What do we know about love? Find, accept and explore love and commitment among gay, lesbian and trans people in queer relationships through storytelling and interviews with LGBTQ+ folx.
Last year, we published an essay by Katrina titled “I Was Gay, and He Was Understanding,” which is a companion to her memoir. It starts with the line: “In my 46th year on this planet, I found out I was gay.”
She’s now 56 and is living in Lexington, Kentucky, so we jumped into what it meant to have this beautiful story out in the world for others to engage with at this point in her life (and during this complex political moment in the United States).
As a mother of four, Katrina faced the gut-wrenching task of balancing personal liberation with family upheaval. As she writes in Hurricane Lessons:
“I often found myself trapped between the rebellious fire that burned in my belly and the relentless need to be what everyone else wanted and expected me to be.”
At first, Katrina’s ex-husband, who knew she was attracted to other women, suggested an open marriage as a compromise. This strategy failed. Katrina deftly relays how differing expectations of "freedom" exposed deeper power dynamics and underlying control issues within their relationship.
When she was helping her husband fill out his Tinder profile, she said, “The Catholic girl in me was screaming, ‘What are you doing?’” She ended up meeting women and men on the apps as well—something that is difficult for everyone, but especially in midlife.
Katrina said the most difficult thing she ever did in her life was coming out as gay to her kids. (You can hear her explain that at the 16:50 mark.) She said her children haven’t read the memoir (as far as she knows), but they all have a good relationship at this point. Although she did point out that her “catalyst” was her daughter’s friend’s mom and that made things rocky between Katrina and her daughter for a time.
I was curious if she had any advice for others who may find themselves in a similar situation, whether that’s a mixed-orientation marriage or someone navigating the decision to open their relationship to other physical or emotional possibilities. Especially since, as she emphasizes in her memoir, the first real betrayal in a late-in-life coming-out story is actually the "betrayal of self."
“My former husband used to say to me, during our divorce, ‘You’ve built your entire life on lies.’ And I never agreed with that,” Katrina explained. “Because I never truly understood who I was. And it does feel like a betrayal to my self. I obviously don’t want to go back—because I have these four wonderful kids, and I wouldn’t have gotten them without living the life that I did—but I did betray myself in a way by not knowing who I was better. Or not delving deeper. Or not agreeing to acquiesce all the time. I just became who everyone else wanted me to be.”
We also spoke about Robert Fisher’s book, The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden, because Katrina cited him in her memoir because he writes about how Sanskrit has 96 words for love, ancient Persian has eight, Greek has three, and English has only one. As Katrina writes:
“He surmises that the reason we have only one word for love is because we don’t give that realm of feeling enough importance.
“Ninety-six words for love. Love for significant others. Love for friends. Love for sexual partners. Love for children. Love for ideology. Love for animals. Love for the land. For food. For air. For the salty sea. For the wind in our hair. So many kinds of love. So much love. But the ones that describe that essential human relationship—be it man/woman, man/man, woman/woman, or any other genders—those become blurry for me. And not indistinguishably blurry. I have female friends I’m not one bit attracted to physically. But when all those attractions converge?”
So I asked Katrina that rhetorical one she poses in the book: “When spirituality, intellect, and skin collide, how do you distinguish in love from love?”
“You’re not allowed to ask me that,” Katrina said. “That’s rhetorical!”
You’ll want to hit play and listen/watch to find out how she explained it (that’s around the 26:25 minute mark).
The memoir also highlights extreme domestic retaliation, including gaslighting, threats, and an involuntary psychiatric commitment, which we discussed. As she explained, there’s not a lot of great advice out there for people who may be navigating similar situations, so she wanted to publish this memoir.
“Make sure you understand your finances,” Katrina advised. “And make sure you have control over those things. … And I had so much guilt that I didn’t fight for anything. Looking back, I think there’s a lot of things I could have done to secure my own future better. … Of course there’s gonna be guilt, but it’s important to stay true to yourself.”
