Queer reading suggestions to dig you out of the snow

2ft of snow and 20° below kinda sounds like the perfect opportunity to dig into a book, no?

I wouldn’t know, I avoided the storm of the century with an (albeit unintentionally) well-timed trip to warmer shores. Here’s what I was reading while you were stuck on delayed streetcars all week …

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Anyone who has asked me for a book recommendation in the last four years will know about (read: have had my foot on their neck until they submit to picking up) Torrey Peters’ debut novel, Detransition, Baby. Is it the best piece of queer fiction from the 21st century (yes)? Who’s to say (it is)? So you can imagine my excitement when Torrey announced her new collection, Stag Dance, which drops on March 11. In it, we’re blessed with four (!!!) new genre-bending works that explore trans life past, present, and future.

Stag Dance, the titular novel, recounts the story of a group of lumberjacks working an illegal winter logging who entertain themselves by organizing a dance where some of the men must volunteer to attend as women. When the group’s alpha-masc announces his intention to do so, he enters into a rivalry with a pretty, young logger — obsession, jealousy, and betrayal cascade into the night of the dance, where the very nature of transition is questioned.

The accompanying stories include Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones, which envisions a gender apocalypse instigated by a trio of vengeful trans women; The Chaser, exploring a secret and tumultuous romance at a boarding school; and The Masker, where a crossdresser's weekend-gone-wrong trip to LA forces a choice between a man whose objectification thrills her, and the unglamorous sisterhood of a veteran trans woman.

As with her first novel, this collection showcases Torrey’s keen insight into the nuances of community and desire, pushing the limits of trans literature to explore who gets included — and excluded — from the possibilities of gender.

DO NOT MISS THIS ONE Y’ALL !!!

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I get it, not everyone’s seeking outlandish fiction in their reads (can’t relate but). For those looking to tune further into the world than out, I reach for Danny Ramadan’s Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir.

Beginning in his family home in Syria, Danny candidly traces his journey through the streets of Damascus and the underground queer communities he found and fostered, his reporting on the Arab Spring uprisings as a young journalist, his continued displacements across the Middle East, and finally immigrating to Vancouver. His story alone is powerful, but what elevates this memoir is Danny's deconstruction of the genre itself, of the trust between reader and writer and their shared responsibility in storytelling. He challenges the often simplified refugee narrative, critiquing the exploitation of the immigration system from within.

And through all the pain, Danny makes space for joy — sunsets on the beach in Beirut, hedonistic New Year parties in Cairo, and the mutual aid networks that bring them all together. It's a magnetic story of finding and creating community, of survival through celebration, of pride in the face of persecution.

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When people ask me for a light or heartfelt recommendation, I’m genuinely stumped. Maybe I’m a bitter, jaded queen, or maybe the lit world just doesn’t prioritize stories of queer joy (we can unpack that another time). Regardless, I can officially say that I have 1 (one) such book in my back pocket, and it’s Greta & Valdin, by Rebecca K. Reilly.

The novel splits its narrative between two queer, mixed-race Māori-Russian-Catalonian siblings living in Auckland, NZ. There’s Greta, a young PhD student with a possibly pointless thesis and a laundry list of unrequited crushes; and her brother Valdin, a physicist-turned-TV-travel-show-host (breakups are wild, y’all) who’s sent to Argentina for work where, ain’t that a coincidence, his ex now lives.

It’s a near impossible task to make me laugh (out loud!) and sob (out! loud!!) in the same novel, but with dry humour and whip-smart dialogue, Rebecca constructs a refreshing and distinctly New Zealand take on contemporary queer fiction. This is one of those books that’s less plot and more vibes, but it’s careening energy pulls us through clumsy romances and eccentric relatives to paint a deeply relatable portrait of millennial life, cultural identity, and the search for belonging.

To be honest, Rebecca puts it best herself:
“This book is for hot autistic people, people from the city, people who have been mistaken for a different ethnicity, queer and trans people who are tired of being strong and just want to do jokes, tall girls and haters.”
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Did someone say midlife crisis??? This one’s for those of us who are old enough to remember 9/11 and are looking to upend the imminent panic of our domesticity — Miranda July’s second novel, All Fours.

It explores the life of a 45-year-old artist planning a cross-country road trip from her home in LA to New York, seeking to rekindle her creative spark and sense of independence. Thirty minutes after leaving behind her husband and child, she detours to a motel off the highway, rents a room indefinitely, and begins an unexpected affair with a young car rental agent. What follows is a unique story of self-reinvention and a woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom that only Miranda July could write (and if you’ve never experienced her work before, buckle up).

With her signature wry wit and curiosity for human intimacies, she takes the familiar experiences of women and femmes everywhere, from motherhood to menopause, and capsizes everything we think we know about them. All Fours gives voice to questions of monogamy, purpose, bodily autonomy, and unmet expectations that arise from entering the latter half of our lives. It’s absurd, it’s authentic, it’s deeply horny — this novel is Miranda July at her most vulnerable, and her absolute best.

In the words of queer icon Lucy Dacus: “Her work always makes me feel like I’m allowed to exist.”

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There’s no way I could finish these recommendations without mentioning the infamous queercore wet dream that is Brontez Purnell. This wasn’t the first work of his that I read, but it’s the one I regularly gift to the queers in my life — I present to you, Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger.

It’s a non-memoir told through a series of vignettes that chronicle the life of a punk artist and ‘old school’ homosexual (who bears more than a small resemblance to Brontez himself) on his search for every faggot’s deepest desires — cock and community. The novel takes us cruising in parks and bath houses in a San Francisco that’s being overrun by a new breed of “clone core” gentrifying fags. Our hero scoffs at their bike helmets and condoms, embracing instead his societal role as a fuckup and the disruption that radical self-expression demands. But beneath the hedonism is a poignant meditation on loneliness, addiction, and the desire to be truly seen.

Brontez’ work is not for the faint of heart — and that’s the point. He writes for the faggots, the “flamers with a full tank of sugar,” with storytelling characterized by its blend of humour, biting social commentary, and uncanny self-reflection, often on the same page. He’s asking the important questions (“How come there’s no sympathy for sluts?”) and writing about real shit (“like gun violence and semen addiction”).

This is the Great American Fag Experimental Best Seller™

Check out James' reco's for fall reads from last season and give them a follow on IG too :).

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