Queer Backlist Titles You Should Know About

One of the unique aspects of Indie Pub Salon is our focus on lesser-known, older titles. We love the thought of these cool hidden gems getting the spotlight again and being reintroduced to a new audience! Below are a couple backlist titles (books from older publisher catalogs) with queer representation that we think you should know about.

They’re all from independent or university presses and in no particular order:

1. Daddy Boy by Emerson Whitney (McSweeney’s)

Synopsis:

In 2017, Emerson Whitney was divorcing the woman they'd been with for ten years--a dominatrix they called Daddy. Living in a tent in the backyard of their marital home, Emerson was startled to realize they didn't know what it meant to be an adult. "We often look to our gender roles as a sort of map for aging," they write. "I wanted to know what the process looked like without that: not man-ness, not-woman-ness." Dizzied by this realization, they turned to an activity steeped in stereotypical masculinity: storm chasing.

2. Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker (Grove Atlantic Press)

Synopsis: 

In the Mexican city of Merida, ten-year-old Janey lives with Johnny--her "boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father"--until he leaves her for another woman. Bereft, Janey travels to New York City, plunging into an underworld of gangs and prostitution. After escaping imprisonment, she flees to Tangiers where she meets Jean Genet, and they begin a torrid affair that will lead Janey to her demise. Fantastical, sensual, and fearlessly radical, this hallucinatory collage is both a comic and tragic portrait of erotic awakening.

3. Hugs and Cuddles by Gilberto João Noll trans. Edgar Garbelotto (Two Lines Press)

Synopsis:

After abandoning his traditional life in a deteriorating Porto Alegre, the narrator of Hugs and Cuddles zealously recommits himself to a man he calls "the engineer", a childhood friend with whom he shared a pivotal sexual encounter.

4. I Make Envy on Your Disco by Eric Schnall (University of Nebraska Press)

Synopsis:

It's the new millennium and the anxiety of midlife is creeping up on Sam Singer, a thirty-seven-year-old art advisor. Fed up with his partner and his life in New York, Sam flies to Berlin to attend a gallery opening. There he finds a once-divided city facing an identity crisis of its own. In Berlin the past is everywhere: the graffiti-stained streets, the candlelit cafés and techno clubs, the astonishing mash-up of architecture, monuments, and memorials.

5. Odd Girl Out by Ann Bannon (Cleis Press)

Synopsis:

In the 1950s, Ann Bannon broke through the shame and isolation typically portrayed in lesbian pulps, offering instead women characters who embraced their sexuality. With Odd Girl Out, Bannon introduces Laura Landon, whose love affair with her college roommate Beth launched the lesbian pulp fiction genre.
6. Leash by Jane Delynn (Semiotexte)
Synopsis:
No more jobs, no more taxes, no more checkbook, no more bills, no more credit cards, no more credit, no more money, no more mortgages, no more rent, no more savings, no more junk mail, no more junk, no more mail, no more phones, no more faxes, no more busy signals, no more computers, no more cars, no more drivers' licenses, no more traffic lights, no more airports, no more flying, no more tickets, no more packing, no more luggage, no more supermarkets, no more health clubs... While her "current" spends the summer researching public housing in Stockholm, a moderately wealthy, object-oppressed, and terminally hip New York female of a certain age seeks adventure in the sedate dyke bars of lower Manhattan. Finding none, she answers a personal ad. She is ordered to put on a blindfold before the first meeting with the woman she knows only as "Sir." Not knowing what someone looks like turns out to be freeing, as do the escalating constraints that alienate her not just from her former life, but from her very conception of who she is.
7. Little Blue Encyclopedia (For Vivian) by Hazel Jane Plante (Metonymy Press) 
Synopsis:
The playful and poignant novel ... sifts through a queer trans woman's unrequited love for her straight trans friend who died. A queer love letter steeped in desire, grief, and delight, the story is interspersed with encyclopedia entries about a fictional TV show set on an isolated island… Ultimately, Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) reveals with glorious detail and emotional nuance the woman the narrator loved, why she loved her, and the depths of what she has lost.
8.  Love, Leda by Mark Hyatt (Nightboat Books)
Synopsis:
Leda is lost. He spends his days steeped in ennui, watching the hours pass, waiting for the night to arrive. Trysts in the rubble of a bombsite follow hours spent in bed with near strangers, as Leda seeks out intimacy in unlikely places. Semi-homeless and estranged from his family of origin, he relies on the support of his chosen one: a community of older gay men and divorced women who feed and clothe him… And then there is Daniel, a buttoned-up man of the Lord, for whom Leda nurses an unrequited obsession--one which sends him spiraling into self-destruction.

 

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