by Richard Labonte
"The Cruel Ever After," by Ellen Hart. Minotaur Books, 320 pages, $25.99 hardcover.
Did readers of Hart's long-running mystery series – this is book number 18 – ever know that restaurateur and accidental sleuth Jane Lawless was once married? Yes? No? Obviously, It's time to reread the so-satisfying backlist. Meanwhile, said husband, thought long-gone by Jane – who married him once upon a time because she thought he was gay and needed a beard – is back in Minneapolis. Born to wealth, he's lost several fortunes over the years, and again is running low on cash – and, after he awakens from an alcoholic blackout to find his host's bloody body, is also running from a blackmailer. Jane is shocked to find her ex (or is he?) back in her satisfyingly Sapphic life, and is soon immersed in a tangled tale of adultery, stolen Iraqi artifacts and more murder. The complex plot untwists with impeccable logic, but what makes this book – and the series as a whole – so engaging is how Hart weaves her friends and her family (and even a lesbian ex-lover) into setting up and resolving the mystery.
"Mesmerized," by David-Matthew Barnes. Soliloquy/Bold Strokes Books, 216 pages, $13.95 paper.
Brodie is a surfer-blond loner lusted after by most girls in school, but with an eye for his male physical science teacher's ass. Serena is a not-quite-popular girl haunted by the gay-bashing death of her brother, because she recoiled emotionally when he came out to her. Lance is a dark-haired stranger both find alluring when they discover him dancing with feline grace in a warehouse where – because she snuck a story about how gays are being bullied into the school newspaper – Serena has been sent, improbably, to paint parking lot concrete blocks as punishment; Brodie is there because "I had nothing better to do today." Lithe Lance is practicing for The Showdown, a local dance contest, and is desperate for a partner. Brodie, dazzled by Lance's charisma, is a perfect, if provocative, choice. Barnes' young adult novel about two boys suddenly, deeply in love has a fairy-tale tone, but it will strike all the right notes for YA readers as the boys dance into the hearts of The Showdown audience.
"Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men for Women," edited by Candace Walsh and Laura Andre. Seal Press, 256 pages, $16.95 paper.
It's rare that every essay is as compellingly candid and universally eloquent as those in this anthology about women who thought they loved men before discovering they loved women. Some of the contributors knew what they really wanted at a relatively young age, but many passed through marriage, and sometimes bore children, before acknowledging same-sex attraction and before having sex with another woman for the first time. In the end, coming out is coming out – there is confusion, there is fear, there is clarity and, often, there is sublime connection with a like soul. But there's a twist to these tales, an extra step in the journey from heterosexuality imposed to lesbianism embraced: it's that the women telling their stories, more than merely finding themselves, are at the same time freeing themselves from the world of men – a double liberation that a gay man doesn't realize when he comes out – even if he's writing a "Dear Jane, I Love John" letter.
"Me," by Ricky Martin. Celebra Books, 306 pages, $26.95 hardcover.
This is an autobiography filled with astonishment. It's not all that "astonishing," however. In fact, though honestly heartfelt, Martin's account of his career – he started singing with the Hispanic boy band Menudo at age 12, after which he acted on Broadway and in a TV soap opera before returning to his pop roots – is somehow at once bubbly and flat. And, boy, is Martin ever astonished – astonished that he was finally made a member of Menudo, astonished that he landed a part in "General Hospital," astonished that he was asked to perform at soccer's World Cup opening, astonished that he sang at the Grammys, astonished… well, life is a series of gosh-wow moments for him. On a more even keel, Martin's accounts of how he became involved in the horror of human trafficking, of how he yearned to become a father and realized his dream, and of how he eventually braved coming out, all transform him from a shallow showbiz personality to a compassionate and complex person.
Featured Excerpt
Deep down I guess I have always known that I was gay, but I still spent many years trying to hide it, even from myself. Ever since I can remember I have felt a strong attraction to men, and though I can say I have also felt a strong attraction to and chemistry with women, it is a man who ultimately awakens my most instinctual, animal self. It is with a man that I can feel myself truly become alive, where I can find the love and passion I seek in a relationship. But I spent a lot of time resisting what I felt.
– from "Me," by Ricky Martin
Footnotes
TWO YA BOOKS TO WATCH OUT FOR in 2011: In Jennifer Gennari's "Wild Pie," coming from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a 12-year-old faces down homophobia in her small Vermont town when her lesbian mom enters into a civil union with her longtime partner; in Emily Danforth's "Lucky Human," from Balzer & Bray, a young Montana girl is shipped off to a gay conversion camp by her homophobic folks… OTHER BOOKS TO WATCH OUT FOR: America's first openly gay diplomat, philanthropist and civil rights activist James Hormel – heir to the Hormel family's Spam canned meat fortune – writes about how being born to wealth didn't shield him from having to overcome fear, in "Another American Dream ," from Skyhorse later this year… "FAIRYLAND" IS ALYSIA Abbott's memoir about life with her single father, San Francisco poet Steve Abbott, who raised her as a child in the gay world of the 1970s, and who she then cared for in the '90s as he dies of AIDS, coming from W. W. Norton this Fall… RAHUL MEHTA'S DEBUT story collection, "Quarantine," chronicles the cultural experience of gay men of Indian descent, is coming from HarperCollins in 2011; he's also signed a contract for an untitled novel, set in 1997, about a young man's involvement in the world of the "hijira" – India's community of transgendered people.
