You have discovered the eigth of thirteen secret pages hidden within Velvet Mafia's 13th issue. Try your best to uncover all thirteen hidden surprises from our family members...

 

What do the Mafiosi Read? Here are some of our favorites...

 

Jameson Currier: Family Dancing by David Leavitt
This collection of short stories about gay men and their relationships with their families, friends, and lovers was the book that made me want to become a better writer and seriously understand the craft behind constructing a short story. Shortly after the publication of this book, I enrolled in a fiction writing workshop Mr. Leavitt led at the Writers Voice in Manhattan where he generously provided a reading list of books he felt would be helpful to short story writers. From here two things happened in my writing career: First, I went on to read and study Chekov, Cheever, Updike, Beattie, Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, and a host of other well-regarded writers; Second, I met Anne H. Wood and Brian Keesling, two other writers in the workshop—almost twenty years later, the three of us continue to meet to critique and discuss our writings.

 

Steve Berman: Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
A few perfect books do exist. Hard to believe as the promise of an ideal novel is, after all subjective, and certainly as elusive as any cryptozoological find. But in the pages of this book, nothing detracts, mars, hinders the wonderful story of two young men in love. If anything, the secondary plots and characters enhance the plot with political intrigue, violence and decadence. I'm not alone in adoring this book. I can only hope more come to see this as one of the finest examples of gay literature of the 20th century.

 

Wayne Courtois: Walking Higher: Gay Men Write About the Deaths of their Mothers edited by Alexander Renault
I’m going to throw modesty to the wind and recommend Walking Higher: Gay Men Write about the Deaths of Their Mothers, even though it contains an essay of mine. Editor Alexander Renault has pulled together thirty diverse voices, each sounding its own note on the common themes of love, devotion, and grief. It is the most powerful anthology to come our way in a very, very long time.

 

Jim Gladtone: Gents by Warwick Collins
This unjustly overlooked gem by a British author better known for his fantasy books is the rare gay-themed novel that deals with issues of race, class, and religion in a humane and well-rounded fashion. Told from the perspective of a Jamaican, Seventh Day Adventist men's room attendant in a London tube station, this spare, wise, and generously humorous book is driven by engaging, utterly believable dialogue centering around the furtive sex that goes on in the stalls.

 

Trebor Healey: The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon by Tom Spanbauer
Through his language and his story, he expresses gay spirit, gay love, and gay sacredness in its profoundest and most radical sense.

 

Collin Kelly: Three Picks...
Anne Sexton: The first lady of bi-sexual, incestuous letters. I can feel her leering over my shoulder, sloshing her martini and puffing on a Lucky's. She's the reason I write poetry. Anne Sexton: The Complete Poems is indispensable.

Frank O'Hara: My favorite queer poet. His camp humor and sobering clarity is still just as fresh today as it was 50 years ago. From the poem
"Homosexuality" - "It's a summer day, and I want to be wanted more than anything else in the world." www.frankohara.com

Walt Whitman: You can't be a queer writer without giving props to the grandfather of modern poetry. And like Uncle Walt, a young sailor does tend to catch my eye. Leaves of Grass is still essential reading.

 

Dan Kelly: Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
When I first found Baldwin, I had already read my fair share of gay novels, but in my mind, this book was different. The reason? The time in which it was written. This wasn’t a metaphorically gay novel—it was blatant. And all I could think as I was reading it was, “Incredible. This man wrote this brazenly gay tale at a time when it was not only a bitch to be gay (to put it mildly), but also to be black.” He risked his entire career and life to give a voice to his experiences—and his existence. That realization was so empowering.

 

Sean Meriwether: Two Picks...
Sticks and Stones by Lynn Hall Although not groundbreaking, Sticks and Stones (out of print) was the first novel I read containing a gay character. I discovered it at a book closeout sale when I was around 14 years old and worried that everyone there, including my mother, knew why I was buying it. This young adult novel is about a straight boy who is rumored to be homosexual because of his close relationship with a small town's only out gay adult, thankfully a well rounded gay man who helps the boy develop his own self-identity. I identified with the young man in the story, though I knew I was queer by that point, and yearned for the older man in the story to take me under his wing. It helped me understand that I wasn't the only one, and that the isolation and verbal bashing I was receiving was temporary.

