THE SHORT LIST: Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East, Get Down
Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East
by Brian Whitaker
University of California Press • Nov. 6
With Unspeakable Love, The Guardian’s Middle East editor Brian Whitaker has attempted the Herculean task of comprehensively documenting gay life in the Arab world. A knowledgeable and experienced Middle East reporter who has written both hard news and editorials, Whitaker’s look at homosexuality within the Arab world is painted in broad, if occasionally interesting, strokes. While he offers insightful and penetrating analysis of how the Arab media approaches gay issues, Whitaker commits grave errors when he lumps diverse Arab societies into an indistinguishable mass. Perhaps to achieve his titular goals or adhere to a slimmer page count, Whitaker effectively takes a just few select interviews with affluent youth of the Levant and touts them as representative of the entire region, leaving gaping holes throughout the book and many pressing issues unaddressed.
Matthew Frederick Streib
Get Down
by Asali Solomon
Farrar, Straus & Giroux • Now available
It’s rare for a character in Asali Solomon’s debut collection of short stories to be fully aware of his or her racial, sexual or social awkwardness. Intricate familial and social webs are common to each of these stories, and issues of class, race, gender and sexuality further complicate already, difficult relationships. And while her characters dilemmas are distinct, each of Solomon’s stories point toward the same question: who are you when neither you, nor your family, nor any stereotype (racial or otherwise, positive or pejorative) can quite explain why you do the things you do? Solomon explores this question though her immensely complicated and troubled characters: a handsome Morehouse senior who might be gay; an overweight twenty-something whose fantasies about his first-cousin are a source of unrelenting guilt; and an academically brilliant “ghetto” girl who attempts to mimic the way her white classmates speak. Her characters’ desire for acceptance, self-possession, and change is at the core of the collection, and with few exceptions, Solomon pulls it off seamlessly.
Nate Brown
by Brian Whitaker
University of California Press • Nov. 6
With Unspeakable Love, The Guardian’s Middle East editor Brian Whitaker has attempted the Herculean task of comprehensively documenting gay life in the Arab world. A knowledgeable and experienced Middle East reporter who has written both hard news and editorials, Whitaker’s look at homosexuality within the Arab world is painted in broad, if occasionally interesting, strokes. While he offers insightful and penetrating analysis of how the Arab media approaches gay issues, Whitaker commits grave errors when he lumps diverse Arab societies into an indistinguishable mass. Perhaps to achieve his titular goals or adhere to a slimmer page count, Whitaker effectively takes a just few select interviews with affluent youth of the Levant and touts them as representative of the entire region, leaving gaping holes throughout the book and many pressing issues unaddressed.
Matthew Frederick Streib
Get Down
by Asali Solomon
Farrar, Straus & Giroux • Now available
It’s rare for a character in Asali Solomon’s debut collection of short stories to be fully aware of his or her racial, sexual or social awkwardness. Intricate familial and social webs are common to each of these stories, and issues of class, race, gender and sexuality further complicate already, difficult relationships. And while her characters dilemmas are distinct, each of Solomon’s stories point toward the same question: who are you when neither you, nor your family, nor any stereotype (racial or otherwise, positive or pejorative) can quite explain why you do the things you do? Solomon explores this question though her immensely complicated and troubled characters: a handsome Morehouse senior who might be gay; an overweight twenty-something whose fantasies about his first-cousin are a source of unrelenting guilt; and an academically brilliant “ghetto” girl who attempts to mimic the way her white classmates speak. Her characters’ desire for acceptance, self-possession, and change is at the core of the collection, and with few exceptions, Solomon pulls it off seamlessly.
Nate Brown
