The Original Escape Artist

The 11 of us who gathered last week to discuss the final two parts of Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000), enjoyed discussing this epic book as much as we had last month. Here are two matters that arose from that group conversation.

First, I'm most grateful to Jerry McCausland for informing us that the original hardcover edition of the novel contained two chapters that were dropped in subsequent editions. I found this link to that version on Wikipedia, and hoped to identify that "extraneous" material, but was unsuccessful. If any of you have a physical copy of that edition and would be willing to lend it to me so I can do a comparison and share the results, kindly either comment here or write me directly (or just bring it to an in-person meeting). Thanks in advance!

Second, we spent some time discussing the many references to Harry Houdini sprinkled throughout the novel, but particularly in Part VI, "The League of the Golden Key." It was only afterward that I realized that the previous Saturday, Halloween, marked the centenary of Houdini's untimely death. Here are two recent New York Times articles marking that anniversary: "They Bought Harry Houdini’s House. It Came With a Gaggle of Magic Fans." and "Houdini Died on Halloween 100 Years Ago. Some Still Question How." And, as a bonus, here is a 2013 Washington Post review of The Right Way to Do Wrong: A Unique Selection of Writings by History's Greatest Escape Artist--a reissue of Houdini's 1906 book with an introduction by Teller (of Penn & Teller) and the inclusion of various articles Houdini had penned in other publications.

The State of Books

GQ Magazine just published a lengthy but fascinating thinkpiece: "Will Books Survive? 34 Insiders, Experts, and Icons on the State of Literature in an Age of Uncertainty."

I must admit that I've never read anything by, or even heard of, most of the participants in the discussion, which is organized thematically. (I hang my head in shame.) But several of them are gay, including Bryan Washington, whose first short story collection, Lots, we'll begin reading early next year. Here is the section of the article I suspect will be most interesting to many of you:

For years, there’s been a bunch of handwringing over the gender gap in the literary market and trends like “performative male reading.” So the question is: Do men read? If so, what?

Morgan Entrekin: They never have read as much as women. The number that I’ve heard in terms of reading fiction is seven to one. And I heard that 40 years ago.

Chelsea Hodson: I don’t think about gender that much when I’m publishing or reading. I do think men read. I think that these pieces are just trying to create clickbait.

Bryan Washington: Gay men read. Queer people read. I don’t know what straight people read, though.

Ira Madison III: The gays are reading. I mean, they only seem to be reading Fruit Fly, and some of them The Disappearers. Performative reading—I feel like that phrase got a lot of traction. But everything is performative when you assume that everyone is doing things for other people. Thinking something is performative is based on how you value performance. It says nothing about the other person. It says everything about you. You’re not reading Confederacy of Dunces at the bar because you feel self-conscious, but maybe this dude really just likes Confederacy of Dunces and wants to read at the bar."

If you are even mildly interested in an assessment of the publishing world today, I commend this article to you.

A gay lit power couple at home

Last month, I posted various items here about Marlon James, whose latest novel, The Disappearers, we'll be discussing at some point next year, and Nicholas Boggs, whose James Baldwin biography, Baldwin: A Love Story, I recently finished and highly recommend. In the most recent of those posts, I reported my discovery that the two authors have been a couple since 2018.

If that tidbit intrigues you, I have good news. This joint interview with The Guardian is full of juicy details about both authors, such as the fact that their third date was at Buckingham Palace--where they made out in the queen's bathroom (!).

'Books You Will Not Get To"

I continue to be a big fan of Ron Charles' Substack newsletter, which I regularly cite here. (I'm a paid subscriber, but one can read Charles' content for free.)

His Friday newsletter always includes a poem, and one of the most recent ones really speaks to me. Here it is, preceded by Ron Charles' introduction.

This Week’s Poem

Brenda Hillman’s new collection, Still House in the Desert, offers “an eco-contemplation” anchored in memories of her childhood home.

This is an alluringly designed book, laced with small, evocative photos. It is a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry.

The poem below has become a kind of anthem in our house.

Books You Will Not Get To



A consciousness without borders spills out

from unread books, a shine in

the ledgers exacting no tax or a night

sky arranging its spikes around Jupiter.



The books know of your good will

as you pass by their bindings,

the commas of dust on gold rims,

old fonts of Bodoni, Baskerville or



Didot engraved in the colorful cloth

of the matched sets. Chekhov knows

from the other side the joy or suffering

that can’t speak. Some title pages



were signed in ink. Some people read

whole books in the 20th century:

stories, epics, lines, poems from

tricksters, loved prophets, doubters,



mystics taking dictation. Back then

there were “condensed” books &

bound magazines, though you couldn’t

read fast enough for your conscience



& you did think you’d get to them,

they kept half-hopes alive in you,

resting on shelves for decades before

it’s off to the library donation bin



or a box for the bedside of strangers.