For the adults: The Wild Boys by William Burroughs. A surreal adventure in a near-future post-war setting, where a rebel band of teenage boys (often naked) battle the repressive armies of police in a revolution for freedom. The cinematic quality of the writing, as well as the ethereal homo-erotic text, makes it one of Burroughs' standouts. Not as impenetrable as some of his "druggier" work, nor as "journalistic" as his early work... a good place to start for a reader who is not familiar with his work.

 

Marshall Moore: Amphigorey and Amphigorey Too by Edward Gorey
Those fonts. Those interiors. The detail. Such piss-elegant doom and mayhem. Bad things happen to good people, stylishly. Whenever I revisit Gorey's work it's like rummaging through the lair of my own creative demons. And what's not to love about the man who gave the world the phrase "in the blue horror of dawn"?

 

Ian Philips: Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault
For a husky, pubescent, deeply self-loathing fag closeted away in a suburban tower in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and swaddled in a too-tight and quite cold Christian chastity belt, this book was a goddess-send. It was the first gay book I ever read. (It's not my most-favorite queer book, but it's definitely the book that launched me into reading countless others and writing a few of my own.) A friend of my grandmother's from church, who I doubt ever read it, gave it to my mom to pass on to her Latin-learning dork of a son. The love affair between Alexander the Great and Hephaistion was very tame compared to the second gay book I read: Gordon Merrick's The Lord Won't Mind (which I checked out of the Tulsa Public Library with ease since it was a hardback with no cover and the word Lord prominent on it). But Renault's first book in her Alexander trilogy was perfect for my terrified-of-sex teenage-romantic soul. (I had a hard time following the acrobatics of Merrick's book though I would later commit similiar contortions to the printed page; I think that's where I first leaned about anal sex; yes, I was a very sheltered sixteen-year-old.) Alex and Hephie did all their love-making off page, if I remember correctly; but they did hold hands and watch the sun set. They may have even kissed. And that was enough to get my heart and my hands to trembling. After that, I swooned my way through all Mary Renault's books, and spent many years dreaming of my blond god-king who would someday rescue me. Nineteen years later, he showed up--a dirty blond--a very wonderfully dirty dirty blond.

 

Alexander Renault: The Persian Boy by Mary Renault
The first most influential book I read was The Persian Boy by Mary Renault, first published in 1972. I had just come out at age 15. There was no Internet, PFLAG, or even a comprehensible level of understanding regarding teenage gay sexuality. Back then gay boys did not exist or were viewed as sexless.

This novel was based on historical fact and chronicled the relationships between Alexander the Great and his personal assistent ("slaveboy"), Bagoas. The level of intensity of their love came through clearly but naturally, unlike so many forced gay relationships with neurotic gay characters of the time. Plus neither of the lovers commited suicide, a favorite ending of gay literary characters of the 1960s and 1970s. I can still recall the exact moment I read the last line of the book.

The second book would be Gemini by Michel Tournier which was first published in English in 1981. (The original French version was published in 1975, Les Meteores.) Where The Persian Boy showed us the tenderness of youth, Gemini depicts a series of almost bizarre characters and events. It is one of those novels people either love or hate and it is quite original in its exploration of love, sexual and emotional obsession, and the strange complications of adoration. The most interesting character in Gemini is Alexandre, who thinks and speaks like a gay man afire.

 

Jack Slomovits: Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Less Than Zero is one of the only novels that painted pictures for me. As a photographer, I look for visual images to work with, and this book is very visual. It's also darkly erotic, with the destructive relationship between Clay and Julian more developed than in the film.

 

Greg Wharton: Three Favorites...
My Tender Matador by Pedro Lemebel
A lovely, bittersweet tale, gorgeous prose, and memorable characters. His first English translation. More translations, please!

The Haunted Hillbilly by Derek McCormack
Canada's hidden treasure. This novel, barely more than a short story in length, haunts me. Funny, sexy, and odd. Spare and perfect. Nab anything you can find by this man!

Hard Men by Patrick Califia
Yes, Sir, Master, Sir! Good goddess, breathe deep, Greg. Califia is without doubt the king of smut. I proudly kneel at his talented feet and whimper.