The novel offers enough enjoyment alone from a quick jaunt through the wordplay and humorous juxtaposition of images and characters. But ultimately, Everything Must Go begs multiple readings to chew on those serious questions about whether our world is worth saving […]… read more
In Fire Year, the 2012 winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, Jason K. Friedman mines two very distinct veins of American fiction: that of the American Jewish experience, and that of the American South…… read more
Like many beach-themed novels in which a get-away is providing a much-needed escape from real lives, the intoxicating allure of hedonism and all-things illicit are the driving forces for many of the characters we meet in Monarch Season…. read more
“[I]n his most successful stories, Edwards merges the fanciful with a strong emotional core, which gives those fantastic elements a deeper, metaphorical meaning, particularly when paired with queer characters.”… read more
“[…] write your truth however painful it is or may be. You have to do that in order to create a narrative that is honest and true to your art or your idea of art. Let the pain guide you.”
Author Danny M. Hoey Jr., took some time to talk to Lambda Literary about the intricacies of his debut novel, The Butterfly Lady, and the intersections between his professional academic life and his artistic ambitions…. read more
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and all the characters in Donnelle McGee’s debut poetic prose novel seem infused with the utmost desperation. Capturing a bleak landscape of folks barely hanging on by their fingernails, McGee introduces us to a neo-realistic world of commercial sex workers, poor folks with AIDS, crooked cops, families struggling to… read more
Mundo Cruel is a shrewd celebration of subversion, to be sure, but for all its bravado the broader point here is a quiet reaffirmation that we all possess the innate capacity to subvert the status quo…. read more
Desire is a guilty pleasure of a read, conversational and conspiratorial. It’s almost as if these people are welcoming you into their private chats, dishing out the latest neighborhood gossip about who picked up whom, whose ex is now someone else’s current…. read more
The phrase “too many queens, not enough spotlights” should give a glimpse into the anarchic feel of Michał Witkowski’s debut novel, Lovetown.
The self-proclaimed ‘queens’ of Lovetown, who exclusively refer to each other by feminine names, revel in what they see as the glorious heyday of Polish Communist-era sex, equal measures grim and liberating…. read more
“A lot can happen in a day sometimes,” says Wesley Bowman, one of two teenaged boys at the center of Richard Kramer’s witty and often moving first novel, These Things Happen (Unbridled Books). This opening line, of course, is prescient. A lot does happen in each of the few days that frame this story, in which the adults in Wesley’s life are forced to reevaluate their understanding of themselves…. read more
