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Washington Post
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
A treasure trove of new books to read during Pride Month
The dazzling variety of current and upcoming books on LGBTQ themes is a reassuring reminder of how far we've come. This year, fans of queer romance can read books set in the worlds of Formula 1 ('Crash Test'), clandestine Victorian clubs ('To Sketch a Scandal') and Italian restaurants ('Pasta Girls'). In July, Phaidon is publishing a lavish survey of global queer art as a companion piece to Jonathan D. Katz's Chicago exhibition 'The First Homosexuals,' while the queer Korean vampire murder mystery 'The Midnight Shift,' by Cheon Seon-Ran, will draw first blood in August. Joe Westmoreland's autofiction classic 'Tramps Like Us,' a sort of gay(er) 'On the Road' first published in 2001, is being reissued. Alison Bechdel is back. There are two new studies, one by Daniel Brook and another by Brandy Schillace, of the groundbreaking LGBTQ advocate and sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, whose books were burned by the Nazis. Phil Melanson's entertaining historical fiction debut, 'Florenzer,' imagines the early life and same-sex longings of Leonardo da Vinci against the backdrop of a conflict between the Medici family and the Vatican. The novel, which owes a debt to Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall' trilogy in the detail and immediacy of its telling, feels freshly contemporary in its papal intrigue and plutocratic power battles. These books — and those I discuss at greater length below — are variously warm, comic, sad, jubilant, curious, violent and erotic. Each has insights of its own to offer, but they're united by their awareness of the continuing vulnerability of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer people. 'Gaysians,' which is 'Flamer' author Mike Curato's first graphic novel for adults, doesn't shy away from violence, racism and transphobia, outside the community or within it. The colors of the trans flag give the book its dominant palette, working especially well for its many nightclub scenes. The story, about a group of young Asian Americans living in Seattle in 2003, is most powerful when Curato unleashes his more expressionistic side to capture different characters' traumatic flashbacks and glimpses of historical tragedy. But this darkness is offset by the story's cozy, reassuring focus on friendship and found family. Some may find Curato leaning too heavily on sentimentality — his 'gaysians' give themselves the cutesy name 'The Boy Luck Club,' riffing on Amy Tan's novel 'The Joy Luck Club,' and speak mostly in catty clichés, as if auditioning for 'Drag Race.' For me, this mawkish tendency stunted the book's emotional range. One of the most curious books of the season comes from 'the emerging field of queer ecology.' In 'Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature,' Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian makes a powerful case for trying to understand nature without the artificial binaries and hierarchies of human societies. Though she is, by training, a mycologist — a fungi specialist — she embraces all life forms, a disposition derived from her understanding of diversity being nature's 'very premise.' Sometimes this embrace borders on the erotic; one might well blush reading how, 'turgid with spring rains, mushrooms carefully arrange themselves into fruiting bodies, poking up through the soil to disperse their spores.' True to its nonbinary ethos, the book is really many things: an account of growing up in New York's Hudson Valley surrounded by snakes and slugs; a survivor's memoir about the path to healing following a childhood sexual assault; a story about growing to love one's own 'ambiguous,' 'amorphous,' 'amphibious' nature. It can sometimes feel a bit more like a manifesto than a work of science — 'How we treat swamps is an indicator of our societal health' is a typical assertion — but the radical-green politics are all part of the book's charm. And while Kaishian's inclination to romanticism occasionally threatens to undermine her mission as a scientist, as it does when she claims she'd prefer the mysteries of eel reproduction to remain outside human knowledge, it's nevertheless a fascinating book that celebrates difference in unexpected ways. I certainly know more about snail sexuality than I did before I opened it. One of the summer's most hotly anticipated titles is 'Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told.' Jeremy Atherton Lin's follow-up to 'Gay Bar,' for which he won a National Book Critics Circle Award, is a strong cocktail of memoir, legal history and sociology. He proceeds along parallel tracks to tell the romantic (and very horny) story of his relationship with a British man he met in 1996 and the jagged path taken by American and British legislatures and courts to eventually grant basic rights to people in same-sex relationships. 