

My Absolute Favorite: "Now of all the bonds between homosexual friends, none was greater than that between the friends who danced together. The friend you danced with, when you had no lover, was the most important person in your life: and for the people who went without lovers for years, that was all they had."

Finally Finding Inner Peace: "And so Malone came that afternoon to a kind of truce with the city: He was leaving it, now he had found a way, and it faces no longer kept him there against his will. He was free. Free to go. Free even to please Sutherland one last time and show up at the party on Fire Island, which till now had seemed reprehensible."

When You Realize You Were Subconsciously Pushing Away What You Thought You Wanted (but really couldn't handle): "And he had been, all those years, just as lost as we were, living on faces, music, the hope of love, and getting farther and farther away from any chance of it." 

Regret, And The Feeling Of Chasing The Next Best Thing To Come Along: "It was the most beautiful illusion of homosexuals and romantics alike: if only I'd loved that one."

When You're No Longer The "Next Best Thing": "Friends came up to embrace Malone, people he had known for years-how many years, they did not want to think. They were all looking at the new faces with an odd sensation of death, for they had all been the new faces once. Each summer on Fire Island had a star: the boy who moves through the little society with the youth and beauty he has just begun to squander (and what else can be done with them). The old friends embracing Malone and Sutherland had each had his summer, had once caused hearts to lurch as fawns. And now they were wondering-as men had wondered about them- if they could get any of these stars into their beds, or were they older then they thought they were?"

 

I don't know if these would stand out or mean much to GA (which very few have ever lived this kind of life), but they mean a lot to me, and strike me in a very deep way.

Edited March 9, 2022 by TetRefine

[TetRefine]

9 hours ago, Warrior1 said:

I absolutely loved the relation between Malon and Frankie before Malon's cheating. But, while that was heartbreaking, it was also realistic believable for his character and the story.

And honestly, it's very true to the way things actually happen in the real world. Something "better" comes along, and a relationship goes right out the window in the blink of an eye. 

[AC Benus]

6 hours ago, TetRefine said:

Someone I know fits this to a T: "He wanted to be desired, not possessed, for in remaining desired he remained, like the figure on the Grecian urn, forever pursued. He knew quite well that once possessed he would no longer be enchanted-so sex itself became secondary to the spectacle..."

I don't know if you are aware of it, but the very person who was so admired by Holleran, his buddies, and an entire generation of Gay club-goers survived the epidemic and published a memoirs of these same times. Alan Helms, Young Man from the Provinces (Boston 1995). It makes fascinating reading, especially at how isolating being raised to Adonis status made him feel.

 

_

[TetRefine]

15 minutes ago, AC Benus said:

I don't know if you are aware of it, but the very person who was so admired by Holleran, his buddies, and an entire generation of Gay club-goers survived the epidemic and published a memoirs of these same times. Alan Helms, Young Man from the Provinces (Boston 1995). It makes fascinating reading, especially at how isolating being raised to Adonis status made him feel.

 

_

Somehow I’ve never come across this this man or his autobiography. I’m definitely going to have to get my hands on a copy and read it. The 70s, as this in-between period of liberation and near extinction, is fascinating to me. The pure freedom and uninhibited lifestyle is something that I feel is making a serious comeback, at least in my circles.

[Warrior1]

"...Dangerous Island (dangerous because you could lose your heart, your reputation, your contact lenses)..."

"There are boys in New York whose lovers die of drugs, and who give the dead lover's clothes to their new lover without a second thought; but a dead man's clothes have always seemed ghoulish to me, and so I gave up sorting the clothes, and left it all to my friend and began wandering through the rest of the house."

"...for, if true lovers are either chaste or promiscuous, Malone belonged, in the end, to the first school): "Over a long enough period of time,
everyone goes to bed with everyone else." And cheap as it was, that was the truth."

"They were the most romantic creatures in the city in that room. If their days were spent in banks and office buildings, no matter: Their true lives began when they walked through this door—and were baptized into a deeper faith, as if brought to life by miraculous immersion. They lived only for the night."

"I used to go in right after him and lock the door, just to smell his farts! To simply breathe the gas of his very bowels! A scent far lovelier to me than Chanel Number Nine, or whatever the ladies are wearing these days."

"I watched as this individual walked into the room and was immediately greeted by several of the handsomest boys there, the ones so handsome they never looked at anybody, but went to the darkness of back rooms merely to piss on perfect strangers and have their asses licked."

"But then a smile is often a shriek: a soul screaming at you."

"He wept when his dog got lost, and wept when it was found"

That's all I have for now. This is only the first 30 or so pages. Unfortunately rest of the book I read in my mobile so my laptop's pdf does not have any more highlights. I will try to dig them though.

[TetRefine]

14 hours ago, Warrior1 said:

"They were the most romantic creatures in the city in that room. If their days were spent in banks and office buildings, no matter: Their true lives began when they walked through this door—and were baptized into a deeper faith, as if brought to life by miraculous immersion. They lived only for the night."

Ahh yes, the feeling of walking out that office door on a Friday afternoon and knowing that the pleasure of sin awaits for the next two nights.

Edited March 10, 2022 by TetRefine

[Jkeeletupelo]

Oh, man - there are so many! The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, for it's stark, absolutely gut wrenching journey, start to finish. 

the Edge of Grace, by Christa Allen - it's the book I gave my mom when she finally figured out that it wasn't a phase.  

Too many to try to list them here, but great topic!!