Hurricane Lessons is a harrowing read at points, especially to witness how Katrina’s community and institutions weaponized her mental health crisis against her queer awakening—but I hope you’ll read or listen and find out how she survived to share her story with us and offer a roadmap for others.
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Claybourne Elder on being a gay dad, growing up Mormon, and the kindness of strangers
Sunday, May 10, 2026 • Duration 40:43
I spoke with with Claybourne Elder, a performer who many may know from his breakout role as John Adams on HBO’s The Gilded Age and his roles in Broadway revivals like Company.
Most recently, he has channeled his journey from a Mormon upbringing in Utah to fatherhood in New York into his debut solo album, If The Stars Were Mine. You can stream it on the platforms and it’s now on vinyl from Center Stage Records and available for purchase on his website.
It happened to be Mother’s Day, and Clay explained that his son Bo decided years ago that he would celebrate one of his father’s on that day, so this year it was Clay’s turn to have “Papa’s Day.”
This may be a spoiler for some, but Clay’s character in Gilded Age looked like he was about to get love with Oscar van Rhijn (played by Blake Ritson), the man he’d been having a clandestine relationship with. And then he was tragically killed! (This took place in Season 3, episode 6 if you’re curious.) I wanted to know what that was like—both portraying an authentic male-male romance in the late 19th century, as well as knowing he was doomed. Clay had thoughts…
OK, yes, there is a lot of musical theater talk on this episode. But can you blame us? Clay said that he and his older gay brother used to sing musicals together as kids, and they had a particular love of Judy Garland and Edith Piaf. Oh, and we also talked about the queer joy of Cats: The Jellicle Ball, the revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that was recently nominated for bunches of Tonys.
Of course, Clay got the QLP “Big One”: Based on the QLP questionnaire, I asked him how he defined love? Is it the “strong feeling” that hits you instantly, or is it the “thing you work at” over a long period of time?
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The QLP BOOK CLUB: Clarence A. Haynes on his horror glam novel, writing sexy scenes and the legacy of Octavia Butler
Friday, February 13, 2026 • Duration 49:31
I was thrilled to have Clarence A. Haynes join the QLP Book Club to discuss his solo debut The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery,which he describes as an urban fantasy and glam horror novel, and is now available in paperback.
First, a bit of background: Clarence also co-wrote Omar Epps’s acclaimed young adult sci-fi/fantasy title Nubia: The Awakening and its sequel, The Reckoning. Additionally, he is the author of the nonfiction work The Legacy of Jim Crow, which provides young readers with an overview of the history of discriminatory laws in America. His new novel, The Broken Hearts Agency,is in the same universe speculative fiction universe as Ghosts of Gwendolyn, and it comes out in June.
Clarence’s family emigrated from Panama, and he was born and grew up in the Bronx during the 1970s-‘90s, and he now lives in Brooklyn, New York. The book is infused with Caribbean culture and is steeped in Afro-Latine traditions, such as Santeria, which focuses on the orishas (deities). His main protagonist, Gwendolyn, was born in Panama and emigrated as well. So I was curious what inspired him to craft this fabulous, code-switching heroine at the center of his novel as well as Fonsi Harewood, the co-protagonist.
Fonsi is a queer Afro-Latine medium from the South Bronx who runs a botanica (a shop selling spiritual goods) called La Playa, and he is involved in a love triangle with a ghost and his mortal ex. Listen in because I play a sexy scene from Chapter 2 that exemplifies how Fonsi is getting his erotic energy from these spicy encounters with a spirit named Amadé.
Having Fonsi as “sidekick” could have easily slid into a “magical queer" trope, where an LGBTQ+ character exists only to help a straight protagonist, but Clarence makes sure Fonsi’s subplot is integral. In fact, both Gwendolyn and Fonsi struggle with “buried” versions of themselves, and they both struggle to find a “mortal” love while dealing with their mystical lives.