'We were aliens in each other's countries,' he writes, 'because in our own we remained second-class citizens.' Lin beautifully captures the Bay Area at the turn of the millennium: the creeping gentrification, the tech bros, the video shops, the aging hippies. He's also not shy in his descriptions of sex of many kinds and configurations, with all the attendant sensations. (At times you can almost smell it.) The liberated familiarity of these scenes in our less-prudish age makes it a little jarring when Lin reminds us of the difference a couple of decades make. 'By the year 2000,' he writes, 'when we rented our first weird, damp apartment, eighteen states still had sodomy laws on the books.' He and his boyfriend — who overstayed his visa by years to remain with Lin in California — dreaded immigration authorities so much that they became 'convinced you couldn't go to a hospital without being deported.' The metaphysical impact on Lin's boyfriend, who is addressed throughout in the second person, was drastic: 'I think after years without legal status, you sometimes considered yourself to be insubstantial.' Reading Lori Ostlund's excellent new short-story collection, 'Are You Happy?,' I found myself reflecting indignantly on the subtitle Lin chose for 'Deep House.' Surely laying claim to being the gayest love story ever told — or the gayest anything, however flippantly — risks devaluing that which isn't quite so … overt? Promiscuous? Coastal? Male? Though Ostlund's stories dwell less on heady sex and front-line politics, other hallmarks of the LGBTQ experience are everywhere present. Her protagonists have parents who never accepted them and colleagues they never told about their significant others. They sleep with their partners in the basement on separate couches when visiting home. Ostlund's stories may be less graphic than Lin's memoir, but there's nothing less gay about them. Besides, the lesbian couple that runs a furniture store named after Jane Bowles's 'Two Serious Ladies' could hardly be gayer — that's a pretty sapphic bit of branding. Don't let 'Are You Happy?' pass you by: There's not a word out of place in these brilliant Midwestern sketches. They're lonesome, for sure: Family members greet each other from a distance, 'like two people on opposite banks of a fast-flowing river.' But they're also hilarious. 'How is it possible,' one character wonders, 'for a family to have two stories about eating glass?' Also set a little further from the madding crowd is Seán Hewitt's first novel, 'Open, Heaven,' which takes place largely in a 'foggy northern village' in England. It's all a bit reminiscent of the film 'God's Own Country' — in rural Thornmere, to be gay is to be lonely and furtive — though with more longing and less flesh. As in Lin's 'Deep House,' we're reminded of how recently the culture has shifted toward tolerance. When James, our sensitive, stammering hero, comes out in 2002, Britain is still a year away from repealing Section 28, a sliver of legislation that effectively quashed discussion of sexuality in England's schools, and he is left feeling like a stranger in the only home he's ever known. While delivering milk bottles one morning before school, he meets Luke, a boy lodging with his aunt and uncle while his dad is in prison. Before long the strong-jawed Luke is all James can think about — but does Luke feel the same way? The book's appeal may depend on its readers' willingness to take adolescent romantic longing as seriously as we do when we're young. It succeeds because Hewitt knows when to stop — he casts a spell, like first love, that he knows can't last forever. Or can it? Throughout this short book, Hewitt muses on the passage of time, the way 'the years spin like this all of a sudden,' and considers how easy it might be for time to fold in on itself and the world to revert to an earlier state, taking us with it. The consequences of such a regression for our narrator, and for us all, are potentially dire. We have plenty of regressions to worry about outside of fiction, not least from the Supreme Court, which hinted only last year that it may be willing to revisit marriage equality. Progress in immigration reform also appears vulnerable: Lin, who finished 'Deep House' before January, has observed of the crackdown under Trump that 'our paranoia has become the reality.' Yet there is some consolation to be found, amid all this, in the humor, hope and humanity in the stories still being told. Charles Arrowsmith is based in New York and writes about books, films and music.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Afternoon Briefing: Illinois lawmakers pass Prisoner Review Board reforms
