Lethe Press began this annual series in 2008, and the first three volumes were edited by Lethe Press founder Steve Berman. I gave the 2009 volume a “thumbs up” rave review. This year, a new editor, Peter Dubé of Montreal—novelist, biographer, and cultural critic (PeterDube.com)—is, like Berman, “into” queer, speculative and surreal fiction. I trust this influenced the passing of the torch on to him.
“Gay refers to the stories—all relate to gay males—although not to all the authors. Based on their bios, at least two of the authors are women. Also 2011 refers to the volume‘s publication date. All the stories were copyrighted in 2010.
Dubé’s introduction stresses his search for diversity in gay stories, and he certainly found it. In terms of style and topic, these stories are all over the map, with only traditional coming out stories notably absent.
The stories are also diverse in length, ranging from two pages to the 34-page final story which features a handsome HIV-positive Russian immigrant and his mixed-up lover from Ann Arbor who is struggling to free himself from his psychologist mother and absent professor father (“It Takes All Kinds” by Michael Alenyikov).
My favorite story is the opening one, “Diana Comet and the Lovesick Cowboy” by Sandra McDonald, about a cowboy mourning his lost lover with drink who is rescued by an assertive transgender woman.
My second favorite story is another long one, “thirteen o‘clock” by David Gerrold. Although at first I was turned off by the lack of apostrophes and the disdain for capital letters and periods, I was soon drawn into a kind of streamof-consciousness rant by a gay Vietnam vet commenting on his gay life and hassles. In the end, I recognized “thirteen o‘clock” as a philosophical treatise on love.
Some stories might strike the reader as a little strange; e.g., one about a gay nose, another about crows channeled through a medium, and a third in two columns with the challenge: “I want you to wonder which side is true.”
Every library (and reader) serious about current gay fiction must get this volume.
Reviewed by James Doig Anderson
Professor Emeritus of Library and Information Science, Rutgers University