32 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ APRIL 6, 2020
LGBTQ Books
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—KirkusReviews .”HC: $17.99 / 978-1-68263-156-0“A quirky addition.”
(^) —School Library Journal
“Adorable and hilarious.”
—Booklist
Intersecting Narratives
It’s a testament to the growth and the diversity of LGBTQ
books that so many novels and memoirs discuss not
just sexuality and gender but race, economic precari-
ousness, immigration, and more. Here, we take a look
at forthcoming titles that together shed light on the
breadth and complexity of the LGBTQ experience.
All My Mother’s Lovers
Ilana Masad. Dutton, June
In Masad’s debut novel, Maggie struggles to process the death of
her mother, who never fully accepted that her daughter is a lesbian.
PW’s starred review said the book “reflects the strangeness and
beauty of coming to see one’s parent fully as a human being.”
Amora
Natalia Borges Polesso, trans. from the
Portuguese by Julia Sanchez. Amazon Crossing,
May
This collection of 33 short stories and poems,
which won Brazil’s prestigious Premio Jabutin
in 2016, explores love among women. PW said
these “tense and twisty tales” offer “a poignant
look at women alternately broken down and
resilient.”
Fairest
Meredith Talusan. Viking, June
Talusan, a contributing editor at Condé Nast’s LGBTQ outlet Them,
was, in her words, born an albino boy in a village in the Philippines. The
book, which PW’s starred review called “an assured debut memoir
with a cinematic flair,” describes her immigration to the U.S., where
she was assumed to be white, and her decision to transition, experi-
ences that inform her perspective on race, disability, and gender.
Good Boy
Jennifer Finney Boylan. Celadon, Apr.
A New York Times opinion writer discusses the
seven dogs she’s owned over the course of her life
in a book PW’s starred review said is “filled with
insight and remarkable candor.” “As a transgender
woman who began life as a boy,” Boylan said in a
prepub interview with her publisher, “it’s in the
dogs I owned pre-transition that I can now best
understand men, and the person I once was, a
long time ago.”
I Don’t Want to Die Poor
Michael Arceneaux. Atria, Apr.
Arceneaux writes about his struggles with student
loans, as he did in a 2018 op-ed in the New York
Times, and how education debt affects his daily
life. He does so with humor, often in the context
of his sexuality. “I was in
Washington,” he wrote in the op-ed, pondering
alternative ways he might have paid for his edu-
cation. “Why didn’t I try to date some closeted
politician and be his well-compensated secret?”
Memorial
Bryan Washington. Riverhead, Oct.
A gay couple in Houston—Mike, who’s
Japanese-American, and Benson, who’s
African-American—see their life together
upended when Mike learns that his estranged
father is dying. Washington is a National Book
Award 5 under 35 honoree for 2019’s Lot.
Plain Bad Heroines
Emily M. Danforth. Morrow, Oct.
Acclaimed YA author Danforth (The
Miseducation of Cameron Post) makes her
adult debut with the darkly comedic story of a
cursed New England boarding school. At the
turn of the 20th century, two rebellious girls fall
in love and die grisly deaths; in the present
day, Hollywood arrives to film their story.
Swimming in the Dark
Tomasz Jedrowski. Morrow, May
Two young men in 1980s Poland fall in love and
later find themselves on opposing sides of a
political divide. “Jedrowski’s dazzling debut,”
PW’s starred review said, “charts an evocative
sexual awakening and coming of age.” —D.L.