Before we wrapped up the discussion, I asked Clarence about meeting the legendary queer author Octavia Butler (which was the subject of a new biography, , out last year), who’s best known for her books and . He explained that they met at the Borders in Columbus Circle for a signing of her sci-fi vampire book, . “I was editing at the time, not writing,” he explained. “She told me, ‘You need to write; we need your voice.’ And there are things in my book, that are my homage to her. It’s my way of honoring her work and saying, ‘I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if it wasn’t for her.’”
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What were the highlights of 2025?
Sunday, December 28, 2025 • Duration 46:16
I’ve known Rachel Kramer Bussel for nearly 20 years. She wrote for me when I was editor of the alt-weekly New York Press (RIP), and I read an essay from my memoir-in-progress at her “In the Flesh” event back in 2007 about the first time I went to a nude beach while living in Spain. (Yes, it’s one of my top goals for the new year: to get that manuscript in shape and send it out to be published at last!)
After Rachel launched Open Secrets Magazine, I was impressed by all that she was accomplishing and it inspired me to launch The Queer Love Project in the summer of 2024. I’ve also published two essays with her: One about the shame I experienced during show & tell due to some prized childhood toys with an unusual provenance and, most recently, a piece for the essay writing tips column, titled “When Is Your Writing ‘Good Enough’.”
Not only did we chat about all the many highlights and achievements of the past year, Rachel and I discussed what excited us about the year ahead. First, we’re going to be sharing a booth at AWP’s Bookfair the first week of March in Baltimore. The conference brings together writers and publishers—including many excellent small presses—for panels and events. It was one of the most exciting things I participated in this past spring when it was held in Los Angeles, and I look forward to meeting contributors and subscribers March 5-7. This is my first time visiting Baltimore, so if you have any recommendations, please share them in the comments (Rachel already gave a shoutout for a friend’s barbecue joint that I’ll be checking out).
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What queer books deserved more love?
Sunday, December 21, 2025 • Duration 50:45
I’ve done a lot of reading this year. My Goodreads challenge was to read 65 books, which if I’m being completely transparent, mainly consisted of a LOT of listening. As I recently shared via Notes, I used to question what “counts" as reading and what “counts" as writing. Yep, I used to be a snob about both. But my thoughts on the subject of both activities has evolved significantly over the years… Now I do a lot of listening, which means I get more writing and reading done than ever before, and I'm grateful for it.
Some of the reading was to prepare for interviews with authors for the QLP Book Club—including Rasheed Newson, Troy Ford, Andy Jiaming and, most recently, Alejandro Varela—as well as for other conversations and pieces.
For example, I had so much fun interviewing Samantha Mann about her memoir in essays, Dyke Delusions, and the profundity of my conversation with Katie Simon focused on her book about seeking more connected sex after being assaulted will stay with me forever.
So many fascinating chats this past year, such as with Oliver Radclyffe, in which we also discussed his memoir about coming out as trans and how that affected his marriage and other relationships; Greg Bourke’s tale of fighting for marriage equality in the United States; Kelly Lundquist’s new memoir, about being married to a gay man; and ’s debut memoir, in which we discussed sex work and so much more.
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Have you ever felt a vulnerability hangover? Hinge's Love & Connection Expert explains!
Monday, December 15, 2025 • Duration 36:18
It’s that wonderful time of year: When our relationships—whether new or time-tested—can get complicated. So what better time to ask an actual expert about what it means to date in these complicated times? Luckily, I had the opportunity to invite Moe Ari Brown, Hinge’s first Love & Connection Expert, to join me to answer a lot of my burning questions.
To kick things off, we focused on Hinge’s new Gen Z D.A.T.E. (Data, Advice, Trends, Expertise) Report. While the cultural conversation about Gen Z dating often centers around division, Hinge’s report finds that Gen Z are still desiring connection with one another.