Good afternoon, Chicago. Illinois lawmakers advanced a bill that would emphasize domestic violence awareness training for members of the state's Prisoner Review Board, which came under criticism after releasing a man from state custody who then allegedly attacked a former girlfriend and fatally stabbed her young son. The bill's passage came 14 months after authorities say Crosetti Brand broke into his ex-girlfriend's apartment on Chicago's North Side and attacked her before fatally stabbing her son, 11-year-old Jayden Perkins, when the boy tried to come to her rescue. The 39-year-old Brand is on trial for the attack and Jayden's family has filed a lawsuit against the review board alleging negligence in the case. Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Subscribe to more newsletters | Asking Eric | Horoscopes | Puzzles & Games | Today in History Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV called for humanitarian aid to be allowed into war-torn Gaza, decrying the violence and suffering in the Middle East during his first general audience as pope today in St. Peter's Square. Read more here. More top news stories: Judge acquits suburban men of aggravated battery, robbery in Mount Greenwood bar brawl AmeriCorps cuts leave Chicago programs serving kids facing diminished summer Country Club Hills District 160 Board spent $25K on conferences last year; parents raise concerns over school conditions Burton Odelson, the village attorney, told Elite Street that Dolton's recently sworn-in mayor, Jason House, made the decision to proceed with the acquisition with the consent of the Dolton Village Board. Read more here. More top business stories: Target sales drop in 1st quarter and retailer warns they will slip for all of 2025 Environmental advocates worry about Cleveland-Cliffs delayed maintenance Jameson Taillon (3-3) scattered one run and four hits over seven innings. The right-hander walked three and struck out two to snap a two-start losing streak. Read more here. More top sports stories: NFL teams can keep using the tush push after owners vote down proposed ban Man is charged with providing alcohol to 20-year-old Pittsburgh fan who fell from PNC Park outfield wall Some artworks bring the suppressed queerness of their makers or their subjects to the fore. 'The Man in Black' is a 1913 portrait of Art Institute benefactor Robert Henry Allerton by Glyn Philpot, an acclaimed British painter whose work appears throughout 'The First Homosexuals.' Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: 'Couples Therapy' review: The best unscripted show about working through conflict — while the cameras watch — returns for a new season Review: Tom Cruise holds the key to 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' With President Donald Trump's multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package at risk of stalling, House Speaker Mike Johnson and conservative Republican holdouts headed to the White House for the last-ditch talks to salvage the 'big, beautiful bill.' Read more here. More top stories from around the world: Iran insists it will never stop enriching uranium as US says it must if a new deal is to be reached Rapper Kid Cudi to testify at Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial this week
Chicago Tribune
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Afternoon Briefing: Illinois lawmakers pass Prisoner Review Board reforms
Good afternoon, Chicago. Illinois lawmakers advanced a bill that would emphasize domestic violence awareness training for members of the state's Prisoner Review Board, which came under criticism after releasing a man from state custody who then allegedly attacked a former girlfriend and fatally stabbed her young son. The bill's passage came 14 months after authorities say Crosetti Brand broke into his ex-girlfriend's apartment on Chicago's North Side and attacked her before fatally stabbing her son, 11-year-old Jayden Perkins, when the boy tried to come to her rescue. The 39-year-old Brand is on trial for the attack and Jayden's family has filed a lawsuit against the review board alleging negligence in the case. Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Subscribe to more newsletters | Asking Eric | Horoscopes | Puzzles & Games | Today in History Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV called for humanitarian aid to be allowed into war-torn Gaza, decrying the violence and suffering in the Middle East during his first general audience as pope today in St. Peter's Square. Read more here. More top news stories: Burton Odelson, the village attorney, told Elite Street that Dolton's recently sworn-in mayor, Jason House, made the decision to proceed with the acquisition with the consent of the Dolton Village Board. Read more here. More top business stories: Jameson Taillon (3-3) scattered one run and four hits over seven innings. The right-hander walked three and struck out two to snap a two-start losing streak. Read more here. More top sports stories: Some artworks bring the suppressed queerness of their makers or their subjects to the fore. 'The Man in Black' is a 1913 portrait of Art Institute benefactor Robert Henry Allerton by Glyn Philpot, an acclaimed British painter whose work appears throughout 'The First Homosexuals.' Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: With President Donald Trump's multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package at risk of stalling, House Speaker Mike Johnson and conservative Republican holdouts headed to the White House for the last-ditch talks to salvage the 'big, beautiful bill.' Read more here. More top stories from around the world:
Chicago Tribune
