Sarah Schulman: The Child

USA 2007, 282 pp., hardbound, € 22.59
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
Structured like a classic novel of legal suspense, »The Child« explores what happens when Stew, a lonely 15-year-old boy, looks for and finds an adult boyfriend online. In short order his lover is arrested in an Internet pedophilia sting and Stew's world is turned upside down. He's exposed to his family and community, leaving the young outcast to fend for himself against forces intent on his destruction. Desperate, enraged, and confused, Stew commits murder in a panic. Sarah Schulman's novel considers the impact of these events on all those involved - from the parents of the murdered child, to Stew's staunchly Catholic parents and the attorneys working on his case. Carefully untangling the actions of an isolated teenager denied a natural outlet for his feelings during a critical time in his life, »The Child« hauntingly reflects isolation and the prejudices of culture and family.

Roberto C. Ferrari: Pierce

USA/UK 2007, 370 pp., brochure, € 19.99
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Österreichs.
Graduate student Leo Vasari's life was shattered when his lover Matt died in a car accident. Matt comes from a tragic and dysfunctional past, and suffers demons that have haunted him since early childhood. Exactly one year after Matt's death, Millie, Matt's mother and Leo's close friend, tries to kill herself. Leo, still mourning his loss, must somehow unravel the mystery that lies at the heart of the troubled Pierce family. »Pierce« is about grief and rebirth, and moving on to love once more - but the only way Leo can do that is by finding out the true reasons for his lover's death. Leo struggles with his sadness and guilt as he searches for answers. Then he discovers dark family secrets never meant to see the light of day.

Edmund White: Chaos

USA 2007, 184 pp., hardbound, € 19.99
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Österreichs.
What happens when a life implodes? When a respected older man, a product of the liberated 1970s, is incapable of cleaning up his act in the 21st century? When he pursues sex with a rabidity his body and his reputation can no longer sustain? Chaos results. In this novella White takes an unsparing look at gay midlife. Here, nostalgia has been banished. His funny, smart but never wise hero is living on the edge in a Chelsea where everyone around him is 30 or 40 years younger. This is not fiction devoted to the dim splendors and miseries of the past but rather to the unsettling, irresistible claims of the present. In three other long stories, »Record Time«, »Give It up for Billy«, and »A Good Sport«, White explores different aspects of aging, romance, and sex. Age has been one of the great taboos of gay culture, but here White, as iconoclastic as ever, writes about maturity with the same precision and insight he brought to adolescence in »A Boy's Own Story«.

Andrew Holleran: Grief

USA 2007, 150 pp., brochure, € 11.29
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Österreichs.
The author of »Dancer from the Dance« captures the pain of a generation of gay men who have survived the AIDS epidemic and reached middle age yearning for fidelity, tenderness and intimacy. The unnamed, silver-haired narrator has just relocated from Florida, reeling from the recent death of his invalid mother. The exhausted, lonely professor comes to Washington to escape his previous life and to start teaching a college seminar on literature and AIDS. What he finds there - in his handsome, solitary landlord, in the city's somber mood and sepulchral architecture, and in the strange and impassioned letters and journals of Mary Todd Lincoln - are unexpected truths about America and loss. As he seeks to engage with the living world around him - a challenging student, the mother of a dead friend, even his landlord's neglected dog - he comes to realize that his relationship to his grief is very different from what he had thought.

Robert Rodi: When You Were Me

USA 2007, 426 pp., hardbound, € 19.20
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Österreichs.
In his new novel, master satirist Rodi reveals it's not so easy to walk in someone else's shoes. All work and no play have made Jack Ackerly a dull boy. It's also made him very rich. Now, at age 53, he regrets devoting his youth to capitalism over hedonism. Alas he can't turn back time. But according to a self-styled »fusion witch« named Francesca, he can trade places with a willing participant. He just has to find a hot young stud ready to make the switch. Enter Corey Szaslo, 26, a jaded party boy whose life of sex, drugs, and barhopping has left him with no education, no career, no assets, and no prospects. Jumping into the skin of a retired milionaire seems a fair way out of this predicament, even if it means doubling his age and adding five inches to his waistline. As Corey, Jack prowls the gay meat market every night, racking up a string of conquests, while Corey, as Jack, is busy socialising, globe-trotting, and pushing his new middle-aged pecs at the gym. But their successfully swapped lives soon begin to come apart at the seams.

Peter Hofmann: Wo Norden ist

D 2007, 207 S., Broschur, € 15.32
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Österreichs.
Querverlag
Es kriselt bei Pawel. Lustlos zieht er durch die Stadt und wird von einem Fremden angesprochen. Greg lädt ihn auf einen Kaffee ein, die beiden reden, erzählen sich aus ihrem Leben – Kleinigkeiten vor allem – und werden einander vertraut. Doch Pawel will nicht seine tiefsten Geheimnisse Preis geben. Aber die Gespräche mit Greg bringen seine Vergangenheit hoch, seine Kindheit und Jugend im Mief der alten DDR, mit einer strammen Parteigenossin als Mutter, seinen meist laschen Ausbruchversuchen, die immer ein bisschen zu spät stattfanden und darum nie spannend waren. Und jetzt gibt es Greg – kann er, will er sich in ihn verlieben? Ist das überhaupt nötig, um eine glückliche Beziehung zu haben? Oder braucht er doch den Kitsch, den er tausendfach in seinen Groschenromanen beschworen hat, ohne je an ihn zu glauben?

Alaa al-Aswani: Der Jakubijân-Bau

Dt. v. H. Fähndrich. D 2007, 372 S., geb., € 20.46
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Europas.
Der Jakubijân-Bau ist ein altehrwürdiges Wohnhaus in einem ehemals besseren Viertel von Kairo. Früher vom westlich orientierten Geldadel bewohnt, beherbergt er jetzt einen ziemlich breiten Querschnitt durch die ägyptische Gesellschaft – mit allen ihren Abgründen, über die am besten niemals gesprochen wird, denn alle Abgründe haben auch ihre sexuelle Dimension. Ein alternder Anwalt, der mit Potenzmitteln immer wieder junge Frauen verführt, ein schwuler Verleger, der seinem Lover die Gewissensbisse mit Geschenken zu vertreiben sucht, ein junger an der Bürokratie gescheiterter Student, der zum Islamisten wird, sind nur einige Beispiele. Stadtgeschichten also, jedoch nicht wie in Maupins Barbary Lane in dramatischer Heiterkeit, sondern oft in bitterem, brutalem Ernst.

Anneke Scholtens: Abel

Dt. v. Torsten Hell. D 2007, 137 S., geb. , € 17.48
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Österreichs.
Männerschwarm
Barts bester Freund in der Schule war Abel. Unzertrennlich waren beide – bis sich Abel in Bart verliebte und hartnäckig versuchte, ihre Freundschaft zu einer schwulen Liebesbeziehung werden zu lassen. Doch Bart wies ihn zurück, es war ihm peinlich, spätestens als ihre Mitschüler sie als Liebespaar zu verspotten begannen. Die Freundschaft zerbrach. Jahre später hat Bart immer noch Schuldgefühle, und Barts Freundin Roos merkt schnell, dass etwas Grundlegendes mit Bart nicht stimmt und er ihr etwas Wichtiges verschweigt. Als Bart von Abels Tod erfährt, muss er sich seiner Vergangenheit und der Wahrheit stellen…