After surveying more than 30,000 Hinge daters across identities, the latest report reveals that 84% of Gen Z Hinge daters want to find new ways to build deeper connections with the people they’re dating. However, Gen Z daters are 36% more hesitant than millennials to begin a deep conversation on the first date.
This nugget stood out:
“The desire for more emotional connection in dating is strong, with 84% of GenZ Hinge daters wanting to find new ways to build deeper connections with the people they’re dating.”
In many ways, that’s nothing new. We all want deeper connections right? But the GenZ cohort are still struggling to do so despite so many novel ways of making connections. I asked Moe about the people he’s talked to and the research he’s looked at, why this problem persists. The answer? It often comes down to anxiety around seeming “too much” or “too intense.”
I’ve been asking others about this idea of coming off as “too intense” while also wanting to be authentic and what you think about when connecting via a dating app/IRL after the initial connection, so it was fascinating to hear Moe explain it in depth.
Moe and I discussed:
* The sorts of invisible scripts that queer people who are dating get caught in.
* How people could navigate first dates and being empathetic to the other person.
* The use of voice notes to get a “vibe check” before going out on a date.
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The QLP BOOK CLUB: Alejandro Varela Discusses His Novel 'Middle Spoon'
Monday, December 15, 2025 • Duration 48:25
Alejandro Varela’s debut novel, The Town of Babylon, was published in 2022, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His second book, a collection of short stories titled The People Who Report More Stress, came out in 2023.
I invited Alejandro to join me for the final QLP Book Club of the year to discuss his third book, Middle Spoon—which was released in September—and details a gay man’s anxiety after his breakup with his boyfriend, while his husband and children and everyone else watch from the sidelines as he unravels.
It’s an epistolary novel told through unsent emails—primarily to his ex-boyfriend Ben, as well as his mother, his child, and his therapists (yes he has two)—since, as Alejandro explained, this framework allowed for the narrator to be vulnerable and say many things that he needed to get out of his system as he dealt with the grief of a breakup.
As I recently discussed with Alex Alberto, few contemporary novels explore poly relationships in a positive light (Sally Rooney’s Intermezzois often cited as another), and Alejandro’s is an essential new interpretation of modern queer love told with sensitivity. The narrative refuses easy categorization—the narrator is a mess—and is packed with some elegant, philosophical writing.
We covered a lot of topics, and I shared a couple clips from the audiobook narrated by Eddie Lopez during our chat. Alejandro was generous with his insights into so many contemporary relationship issues, including:
* Why public health research has figured so prominently into his books and stories.
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Alex Alberto on Coming Out Polyamorous
Monday, December 8, 2025 • Duration 56:59
Last December we had the pleasure of publishing this excerpt from Alex Alberto’s book, Entwined, focused on their relationship with their metamour, a term for a partner’s other partners. As Alex explained:
“I often describe my book as an unexpected love story with metamours. While my initial interest in non-monogamy was about the freedom of developing sexual and romantic intimacy with multiple people, I eventually discovered metamours could become an anchor for me, and a core part of my family. I’ve experienced powerful platonic love with my metamours over the years; a mix of friendship, fondness, intimacy, and trust that stemmed from our romantic love for the same human.”
At the time, Alex was also busy raising funds to produce a short film based on a section of the book. Last month, that short, “Coming Out Polyamorous for Thanksgiving,” was released and is available to watch on YouTube.
I was excited to talk to Alex about the journey to publishing the book—including starting the Quilted Press collective to publish Entwined and other nonfiction titles—creating a short film with no prior experience, and all the creative projects they have planned for the coming year. Alex hopes to offer future workshops and other community-building activities, and I’m excited to see how it all shapes up!
I’m always eager to hear how popular culture influences our internal blueprints, so we discussed what books, TV shows, movies and other pop culture is doing a good job of sharing poly relationship realities. Alex name-checked Sally Rooney’s popular novel, Intermezzo, as well as the poly relationship established in the science fiction book Iron Widow, and the 2017 movie (which you can easily stream for free on Tubi).