In the posture of those that remain,

there’s a calm, as in crystals of geodes

formed under pressure, waiting for their time.

From Still House in the Desert: An eco-contemplation, by Brenda Hillman. Copyright © 2026 by Brenda Hillman. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.◆

Tidbits about books on the 2027 list

Now that we've collectively picked what we'll be reading next year, here are items contributed by BookMen DC members about two of them.

First up, courtesy of Lee Levine: The September Washington Beacon features an interview with Andrew Sean Greer, the author of Villa Coco--which we'll be discussing in December. Greer, a Maryland native, says his latest novel "is about old friendships and growing old and coming into yourself as a young person." He also admits Villa Coco is autobiographical "in a way."

Next, Ted Coltman kindly shared this Harvard Gazette interview with Douglas Stuart, author of John of John, which we'll discuss sometime next year. (We've already read Shuggie Bain, his breakout best-seller.)

This quote from the interview really stood out for me: “I wanted to write a novel about working-class men who love beauty,” Stuart said. “That was one of the first things I wanted to do. After my first two novels about gang violence and about the decline in the city, I wanted to also show that the working class were very capable of loving beauty in all its forms.”

Thanks, Lee and Ted!

BookMen DC's 2027 reading list

NOTE: This list includes books on the 2026 list that have not yet been scheduled (marked with one asterisk), as well as two new novels added by acclamation (marked with two asterisks). 

FICTION

Bath Haus: A Thriller by P.J. Vernon*

Creation by Gore Vidal

Enigma Variations by Andre Aciman

Finistère (Little Sister’s Classics Book 8) by Fritz Peters

Florenzer by Phil Melanson*

Hemlock and After by Angus Wilson*

Here the Whole Time by Vitor Martins, translated by Lorissa Helena

John of John by Douglas Stuart**

Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes by Henry Van Dyke

Lies with Man by Michael Nava*

Love Junkie by Robert Plunket*

Small Rain by Garth Greenwell*

The Beautiful Room Is Empty by Edmund White

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

The Disappearers by Marlon James**

The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts by Louis Bayard*

Tramps Like Us by Joe Westmoreland

Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer

We the Animals by Justin Torres

NON-FICTION

American Scare: America’s Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives by Robert W. Fieseler*

The End of the Gay Rights Revolution by Roman McCrea

The Glamour Boys: The Secret Story of the Rebels Who Fought for Britain to Defeat Hitler by Chris Bryant

BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR

Before Night Falls: A Memoir by Reinaldo Arenas, translated by Delores M. Koch*

Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife by Francesca Wade*

I Felt the End Before It Came: Memoirs of a Queer Ex-Jehovah’s Witness by Daniel Allen Cox

The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin by Daniel Brook

Theater Kid: A Broadway Memoir by Jeffrey Sellers

PLAYS

Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays by Mo Gaffney, Jordan Harrison, Moisés Kaufman, Neil LaBute, Wendy MacLeod, José Rivera, Paul Rudnick and Doug Wright; conceived by Brian Shnipper

POETRY

After the Fall: Poems Old and New (Pitt Poetry Series) by Edward Field

The Tradition by Jericho Brown

ANTHOLOGIES

Lot: Stories by Bryan Washington

Quarantine: A Lyrical Debut–LGBTQ South Asian Short Stories of Family, Identity and Universal Humanity by Rahul Mehta

Some LGTBQ poetry to enjoy

It's been a while since I last compiled selections from the American Academy of Poetry's Poem-a-Day newsletter (not all by LGBTQ+ poets, I should note), so I'm playing catchup here. These poems were disseminated between July and October; enjoy!

On the far side of pleasure by Samuel Ace

[earth & blood & mining dam-burst.] by Lucas de Lima

Song for the Luddites by Lord George Gordon Byron

Roller Coaster, Lightning Storm by Wo Chan

32-inch Aubade with Captions by Meg Day

Zero Hour by Dare Williams

Spring and Fall by Gerald Manley Hopkins

The Storm Surge, 1981-1992 by Kimberly Reyes

An Evening Discussion by Chen Chen

[Watch any day his nonchalant pauses] by W.H. Auden

Independence Day by Ocean Vuong

Love Lies Bleeding by Christina Rossetti

Wish We Were Daddies by francine j. harris

Jasmines by Claude McKay

To Let this Woman Love Me by E. Hughes