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
The sweeping art survey ‘First Homosexuals' returns to Chicago, and a changed world
In 2022, art historian Jonathan Katz and a team of curators unveiled an ambitious exhibit: a survey of more than 100 artworks created by, or referencing, individuals experiencing same-sex attraction. That exhibition, 'The First Homosexuals,' took over one floor of Wrightwood 659, a Tadao Ando-designed exhibit space in Lincoln Park funded and operated by philanthropist Fred Eychaner's Alphawood Foundation. But Katz always dreamed bigger. 'It was COVID that put the kibosh on those plans,' he said of the exhibit's first iteration. 'Most museums had, at that time, loan moratoriums.' Now, 'The First Homosexuals' is back at the scale Katz intended. More than 350 artworks have taken over Wrightwood 659, this time over all three of its levels. Visitors to the 2022 iteration will recognize works by Gerda Wegener, married to transgender artist Lili Elbe, and Konstantin Somov, a gay Russian artist. Others are new to this expansion, like doodles by author Federico García Lorca, a sculpture by actress Sarah Bernhardt, and the only full-length portrait of Oscar Wilde painted in his lifetime. 'The reception in 2022 was just incredible,' said Chirag Badlani, executive director of the Alphawood Foundation. 'Essentially, the day we closed, we said, 'Let's start planning.'' Some artworks bring the suppressed queerness of their makers or their subjects to the fore. 'The Man in Black' is a 1913 portrait of Art Institute benefactor Robert Henry Allerton by Glyn Philpot, an acclaimed British painter whose work appears throughout 'The First Homosexuals.' Allerton and Philpot were once lovers; the Allerton likeness, with rosy cheeks and arched brows, is a stark contrast to the other Hemingwayish depictions of Allerton circulating at the time, including a full-page Tribune spread hailing him as the 'richest bachelor in Chicago.' Featured sculptors and lifelong partners Frances Loring and Florence Wyle met in Chicago, where both studied at the School of the Art Institute with Lorado Taft. But 'The First Homosexuals' doesn't lionize its subjects, either. This time, the exhibit makes no bones about the Nazi sympathies of artists like Marsden Hartley and Elisàr von Kupffer, both of whom painted voluptuous, ambiguously gendered young men. It also unflinchingly includes works that betray the artist's own prejudices, like a pair of disparaging Western artworks depicting two-spirit — or gender variant — Native Americans. 'We go back all the way to the first invasion of the United States and Latin America by the Spanish, when European attitudes about sexuality rewrote Indigenous attitudes,' Katz said. But, as with the 2022 iteration, Katz and his team kept most of this exhibition focused on the span between 1869, the year the word 'homosexual' was coined, to 1939, during the rise of fascism in Europe. As the exhibit argues more comprehensively than before, by becoming a discrete identity, homosexuality became the basis for community — finding a common language for difference — but it was also further pathologized. Visitors exit through an archway superimposed with the famous photograph from 1933 of Nazi book burnings in Berlin. 'The book-burning image that everybody knows is the burning of Hirschfeld Institute — it's that library that's being burned,' Katz told journalists during a recent walkthrough of the exhibit. 'We wanted them to leave through this exit in order to make clear the dangers we face.' Those dangers — the ascendancy of anti-gay governments worldwide — interfered with this exhibition far more than in its 2022 iteration. Visitors will notice two gray-scale reproductions on display in lieu of the original artworks. The sheets represent works by Slovak and Hungarian painter Ladislav Mednyánszky and Colombian artist Hena Rodríguez, both of which were withdrawn from the exhibition. The loans of Mednyánszky's paintings were canceled by the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava at the last minute; 65 museum staff, suspecting state intervention due to 'The First Homosexuals' theme, resigned in protest. Meanwhile, the two Rodríguez charcoals were withdrawn by its collector, fearing for the works' safety in the U.S. after the election of Donald Trump. 'It is an index of our moment that Colombians felt their artwork would not be safe in the United States under Trump,' Katz said. Even showing 'The First Homosexuals' at Wrightwood 659 requires the kind of precautions typically associated with a much larger institution. Upon arrival, visitors must present an ID for entry. Gallery attendants double as security guards. Though Badlani says there are certainly discussions about touring a smaller version of the exhibition, Katz suspects 'The First Homosexuals' now faces a higher glass ceiling in the U.S., particularly among museums large enough and prestigious enough to take it on. 'The director of one of the most important museums in the world said to me, 'This is exactly the show that I would like to have. And it's for that reason that I cannot show it,'' Katz said.