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Being the 'beard' and loving a gay man
Sunday, November 30, 2025 • Duration 55:07
While I was researching for a story about the popularity of “lavender marriages,” I discovered Kelly Foster Lundquist’s debut memoir Beard, and I was instantly intrigued.
We don’t hear the term as much these days, but growing up, it was a common trope that referred to the opposite-sex partner of a closeted gay person. Think Brian Batt’s character Sal on Mad Men and that scene where his wife Kitty realizes she’s married to a gay man. Or, more recently, Matt Bomer’s character Hawk in Fellow Travelers, who tramples all over his wife Lucy (played by Allison Williams) because he still loves Jonathan Bailey’s character Tim. Then, of course, there’s Harper Pitt in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. If you don’t recall the play or miniseries, Mary-Louise Parker plays Harper in the 2003 HBO adaptation, opposite Patrick Wilson as closeted Mormon Joe Pitt. Plus, there’s the old Hollywood stories about Montgomery Clift, Cary Grant and Rock Hudson. And as Kelly so smartly dissects and relates to: the three generations of women—Liza Minelli, her mother Judy Garland, and her mother Ethel Marion Milne—who all married gay men.
These are typically stories about men who hide and women who pay the price, and it’s a topic that fascinates me because I understand the collateral damage such a relationship can cause. In fact, I dated two closeted Christian men in the South in the 1990s who had their beards to help protect them at church, school, their jobs and with their families. I was also the GBF who had several close female friends who tried to date me, to “fix me” or just to have an idea of what they thought a happy relationship could be. So often this story is centered on the gay male storyline, and I was eager to see how Kelly tackled the subject since a woman’s side of the story hasn’t been shared so prominently. But I was also nervous: Was she seeking revenge? Settling scores? Or providing yet another cautionary tale for women to vilify gay men?
Luckily, none of that proved to be true. Kelly has crafted a smart and nuanced memoir that not only shares her story sensitively, it is generous to so many of the other people central in it—most of them gay men. It begins when she meets Devin at an evangelical church camp in Jackson, Mississippi, when they’re both teenagers. The two are quickly inseparable, and Devin is Kelly’s first love. They get married young () and start their lives together.
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"What do gay men do with political power once they have it?"
Tuesday, November 11, 2025 • Duration 46:44
A few years ago, I was discussing the publishing process with Brian Schaefer. An excellent arts writer and journalist who has covered a breadth of other topics, he’s a regular contributor to the New York Times and many other publications (such as this piece about how dance has been a vital response to AIDS). At the time, however, he was struggling to get representation with an agent so he could get his novel published. As he explained in our interview, it wasn’t an easy process and took years, but eventually he connected with the right people. And now, six years after he first began this project, Town & Countrywas released on November 4.
It’s an ambitious novel, with many distinct POVs and lots of nuance when it comes to character and location. It’s set in the fictional town of Griffin, which is a couple hours from New York City. But it could be a stand in for thousands of other economically depressed areas in the United States that seek a new life by attracting wealthy new residents. The action starts on Memorial Day and runs through the congressional election in November and pits Chip, a father of two who is beloved by locals, against a new transplant, Paul, who is young and gay. Plus, Brian tackles opioid addiction, gentrification and class differences, casual homophobia and the persistent trauma of the AIDS epidemic.
Brian published a piece at LitHub, titled “What Happened to My Political Novel When I Resisted Satire and Leaned Into Idealism,” in which he explained a bit about the progression of the book’s plot over the past six years. In particular, I loved the nugget that his husband had to break it down for him: “You’re not a satirist. It’s just not your mode of processing the world, and it’s not serving the story.”
What resulted is an incisive analysis of intimate and group dynamics. Although the criticized the book’s message for being too idealistic, I actually appreciated that he brought so much empathy to all the characters. For example, Diane (Chip’s wife and mother to Will and Joe) is a difficult personality to inhabit and understand as a gay Jewish writer. She’s very Christian and a closeted bigot and yet she adapts enough to put on a smile and sell homes to all the gay men, called the Duffels, since they arrive with their duffel bags every weekend.
