It’s June, and it’s therefore Pride month. Name a book you’ve enjoyed that features an LGBTQ+ main character.
My local bookseller recently recommended Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H. It is nonfiction about a young Muslim woman who wants to live an authentically gay life without forsaking her Muslim faith. It was so interesting to see how she found opportunities to look at favorite stories in the Koran from an entirely different perspective.
I also recently read She Who Remains by Rene Karabash. I thought it was so beautiful although it left me with some unanswered questions.
Certainly John of John by Douglas Stuart. Highly recommend this incredible story.
One of my all-time favorite books that fits this category is “The Heart’s Invisible Furies,” by John Boyne.
I dare you to read the first sentence—Yes! Just the first sentence!—and not be hooked on this book. It is witty (as in, you will laugh out loud and want to read passages to others because they are so funny), wise and wonderful. This book will grab your heart and not let go.
This is the story of Cyril Avery, who is born in Dublin, Ireland in 1945 to an unwed, 16-year-old mother, who was forcibly banished from her small hometown because of her disgraceful condition. Cyril is adopted by a strange, but well-meaning couple, who have wealth and prestige but little love for this little boy. As a child, he realizes he is gay, which is not an easy thing to be ultra-conservative Catholic Ireland. The book spans all the decades of Cyril’s life—the good, the bad, the unconventional, the tragic, the hilarious—as he learns who he is and the real meaning of love, intimacy and family. And as much as this is a book about Cyril, it is also a book about Ireland and the astounding and profound social changes the country underwent from 1945 to 2015.
Author John Boyne is nothing short of a genius in the way he has structured the story. The characters’ dialogues are without a doubt the most clever, funny and poignant I have ever read by any author. (I mean it! This book is incredible.) The narrative is compelling, the characters are fully developed and the pacing is perfect.
Bonus: The epilogue is brilliant.
There is really only one thing to say about this book: I loved, loved, loved it. This is one of the best books I have ever read. Five stars does not even begin to describe it!
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When I typed up this question (just before hitting the hay last night) I briefly thought, “Gee, I wonder when the last time was that I read a book featuring an LGBTQ+ character? Have I ever?” Hahaha… obviously my brain doesn’t work after 9:00 PM.
Scanning my list, over the past year I’ve read at least eight, all of which were great:
Atmosphere, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
A Drop of Corruption, by Robert Jackson Bennett
Buckeye, by Patrick Ryan
The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), by Rabih Alameddine
The Moonshine Women, by Michelle Collins Anderson
Chain Gang All-Stars, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
John of John by Douglas Stuart
Whistler, by Ann Patchett
I think it says a lot about the role of literature today that there are so many books that feature LGBTQ+ individuals, and that it took me a moment to come up with the titles because they’ve become so ubiquitous. It really brings home the fact that literature helps people empathize with marginalized populations and to stop seeing people as different from themselves; they’re no longer “other.” Which also makes me angry and sad that there are attempts to suppress these books and return the people they represent to the margins of society.
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Most recently John of John. Previously The Absolutist by John Boyne.
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Kimʼs answer brought out my curiosity.
I have also read 5 of the books she listed: Atmosphere, Buckeye,The True True Story of Raja the Gullible,John of John,and Whistler.
Then I surveyed my HAVE READ list and discovered other books I have read that are considered LGBTQ reads: Call me by Your Name by Andre’ Aciman, The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoque, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid and surprisingly one of my favorite books from last year - The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Wong
There are others from the past**: The Color Purple, Mrs Dalloway and The Hours.**
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If you had asked this question 10 years ago, I might have been able to name one or two books that I had read that had a LGBTQ character. When I looked at my current reading there were so many books in multiple genres that had LGBTQ characters, often they were 5 star reads for me. But I had only read one book with trans people, The Lilac People by Todd Milo, a great read about being trans in Nazi Germany.
Thanks for asking this question, I am now going to keep my eyes open to read a greater trans representation. Aren’t we lucky to be able to have such diverse reading available to us?
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I thoroughly adored The House on the Cerulean Sea and am looking forward to the author’s new release. Other books are:
When the Cranes Fly South, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Buckeye, Guncle, and The Bette Davis Club to name just a few.
As Dee mentioned if it had been 10 years earlier, the list would not be as long as it is now. As a mother of lesbian I am always looking for well written books to share with my daughter. She isn’t a reader, but when I gave her Everlyn Hugo, she found herself deeply entrenched in the storyline. And to this day, she puts first on her list of favorites.
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I’ll also add: Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan. (I still have the playlist of the classical cello works mentioned in the book.) And, for a classic - The Price of Salt (also known as Carol) by Patricia HIndsmith (released with a pseudonym of Claire Morgan). The Hindsmith book was released before her widely known The Talented Mr. Ripley.
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That’s a really good point, @Dee_Driscole. Gay folks are appearing more and more in literature (and, I’d like to hope, are facing less discrimination), but I don’t think that holds true for trans individuals. The Lilac People is the only book I can think of that features a trans main character. (And what a marvelous book, probably one of my top ten of the last five years.)
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I’m just guessing because I haven’t read the book but is Detransition Baby about a trans character?
I very much want to get to Marsha by Tourmaline. Marsha P Johnson was a trans activist who was key in the Stonewall uprising.
I listened to the memoir of Lucy Sante called I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition.
I had totally forgotten there was a gay character in “Moonshine Women” by Michelle Collins Anderson; she was just one of the sisters. And I think that’s a good thing–I’m more interested in the person than their gender/identity.
Picoult’s “Mad Honey” was an educational eye-opener for me (as well as being a good book) and I applaud her for co-writing it with a trans author to give the character an authentic voice.
One of the earliest novels I remember reading with a gay character is “Big Stone Gap” by Adriana Trigiani, which came out in 2000 (I checked) but “Fried Green Tomatoes” is older than that (1987). They seem so tame but it’s about time books mirror current events.
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Don, my longtime best friend, published his first book last November: Heroic: Haiku, Haibun, Hymns. YAY!
READ IT if you like the cover: “Heroic is a poetic journal through modern myth: from the pages of scripture through the panels of comic books. In these brief forms, heroes are scrutinized, gods walk in their proper place alongside mortals, and hope flickers in capes and prayers. Part devotion, part queer deconstruction, this collection celebrates the sacred, the superhuman, and the real humans who have to deal with each other.”
I’ve been reading all my life and Don is the best in the art of writing. I’m a left-brained, cisgender, straight, married woman who can only write personal essays about women of a certain rage. Don is an extremely intelligent, creative, cisgender, gay, married man who can write using ANY style of text.
Move over, The Odyssey and Ulysses; it’s 2026 and the DC Universe characters are so much more interesting!
I absolutely loved The Heart’s Invisible Furies.
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I loved TJ Klune’s The House on the Cerulean
Sea, The Bones Beneath My Skin, and Below the Whispering Door. Additionally, Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot series were delightful and lovely books.