Queerguru asked two of our prominent book reviewers for their FIVE FAVORITE QUEER BOOKS OF 2021.
Queerguru London Contributing Editor Jonathan Kemp writes fiction and non-fiction and teaches creative writing at Middlesex University. He is the author of two novels – London Triptych (2010), which won the 2011 Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, and Ghosting (2015) – and the short-story collection Twentysix. (2011, all published by Myriad Editions). Non-fiction works include The Penetrated Male (2012) and Homotopia?: Gay Identity, Sameness and the Politics of Desire (2015, both Punctum Books).
In a year rich with fabulous books, it was no easy task selecting five favorites. My cup runneth over. There was Tom Bland’s fabulous poetry collection, Camp Fear, and Adam Zmith’s head-rush history of poppers, Deep Sniff (reviewed here), as well as the long-awaited novel from Dennis Cooper, I Wished. We were treated to no less than two titles by the inimitable and inspirational Brontez Parnell, 100 Boyfriends which I reviewed here (link), and a reissue of his first novel, Since I Laid My Burden Down (both with Cypher Press). Other notable reads were Neil Bartlett’s Address Book (Inkandescent); Nate Lippens My Dead Book Publication Studio), and Eamon Somers’ debut, Dolly Considine’s Hotel (Unbound). Amongst the non-fiction, I’ve been stirred by William J. Simmons’ Queer Formalism: The Return (Floating Opera Press), and Bouncing Back: Queer Resilience in 20th and 21st Century English Literature and Culture (Transcript). It’s a vibrant time for queer voices and long may it last. In no particular order:
Golnoosh Nour, Rocksong
Following her fantastic short story collection, The Ministry of Guidance (reviewed here) this slim yet invincible book of poems Nour proves to be a voice to be reckoned with, seductively queer and queerly seductive, these poems will have you wishing they were written about you.
Published by Verve
Jeremy Atherton-Lin, Gay Bar: Or Why We Went Out A heady brew of gaudy memoir and social history, this vital work illuminates the humble queer watering hole the world over. Written in a charmingly aphoristic prose that had me highlighting nearly every sentence, it also made me want to go out dancing during a lock-down.
Published by Granta
Guillaume Dustan, The Works of Guillaume Dustan Vol. 1 (Semiotext[e]. The bad boy of French letters gets the complete works treatment, translations of his first three novels in this first volume. Raw, graphic, and racier than a thoroughbred, these novels tell tales of sleazy excess and queer resilience.
Damien Ark, Fucked Up
Clocking in at a hefty 851 pages, this door-stop of a book is narrated by Eliott, a man fucked up by abuse and drug addiction, against a backdrop of a world fucked-up by climate change. It’s harrowing and disturbing, yes, almost – perhaps – gratuitously violent and obscene, but at times almost unbearably tender. As Joyce said of Ulysses, “if my book isn’t fit to read, life isn’t fit to live.” An astonishing debut.
Paul B. Preciado, Can The Monster Speak? This is the complete, definitive text of a lecture given by the FTM philosopher Preciado to the Ecole de la Cause Freudienne in November 2019, and which caused a scandal because he dared challenge the innate heteronormativity of psychoanalysis. Styled after Kafka’s ‘A Report to the Academy’, in which an ape tells an esteemed audience of scientists that humans are just as caged up as he is, Preciado delivers a hard-hitting and important account of their own transition. The title is a reference to Gayatri-Spivak’s question, “Can the sub-altern speak?” and the monster is Preciado himself, who on that occasion was not allowed to speak. Here, thankfully, that crucial voice is given full rein.
Published by Fitzcarraldo Editions
-0-0-0-0-0-
Golnoosh Nour
is the author of The Ministry of Guidance and other stories – shortlisted for the Polari Prize 2021. Her poetry collection ROCKSONG was recently published by Verve Poetry Press. Her work has also appeared in Granta, Spontaneous Poetics, and Columbia Journal amongst others. Golnoosh teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Reading and the University of Westminster. She has co-edited Magma 80 and an anthology of contemporary queer writing forthcoming from Muswell Press.
Her Top 5 Queer Books Published in 2021 (in no order, I love them all):
HYENA! JACKAL! DOG! by Fran Lock:
A poetic masterpiece themed around queer mourning, class, and the intense animality of desire and existence. As with Lock’s previous poetry collections, this one sets the world on fire with its raging genius imagery, such as ‘my mind is a fucking scorpion orgy,’ and ‘my dog will come back as an arsonist.’
Published by Pamenar Press
I WISHED by Dennis Cooper: I’ve already written a thorough review of this finely-sculpted diamond: http://c3f.ab6.myftpupload.com/dennis-cooper-i-wished-one-of-the-most-anticipated-books-of-2021-is-reviewed-by-golnoosh-nour/
Published by Penguin Random House
MY DEAD BOOK by Nate Lippens: This little ruby red book is long in depth. Like I Wished, although it’s been categorised as novel, it reads more like nonfiction. The story of the narrator, a young American gay man in the 80s, is told through cutting and extremely witty fragments. What brings all these stunning sections together is the common (and at times unspoken) theme of the narrator losing his friends to AIDS.
Published by Publication Studio
C+NTO & OTHERED POEMS by Joelle Taylor: There is a valid reason why this fiercely golden book of lesbian testimony won the T. S. Eliot Prize, 2021 – it already feels like an essential classic.
Published by The Westbourne Press
CAMP FEAR by Tom Bland: In this wild ride, bisexuality is ecstatically chaotic, Jesus has an androgynous voice, siblings have sex at their father’s funeral, the clown school becomes both a safe space and a metaphor for nonconformist desires, and a teenage boy creates a Lana Del Rey death cult in which he murders himself. Eros and Thanatos compete with each other in the most hypnotic and ferocious way. The poetry itself is a beautiful cross between the narrative poetry of Anne Carson and the transgressive descriptions of Dennis Cooper. In short, it doesn’t get any queerer than this.
Published by BadBetty Press
Labels: 2021, BEST BOOKS, Golnoosh Nour, Jonathan Kemp, Top Picks