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You’ll definitely want to listen in and hear his answer, along with his advice for those who are looking for love. He doesn’t say STAY OFF INSTAGRAM, but he does comment on how we get too involved in other people’s relationships and the way they are telegraphed on social media.
He also explained what his older sister said when he brought his first boyfriend home, and how he and his husband, Eric Rosen, decided to become parents and navigated surrogacy to become dads.
I was curious to learn more about his City of Strangers initiative, which was born from a random $200 gift that changed his life. In particular, I wanted to know if, in the context of queer community, viewed that kind of "stranger-kindness" as a form of platonic love? Turns out, he’s now friends with the guy who gave him that money all those years ago!
We also discussed his latest role as the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors, which he joins on May 26 in New York City. Before that, one of the chat questions was about playing “unsavory” character Jackie in The Wild Party.Clay said he liked playing villains since that’s now how most people typically see him, but his son Bo was not allowed to come see him in that production—but will be invited to see him as Dr. Orin Scrivello in Little Shop.
By the way, here’s the complete track list of his If the Stars Were Mine album. As Clay explained, the album tells a complete story, but he did reveal which song was his favorite (at this moment) before we let him enjoy the rest of his Papa’s Day.
Rachel is also planning the second Open Secrets Live Summit, which will take place May 2 in Manhattan. I’ll be on a panel along with many other writers and editors (40 so far!), so be on the lookout for more information around ticketing and the full lineup in the coming months.
The Queer Love Project will also be hosting its second live reading with Elyssa Maxx Goodman Miss Manhattan nonfiction series on May 4 at Niagara in the East Village. So if you’re in town for the weekend, make sure to join us that Monday night!
One thing that I’m also looking forward to that I didn’t get a chance to mention during our chat:
On January 10–11, Paulette Perhach is hosting The Writing Life You’ve Always Wanted, a two-day live summit designed to help you choose your 2026 project, build a routine you can actually maintain, and create a writing plan that fits your real life. I’m joining Paulette and the rest of the panel of experts.
Over this weekend, you will:
* choose the writing project that matters most for your year
* build a routine you can maintain with your real life
* map out your 2026 writing plan
* set up systems that make follow-through realistic
* take your first meaningful steps while you’re still in the room
* complete side missions assigned by Paulette, including a dinner with friends that Saturday evening
It’s meant for writers who want clarity and accountability rather than more information they’ll never use. So, if you’re trying to figure out how you want your writing life to feel in 2026, join me, Paulette and the rest of the
Get 10% off when you sign up today using the code JERRY.
And with that, I want to thank all of you for joining me for this last Substack LIVE chat of the year. Thank you for subscribing and supporting the work that we publish and amplify. We are dedicated to keeping as much of our essays, interviews and other writing free, but if you can upgrade to paid, it helps me compensate contributors and continue to grow our community.
We made it through a chaotic year and kept spreading queer love as a form of resistance against those who may want to quiet us. I wish you all a wonderful 2026 and I look forward to collaborating with you in the new year!
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Plus, I loved listening to Mike Albo’s audio-only memoir Hologram Boyfriendsand talking to him about all the insights he packed into it about how technology has warped our relationships over the past couple of decades. I also talked to my friend Brian Schaefer about his debut novel, Town & Country, which is a sensitive portrayal of rural America and the influence of gay men upon the culture of small towns. And how can I forget my interview with Manuel Betancourt for his book Hello Strangerback in January? It centered on the idea of “elasticity of queer relationships,” which became my mantra for the rest of the year.
Of course, I loved Edmund White’s sex memoir, The Loves of My Life—the last book he published while he was alive—which we excerpted back in the spring. And the archivist/writers who produced The Love That Dares: An Anthology of Queer Love Lettersshared some wonderful advice for anyone looking to preserve their correspondence for posterity.
