April 2023 MBR The LGBT Fiction Shelf

The LGBT Fiction Shelf

Tell the Rest
Lucy Jane Bledsoe
https://www.lucyjanebledsoe.com
Akashic Books
232 Third Street, #A115, Brooklyn, NY 11215
www.akashicbooks.com
9781636140797, $28.95, HC, 336pp

https://www.amazon.com/Tell-Rest-Lucy-Jane-Bledsoe/dp/1636140793

Synopsis: Delia Barnes and Ernest Wrangham met as teens at Celebration Camp, a church supported conversion therapy program based on the dubious, unscientific, Christian practice meant to change a person's sexuality. After witnessing a devastating tragedy, they escaped in the night, only to take separate roads to their distant homes.

They have no idea how each has fared through the years. Delia is a college basketball coach who prides herself on being an empowering and self-possessed role model for her players. But when she gets fired from her elite East Coast college, she's forced to return to her hometown of Rockside, Oregon, to coach at her high school alma mater.

Ernest, meanwhile, is a renowned poet with a temporary teaching job in Portland, Oregon. His work has always been boundary-pushing, fearless. But the poem he's most wanted to write about (his dangerous escape from Celebration Camp) remains stubbornly out of reach.

Both persist in the mission to overcome the consequences and inhumane costs of conversion therapy. As events find them hurtling toward each other once again, they both grapple with the necessity of remaining steadfast in one's truth, no matter how slippery that can be. Tell the Rest is a powerful novel about coming to terms, with family, history, violence, loss, sexuality, and ultimately, with love.

Critique: With a very special and intense appeal to readers with an interest in LGBTQ fiction, "Tell The Rest" is an extraordinary and compelling read from cover to cover. One of those riveting novels that will linger in the mind and memory long after it has been finished and set back upon the shelf, "Tell The Rest" is unreservedly recommended for both community and academic Contemporary Literary Fiction and LGBTQ Fiction collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that "Tell The Rest" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $14.99).

Editorial Note: Lucy Jane Bledsoe (https://www.lucyjanebledsoe.com) is the author of several works of fiction, including A Thin Bright Line, which was a Lambda Literary Award and Ferro-Grumley Award finalist. She is the winner of an American Library Association Stonewall Award, a Yaddo Fellowship, a California Arts Council Fellowship in Literature, two National Science Foundation Artists & Writers Fellowships, and a finalist for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Fiction Award.

Flux
Jinwoo Chong
Melville House
46 John Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
https://www.mhpbooks.com
9781685890346, $28.99, HC, 352pp

https://www.amazon.com/Flux-Jinwoo-Chong/dp/1685890342

Synopsis: "Flux" by Jinwoo Chong is a impressively original and stylish debut novel about a young man whose reality unravels when he suspects his mysterious employers have inadvertently discovered time travel -- and are using it to cover up a string of violent crimes...

Four days before Christmas, 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, 28-year-old Brandon loses his job after a hostile takeover of his big-media employer, and 48-year-old Blue, a key witness in a criminal trial against an infamous now-defunct tech startup, struggles to reconnect with his family.

So begins Jinwoo Chong's dazzling, time-bending debut that blends elements of neo-noir and speculative fiction as the lives of Bo, Brandon, and Blue begin to intersect, uncovering a vast network of secrets and an experimental technology that threatens to upend life itself. Intertwined with them is the saga of an iconic '80s detective show, Raider, whose star actor has imploded spectacularly after revelations of long-term, concealed abuse.

"Flux" is a haunting and sometimes shocking exploration of the cyclical nature of grief, of moving past trauma, and of the pervasive nature of whiteness within the development of Asian identity in America.

Critique: Original, carefully crafted, inherently fascinating and truly memorable, "Flux" is even more impressive when considering that it is author Jinwoo Chong's debut as a novelist. While available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $13.99), "Flux" is especially and unreservedly recommended as a new addition to community and academic library Contemporary LGBTQ Literary Fiction collections.

Editorial Note: Jinwoo Chong (https://jinwoochong.com) received an MFA from Columbia University. His short stories have appeared in The Southern Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Salamander.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

The Midwest Book Review is an organization of volunteers committed to promoting literacy, library usage, and small press publishing. We accept no funds from authors or publishers. Full permission is given to post any of these reviews on thematically appropriate websites, newsgroups, listserves, internet discussion groups, organizational newsletters, or to interested individuals. Please give the Midwest Book Review a credit line when doing so.

The Midwest Book Review publishes the monthly book review magazines "California Bookwatch", "Internet Bookwatch", "Children's Bookwatch", "MBR Bookwatch", "Reviewer's Bookwatch", and "Small Press Bookwatch". All are available for free on the Midwest Book Review website at www (dot) midwestbookreview (dot) com

Anyone wanting to submit books for review consideration can send them to:

James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129

To submit reviews of any fiction or non-fiction books, email them to Frugalmuse (at) aol (dot) com (Be sure to include the book title, author, publisher, publisher address, publisher website/phone number, 13-digit ISBN number, and list price).

James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review