Alex Summers: The importance of seeing yourself in queer literature
If you can see it, you can be it. It’s always been true – but it’s not always been the case that bookshelves have truly represented the lives of their readers.
Throughout my life, there’s been a tremendous change in the way queer people’s stories are told. It’s no longer a genre in itself, no longer mysterious or niche, and we are increasingly able to tell our own stories. The breadth of queer fiction nowadays is vast and allows us cross genres and truly represent the nuance of queer life, giving readers different things.
Books like my debut novel, The Stand-In Dad, explore the challenges of queer people but give life an uplifting and heart-warming ending that sometimes can seem hard to find. There are literary novels which prove our stories are just as beautiful and worth entering into the canon as anybody else’s, and there are novels which explore really specific communities within the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, or speak to our queer allies and explain things in a way it can be hard to do yourself. There are books I’ve thrust into the hands of family and friends – here, this is what it’s like!
Books help us navigate life’s experience, or escape from it, and I wanted to run through some of my queer favourites.
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
When I was a teenager, English was my favourite subject and I started devouring the classics. It was the outsider elements of books like Wuthering Heights that appealed to me, until I found recent classics that were explicitly queer. This seminal semi-autobiographical novel explored the difficult idea of coming out, but through the pain though, it said, there would be something great.
A Home At The End of the World by Michael Cunningham
I started an English degree, and university opened a world of experiences and freedom I’d never had before. I chose modules in modern and queer literature, reading with a feeling that I needed to catch up on all the queer literature I’d missed. This book is beautifully written and delicate. I’ve always loved a soap, and the kitchen sink drama aspect of this book is brilliant. Queer lives could be extraordinary, but they could also be ordinary.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara
This has now become such a huge and divisive book, but it wasn’t released to fanfare. I read it early with no expectations, and I did, and still do, love it. I don’t think all queer novels have to be loved by the whole community, and better representation would stop it feeling like this had to be the case. This book became a hit around the time it felt like queer stories were (finally!) reaching mainstream audiences, and there was something healing about this. A Little Life explores the extreme worst of humanity, which is what people focus on, but it also celebrates the healing power of queer friendship and intimacy in a genuinely revelatory way.
First Time For Everything by Henry Fry
Now, there is so much queer literature. A lot of bookshops have their own LGBTQIA+ sections, and audiences are more discerning, looking for stories which explore a spectrum of experiences. Queer books can be anything, and this book, almost like a queer Bridget Jones, is funny and modern, with a heartfelt theme – what does it mean to actually accept your sexuality? Like all the best literature, and like my personal experience of being queer, there’s pain alongside joy.
From the uplifting escapism of Casey McQuiston, Alice Oseman and Ryan Love, to the real-world representation of Justin Myers, Laura Kay, Grant Ginder and Sam Lansky, and to the beautiful intricacies of queer relationships in a Bryan Washington or Torrey Peters book, bookshelves are heaving with options for young queer people finding their way in the world.
I envy the task of anyone coming to queer literature today and trying to catch up as I did, and I hope they don’t mind me adding one more novel to their TBR pile.
The Stand-In Dad by Alex Summers, published by Avon, is out now
