Lie with Me by Philippe Besson. Translated from the French by Molly Ringwald

Title: Lie with Me
Author: Philippe Besson
Translated from the French by Molly Ringwald
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 978-0241987094
Genre: Gay Fiction, LGBT Literature, Queer
Pages: 160
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars

There isn’t enough gay literature in the world. Till there is. Till you chance upon a book so strong and uplifting and melancholic at the same time, that you don’t know how what to make of your emotions anymore. Life is also nothing but a series of the ones that got away. The ones that remind us of what could have been, almost in another life.

Lie with Me is that kind of book about first love, its insecurities, its jealousies, and with a longing so deep that it will strike you hard, with the turn of every page.

Come to think of it, it doesn’t matter whether this book had straight or gay lovers, the story is riveting, moving, and so powerful that one would only focus on that. It is universal, because love is that way. The loss of a loved one is beyond hurtful. The idea of a loved one going away, leaving you behind to start a new life is heartbreaking for anyone, gay or straight. Given that, Lie with Me speaks to everyone. The language of love and loss is known to all.

Back to the book – it is about a love affair between two teenage boys in 1980s France and how then it has repercussions right till 2016. The book spans thirty-six years – but it is the affair part of the book that hits you the most. At least that’s what happened to me while I read it.

Philippe and Thomas meet as boys and the affair takes place by chance, altering their worlds, ridden by passion, and the understanding that this kind of love better be hidden. Besson writes honestly. There is this nostalgia – this melancholy feeling of abandonment that is constant throughout this short novel. Everything is brought to life. The touches, the smells, the betrayals, the small jealousies, the joy of being together, the said and more so the unsaid. Besson’s writing hurts you. It is meant to, I guess. It brought back all the memories of my first love – everything all rolled into one. Some happy, some sad, and mostly melancholic. Just the way it should have happened while reading this book.

Lie with Me is a book that stays with you. It sticks itself on your existence. It speaks intimately and whispers in your ears – secrets long gone by, secrets we think we have buried till they resurface, threatening the fabric of our being. It tells you stories of love, of happiness, of what it felt like – of summer sun, and how it felt when you first made love and let passion overtake everything else. Molly Ringwald brings to life a translation that I am grateful for and will always be. We need to tell stories of all kind. We need stories to relate to. We need stories that make us want to tell someone that we love them, for now.

 

 

 

 

 

Heartstopper: Volume 1 by Alice Oseman

Title: Heartstopper: Volume 1
Author: Alice Oseman
Publisher: Hodder Children’s Books
ISBN: 9781444951387
Genre: Graphic Novel
Pages: 263
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars

I’ve been waiting to read this one. Heartstopper is a story of two boys, Charlie and Nick, studying at the same school. Charlie is gay. Nick isn’t. They have started getting to know each other. They are great friends. Till, Charlie falls hard for Nick. Does Nick feel the same way? Heartstopper is a story of love – between two boys. One whom the school knows is gay and is bullied for it. One whom the school sees as this stud on the rugby team. The stereotypes are there for a reason. You will also see them break as you go through the book.

Heartstopper is the kind of book that should be read by everyone. It is the graphic novel that will make you understand relationships that beyond the heterosexual ones and just the thing that is needed in 2019. Just the thing that was needed way before.

I can’t wait for the second volume to reach me. Alice Oseman gets the vibe of the teenagers. The confusion, the heartbreak, the acceptance, and the bullying. The relationship between Nick and Charlie took me back to a time when I was in school and in love. It is the kind of book that will remind you of what it is to be young or what it was. A super book. I love it.

Books mentioned in Heartstopper: Volume 1

Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

When Brooklyn Was Queer: A History by Hugh Ryan

Title: When Brooklyn Was Queer: A History
Author: Hugh Ryan
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
ISBN: 978-1250169914
Genre: LGBT Nonfiction, Social and Cultural History
Pages: 320
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars

I had never read something like this before – yes cities and the queer culture did merge in books and I have read parts of it, but nothing like this book. I honestly also believe that every city’s culture needs to be talked about through the people who live on its margins, and maybe that’s why this book hit a nerve the way it did. When Brooklyn Was Queer: A History by Hugh Ryan is the kind of book we all need to read, irrespective of orientation and labels.

The story begins in 1855 with the publication of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman and ends in the 1960s when Brooklyn’s queer identity declined, due to several factors. You have to read this book only because the way Ryan unearths how there was a systematic erasure of the queer history of Brooklyn. What must one remember then? Who decides that? What is at the core of people’s histories and more than anything else of places?

Not only this, this book is fantastic if you want to get to know people’s voices and lives – queer lives – right from the famous drag kings and queens of the 1800s, of a black lesbian named Mabel Hampton and how she worked as a dancer, of a WWII gay spy scandal and so much more between its pages.

Ryan’s writing is never just a dry documentation of facts. There is so much more to it. There is tenderness and empathy and above all it is a voice that strives to let people know more. Also, the nuances of gender identity, orientation, and sometimes even race are handled with such a sense of larger understanding of issues, that it makes you want to read more.

More than anything else it is about resistance and no matter what governments do or stand for, people will always continue to live the way they want to, which should be at the core of every identity battle. Ryan’s research is spot-on, so much so that you instantly feel that you are in that world, the minute you start reading the book. He shares letters, diary entries, and publication excerpts to support and validate his arguments of what was erased and how it was found.

