Novels that have touched your soul.

[James Matthews]

On 3/9/2022 at 3:09 PM, TetRefine said:

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.

Written Beautifully, Love the choice of words to describe and show.

[PrivateTim]

On 8/24/2021 at 7:37 PM, Greg_A said:

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.

On 3/8/2022 at 11:28 PM, NavajoKnight said:

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.  

It Started With Brian, Lem, and The Best Little Boy In The World by Andrew Tobias were three big ones for me. They were the three that convinced me, You Are Not Alone.

[LJCC]

• The Color Purple. For some reason, I bawled when I read this at university. 
• The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. That scene at the end. I was wiping my tears when I was ordering my expresso nearly a decade ago. Note to self: never read books while lining up in a queue. Khaled Hosseini is just a masterful writer. 
• A man called Ove. Just read it.
• A Song of Achilles. An LGBT novel. Truly worth the read. I never imagined I'd cry about Achilles and Patroclus, shipping them together like an idiot.
•  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. I cried when listening to the audiobook. Despite the title (and as much as I love the dogs), the crying has nothing to do with a dog.