Recent Reads #52 | Complicated queerness + supporting Palestinian authors

A standout theme across these recent reads is complicated queerness—messy, lived-in, and often funny—paired with writing that treats identity as something people navigate in real relationships, not just label on a page. The strongest example is Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas, set at a Quaker high school in the early 2000s and later revisited in adulthood after a friendship fractures. The novel centers on Nell, an openly lesbian teenager, and Fay, a closeted gay trans man who doesn’t yet recognize what he is. That mismatch—between what the characters feel and what they can name—drives a friendship full of resentment, tenderness, and tragedy, while still landing sharp comedy, including a very 2000s, chronically online plot involving classmates’ live journals.

Several other books reinforce this “queerness as lived complexity” idea, though with different tonal approaches. Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin follows Gilda, an anxiety-ridden atheist lesbian who works as a secretary in a Catholic church and has to hide her queerness. Its short scene structure creates a brisk pace that mirrors spiraling thoughts, making the book feel urgently human even when it cuts threads a bit too quickly. Organ Meats by Cing Chang also leans into queer friendship and high-density originality; the narrator praises its sentence-level brilliance and humor, even while noting the ideas can feel so packed that the overall narrative connection sometimes blurs. Ghost Music by Onyu offers a quieter, surreal character study: a piano teacher in Beijing wants a child, faces marital and family tension, receives mushrooms by mail, and follows a dreamlike search for a famous pianist.

Beyond queerness, the list includes experimental and place-based storytelling that asks readers to adapt their expectations. Tahoe by Koto Tiuan is an experimental collage of poetry, memoir, and vignettes set in an alternate reality where Vancouver Island and New Zealand share an ocean and Indigenous cultures share history. It’s less about a conventional plot and more about thematic exploration—healing from colonialism, motherhood, community—so the reading experience becomes “go with it, piece by piece.” Mud Flowers by Ali Waterman and Mrs S by K Patrick both focus on relationships, but with different outcomes: Mud Flowers begins with intense momentum and gorgeous insight before losing direction, while Mrs S delivers a tightly unified style—punchy, rhythmic, and emotionally repressed yet bursting with desire—around a butch lesbian matron and an affair with the headmaster’s wife.

Finally, the episode ends with a clear political emphasis: supporting Palestinian authors is meaningful, but it isn’t a substitute for action. The vignettes of Sbach Beneath Unlikely Skies by H. A. (as read in transcript) are framed as youth and girlhood growing up in Gaza, with each moment tied to a song. The recommendation expands into additional Palestinian titles—Salt Houses, You Exist Too Much, Minor Detail, The Skin and Its Girl, and others—alongside calls to contact representatives, donate, and keep protesting as the genocide continues.