What I loved the most was the beautiful prologue – a short one at that but so effective – a glimpse into the lives of Gypsy Rose Lee and Carson McCullers, and from thereon begins what it means to be “queer”.

When Brooklyn Was Queer is one of those rare books that makes you want to sit up and take notice of what’s going on in the world. The past, present, and future merge seamlessly in this account of what history allows us and what it doesn’t. The small joys, sorrows, the sacrifices made, the lives that carry on regardless, and most of all what it means to be queer is what this remarkable book is about. Do not miss out on this read.

 

What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera

Title: What If It’s Us
Authors: Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
Publisher: HarperTeen
ISBN: 978-0062795250
Genre: LGBT, YA,
Pages: 448
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars

It is a classic boy-meets-boy story. Of the universe, of things working out, of some things not working out as you go along, of an age of rapidly increasing technology and yet believing in destiny, fate, and knowing that you met him and that he met you for a reason. Arthur and Ben are teenagers who meet, but will they stay? Has the great wide universe planned it that way for them at all?

I know exactly why I read queer-theme based YA novels, even though I am not a teenager, even though I am nowhere close to being one. Because I never had this while growing-up. This kind of comfort that love and companionship is possible amongst two boys or men was unknown to me. The 90s were all about ignoring, of not seeing, of the queer community being invisible. Thankfully, that’s not the case today. We need more Indian LGBTQIA voices though and that discussion is for a later day. Today, it is about What If It’s Usby Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera.

What I love the most about What If It’s Us is that while it is a queer-themed novel, it also moves beyond that and includes larger themes of friendship, family, and love on a scale that we do not seem to gauge when we are teenagers (or do we?). And of course, you cannot, the almost BIG WRITING COLLAB of all-time – Adam Silvera meets Becky Albertalli. I love their individual works, and this one is even more special because its two of them who have worked on the same book.

Arthur is an out-of-towner in New York on an internship, in his mother’s law firm. Ben is a New Yorker who is trying to get his grades up and is studying in the summer. Arthur has never had sex, let alone be in a relationship. Ben is just getting over a recent break-up with Hudson. The setting is perfect. Summer in New York and they met, and what happens next is what obviously I am not going to tell you. You have to read the book.

The writing is crisp. The context of each character could get long, but it doesn’t bother you all that much. You don’t realize which parts are Albertalli and which Silvera, but you don’t have to, because the book merges wonderfully in these collective voices. Every character is sketched well and doesn’t seem excessive. The writing is real and relatable. The teenage angst, the crush that turns to love and what happens next will make you want to not stop turning the pages.

What If It’s Us is a book that is real, kinda bittersweet, and mostly full of possibilities. The writing doesn’t become mushy. It is real. You can relate to it, because you know people like Arthur and Ben and their friends. You can also relate to it because more than time you have also looked at a stranger, who you randomly bumped into and thought: What if?

 

 

The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara

Title: The House of Impossible Beauties
Author: Joseph Cassara
Publisher: Ecco, HarperCollins
ISBN: 978-0062676979
Genre: Literary Fiction, LGBT Fiction,
Pages: 416
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 Stars

Authors need to write more in the LGBT space. I know a lot is being written, but, I also think that a lot is still not enough. Books such as “The House of Impossible Beauties” make you see, realize and understand that. I had been wanting to read this one for a while now and I am so happy that the wait paid off because I absolutely loved this gem of a book. There are some books that stick with you, no matter what and this will for sure be one of them.

“The House of Impossible Beauties” is literally that – a house of people living on the edge in the ’80s of New York – a time riddled with confusion, mayhem, and change. From all that I have read and understand, I know it isn’t easy to write an AIDS novel, but this one is so much more than just that. In so many places in the book, I had to put it down and breathe a little, because I could see myself in its pages and not just when it came down to one character or one incident. It was an amalgamation of it all. And yes, I did weep, if not cry while reading it.

At the center of this gregarious, big-hearted novel is Angel – barely seventeen, new to the drag world and ball culture, with a big heart to care for those who need it the most – people who are like her and those without love. She falls in love with Hector, who shares the dream of forming the House of Xtravaganza, the first-ever all-Latino house in the Harlem ball circuit. When Hector dies to AIDS, Angel decides to build the house all by herself and she does.

And this is where it all begins in the book. Part One is about introducing these characters who inhabit the house – Angel, Venus – the trans girl who just wants someone rich to look after her, Daniel who in a way saves Venus and himself and Juanito – the quiet one who is in love with fabrics. The marginality of these characters – of not just being gay or trans but also Latino in the ’80s (and even today it isn’t easy, being either or both of these) shines – almost jumping out of the pages. Cassara opens you to a new world (if new to you that is) and merges it beautifully with characters who sear through your heart.

The writing is not only taut but also funny in so many places. The book is not without humour and perhaps we need more of it to get through the day. The novel is, of course, raw and you wish certain things didn’t happen to them, but they do and through all of it, the House of Xtravaganza stands tall, sheltering them, and how the shifting views of people regarding LGBT population, gives it a totally different form and shape. What I loved is the history of LGBT interspersed far and few in-between the pages, quite cleverly by the author.

“The House of Impossible Beauties” should be read by one and all and not only the LGBT population. It is a novel about empathy, kindness, forgiveness and above all just being who you are, without fear or inhibitions. I only wish I had a house like this to go to when I was growing-up and needed a friend, a mother, or even a lover.