I just finished reading “Call Me By Your Name” by Andre Aciman.
I happened across it at the local Borders– it was actually on one of the central tables. I don’t know what made me pick it up, but after reading the description and the first paragraph, I discovered it was a gay novel.
I know! Le GASP, right? So I picked it up. I mean, why not support the gays, right? Plus I love a good gay fiction novel.
And this was a GOOD gay fiction novel.
It is currently a finalist for the Lambda Book Awards in fiction. Its the story told from a young man’s perspective about a summer romance with a man 7 years his senior. It is full of the false starts and flirting and hesitancy and heartache of a first love. And that intense longing that is so vivid when you are a teenager and feeling it for the first time (especially from a gay perspective). The story is set romantically by the sea in an Italian villa. That may sound contrived, but really its not.
The novel is fairly dense. Lots of description and heady prose. Its poetic in moments. But the whole thing has this overarching ‘ache’ to it. It makes you remember (and re-live) the same feelings you once had in the pit of your stomach over someone, or at least it did me. I even cried a very little bit toward the end.
I would recommend this if you are looking for a different kind of gay “romance” novel.
Mangina Monologues 
Sounds… difficult. I don’t think I’d want to re-live him. But it also sounds worthwhile.
I saw this one in the store and was kind of intrigued but the whole Italian villa thing seemed very cheesy and 1960s art film to me.
However, since you recommend it, I may have to give it a try.
i new something new to read. thanks for the suggestion.
gives me a good excuse to cruise the gay/lesbian lit aisle too while i’m there. *wink*
Thanks for the recommendation. Let me add that to the ever-growing list of books to read over the summer.
sounds interesting. 🙂
I love a good gay romance novel.
Hey, cb, cruise over to my blog, look at my profile page for my address, and send me an email, will ya’?
hm… well, I’ll see if the BPL has it. I don’t buy books anymore.
I soured on the gay-lit genre a long time ago because the books were uniformly too precious, too depressing, too melodramatic, badly-written, or sometimes all the above. I think the most excruciatingly twee and pointless books I ever read were by Edmund White and Andrew Holleran, and for some reason I liked the “Tales of the City” series once, but found them nearly unreadable a few years later.
there’s a few good ones out there, but they’re the exception, and to be honest I can’t think of any off the top of my head.
It must be good if it made you CRY a little bit at the end. I didn’t think you did that sort of thing!
Thanks for the recommendation.
Mark 🙂