Yet, so much amazing writing remains to be discovered! So I invited my co-editor Michael Narkunski and my pal Amelia Possanza, a literary publicist who has already introduced me to many amazing writers. They are both extremely plugged into the all things going on in the book world, so I wanted to know what they devoured over the past 12 months.
I asked them to share some of the books published in 2025 that they felt deserved more attention, and you might be surprised by some of their picks! Among the many things we discussed, we chatted about these authors and titles:
One book I forgot to bring up that I absolutely adored was John Birdsall’s What Is Queer Food? I hope to invite him to join me for a conversation in the coming months.
We also discussed these 2026 titles that we’re looking forward to:
Michael also shared the great news that his memoir, Macaroni Heart, is now under contract with University of Wisconsin press, and it’s slated to be released in 2027. Congrats!
What did we miss? If there are any other books you want to recommend or ideas you want share with us, please add them to the comments.
Thank you to everyone who tuned into our live video! Join me for my next live video in the app on December 28, the last one of the year, when Rachel Kramer Bussel joins me to discuss her latest essay—which we published this past week—as well as all that we’re looking forward to in 2026.
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* How AI can assist people to communicate their most authentic self.
We also discussed the expectations. You’ll definitely want to hear what Moe said about staying in the moment for that “first kiss” energy.
Although I don’t personally have to worry about going on first dates these days, I hope many people can glean some valuable lessons from Moe and my discussion. Plus, if you haven’t already read his essay that we published earlier this year about dating as a trans man and his journey to granting himself “permission to want what you’re not supposed to want,” I hope you will!
Thanks to all who joined me live during the conversation!
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* The idea of PEPs—progressive except for polyamory—and why some people just can’t handle the idea of having a non-hierarchical relationship structure.
* The “roles” in gay male relationships—both sexual ones and domestic ones.
* The original working title of the novel was A Children’s Guide to Heartbreak.
Finally, Alejandro’s answer to the question, “How do you define love?” was particularly sophisticated, and one I think many people can appreciate and incorporate into their worldview.
“You can’t prepare anyone for heartbreak... I never talked to my parents about heartbreak. That was never a thing that my mom said, you know, ‘This may happen someday and it’s going to hurt.’
So, for me, love, in this book, is a little bit also transparency, like being able to be honest about your feelings and your fears with people and finding someone who can accept that and modeling it. So he doesn’t have that with his parents, so he tries to model it for his children, even though it’s hard.”
Plus, don’t miss the advice he shared at the end before we wrapped up the session.
Thanks so much to all those who joined us live during our conversation, and I hope the rest of you enjoy our discussion of Middle Spoon!
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When I asked Alex about the need for people in poly relationships to share their stories, they explained:
“It is a really important part. You know, for me: I’m queer, I’m trans, I’m polyamorous. I’m so tired of coming out. It’s just every time I think it’s the last time—then there’s something else to explain to people. It’s difficult because there’s a balance of, you don’t owe personal information to people, but then, when you feel like you have to actively hide or when it sort of affects how you’re living your personal life, then even if you don’t want to share personal information for the sake of being seen, it’s almost just for the sake of being able to operate in a way where you’re not hiding.”
I hope you enjoy this latest conversation since I’ve been having a blast chatting with all these smart and talented people who are harnessing their creative powers to share more stories with the world. I have a couple more scheduled for the next two coming Sundays in December—including our last QLP Book Club selection, Alejandro Varela’s Middle Spoon on Sunday, December 14 at 1 p.m. ET—and if you missed any, you can find previous podcast episodes and conversations here.
For more books about polyamory, open relationships and other loving relationships outside the binary, check out the Queer Love Project’s Bookshop.org shelves—or leave a comment about any recommendations you might have.
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“Love has to be something like sameness,” Kelly thinks in her twenties, hoping that Devin will save her. It’s a story many can relate to who come from certain backgrounds and aspire to other lifestyles: We search for a life raft to get us out of our situation. But once you get that other shore, does that mean you must stay together or is there another version of a life that you couldn’t quite imagine at the beginning?
Later, while she’s in college, we witness Kelly’s awakening to her own agency, despite being in a codependent relationship, when a professor introduces her to a seminal feminist text, Women’s Ways of Knowing. Later, once the couple has moved to Chicago in 2003 so Kelly can attend graduate school in Chicago, they become entrenched in their new neighborhood: Boystown. Soon enough, it becomes harder for Kelly to ignore the signs that her husband is gay, cheating on her and her marriage is not sustainable.
I’ll let you discover the rest of the story, but Kelly and I had a lovely conversation about her journey to write the book. As she mentioned, a piece of advice from Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoirwas pivotal: “Show yourself wanting something dumb.” Ultimately, the message that Kelly left us with is that “you can do this wrong and still be worthy of love”—which is a bit of advice that I think most people can benefit from.
Overall, I want people to know that there is room for so many types of queer love stories, and I feel like Kelly’s and Devin’s is a special one that I’m confident others can relate to. I’ll leave you with the words from a piece Kelly published with Peopleahead of publication where she stated it eloquently:
“True love stories are always messier than tropes, and the ultimate reason I wrote my book was because it is and was a love story. Once, there were two sweet kids who came of age in the evangelical purity culture of the 1990s, a world in which being LGBTQ+ or accepting anyone who was gay was seen as a sin that could send you straight to hell. From the moment those kids met each other, they kept talking and talking and talking. They made each other laugh. They understood each other. They had the same vision for the life they wanted to lead. They loved the same movies and TV shows and songs. They loved each other. They slept together no less — maybe even more — than the average American couple. Really.
“But it was what happened after that made this a love story — the way we were able to let each other go, the way we’ve been able to support each other in the 20-plus years that have elapsed since we split up. In the last few years, it’s become easy for us to talk and talk and talk again. We met for brunch this past Sunday when I was back in Boystown, and as we laughed and talked about so many things, I was so grateful for the grace of that relationship.
“We were never a joke.”
So well said.
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In particular, I wanted to focus on the relationship dynamics between several of the gay male characters. First, Paul and his older husband, Stan, who is supporting his campaign (don’t miss the clip and Brian’s reaction since it was the first time he’d heard the audiobook). In particular, I was drawn to Will, the 19-year-old college sophomore who grew up in Griffin and has returned to discover the new, A-list gays in his town. The section that takes place during a July 4th pool party and details how he learns to navigate the “strange new country” with a “same-sex population” is brilliant. Finally, we also talked about Eric and Alex, another gay couple who have moved to Griffin, and Eric’s sexual relationship with another young man, Dalton (and Will’s peer), and how that open relationship works for the triad.
There’s so much to enjoy and devour in this book and in our conversation, so I hope you can also find some inspiration.
Among Brian’s reading list—which provided inspiration and guidance—he mentioned Andrew Sean Greer’s Lessand Armistad Maupin’s Tales of the City series, even Gary Shteyngart Our Country Friends, since it’s set in upstate New York.
Just as powerful, Brian mentioned the lineage of queer literature that he hopes Town & Country will be in conversation with—including E.M. Forster, Christopher Isherwood, Andrew Holleran, Larry Kramer, and Alan Hollinghurst—and the different ways they wrote about gay lives and relationships. I wholeheartedly agree. Brian’s novel offers smart insights and gorgeous writing; he both skewers the shallowness and is sympathetic to the motivations and biases of both queer and straight people.
So add Town & Country to your TBR list or add it to your listening queue. Plus, be on the lookout for it next summer, when it will be out in paperback which means you can look smart and feel sexy at the same time when you have it in your beach tote or are sitting poolside.
Thanks to all who joined me for this conversation. Please like, share and support. You are all the reason why I do this!
The Queer Love Project is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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