Onyx

Literature & Fiction

Picano, Felice

Literary

Requeered Tales

A Nick Hoffman / Academic Mystery, Book 1 — Nick Hoffman has everything he’s ever wanted: a good teaching job, a beautiful house, and a solid relationship with his lover, Stefan Borowski, a brilliant novelist and writer-in-residence at the State University of Michigan. But when Perry Cross shows up, Nick's peace of mind is shattered. Not only does he have to share his office with the nefarious Perry, who managed to weasel his way into a tenured position without the right qualifications, he also discovers that Perry played a destructive role in Stefan's past. When Perry turns up dead, Nick wonders if Stefan might be involved, while the campus police force is wondering the same about Nick. Originally published in 1996, this first book in the Nick Hoffman Academic Mystery series is now back in print, with a 2019 foreword by the author. EDITORIAL REVIEWS: “Deliciously wicked… The perfect book to take away for a weekend in the country… a genuinely funny modern comedy of manners." — Washington Post Book World "The Borgias would not be bored at the State University of Michigan, that snake pit of academic politics." — New York Times Book Review “Clever and sharp social satire.” — Los Angeles Times “Lev Raphael skewers academic pretensions with wicked glee [and] Dickensian flair." — Chicago Sun-Times Lev Raphael offers “a delightful take on death in academe.” — San Francisco Chronicle A "witty and devastating backstage view of college life." — San Diego Union‑Tribune "Some of the most pointed and funny put-downs of academics in my memory.” — Detroit Free Press Raphael “elegantly skewers ivory-tower pretensions, petty politics, incompetencies and hypocrisies.” — Booklist Lev Raphael combines “stylish literary mystery with an intimate look at the jungle of academia... witty, impeccably written.” — The Mystery Review "Marvelous humor and satisfying mystery... wickedly fun." — Drood Review of Mystery "Bright, breezy, and laugh‑aloud funny." — Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

Let's Get Criminal (Nick Hoffman Mysteries)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Raphael, Lev

Mystery

It was a family dealing with old values, acceptance and death. Max Desir loved his Italian roots and hearing his mother, Marie, recount tales of the old country. And he loved his American family, his father John a successful self-made businessman in New Jersey. As he came of age, Max discovered something else he loved - men - and met the love of his life in Italy. Now, at age 40, the family is split: Marie and his siblings accept Max and Nick as a stable, long-term couple but his father John does not. When a needlepoint family tree is to be hung at Christmas, it's too much for John. Then the spectre of death enters as Marie rapidly declines with brain cancer. Loyalties divided, acceptance of family is re-examined. In this beautiful, haunting tale, told in Robert Ferro's clear, impassioned narrative, he created a classic. "An honest, eloquent and entirely original novel ... at once realistic and mythological, intensely personal and public ... a triumph," opined Edmund White. Originally published in 1984, this edition includes a 2019 foreword by fellow author and friend Felice Picano.

The Family of Max Desir

Ferro, Robert

Solid, cautious Roger Sansarc and flamboyant, mercurial Alistair Dodge are second cousins who become lifelong friends when they first meet as nine-year-old boys in 1954. Their lives constantly intersect at crucial moments in their personal histories as each discovers his own unique — and uniquely gay — identity. Through the lens of their complex, tumultuous, madcap, yet enduring relationship — and their involvement with the handsome model, poet, and decorated Vietnam vet Matt Loguidice, whom they both love — Picano chronicles and celebrates gay life and subculture over the last half of the twentieth century: from the legendary 1969 gathering at Woodstock to the legendary parties at Fire Island Pines in the 1970s, from Malibu Beach in its palmiest surfer days to San Francisco during its gayest era, from the cities and jungles of South Vietnam during the war to Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and Upper East Side during the present-day AIDS war.\nIn a book that could have been written only by one who lived it and survived to tell, Picano weaves a powerful saga of four decades in the lives of two men and their lovers, relatives, friends, and enemies. Tragic, comic, sexy, and romantic, filled with varied and colorful characters, Like People in History is both extraordinarily moving and supremely entertaining.\nFirst published to acclaim in 1995, winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award for Best Novel, Gay Times Best Novel of the Year and Finalist for Lambda Literary Award Best Gay Fiction, this 25th Anniversary edition for 2020 features a new foreword by Richard “Bugs” Burnett and an afterword by the author.

Like People In History

The Male Homosexual in Literature: A Bibliography

Young, Ian

History & Criticism

The present supplement includes titles overlooked in the Bibliography Second Edition, plus works written before the 1981 cut-off date but published later, including works published for the first time in book form such as the original text of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, posthumous works (the diaries of Christopher Isherwood and Joe Orton), unexpurgated editions (James Jones' From Here to Eternity), and newly translated classics (e.g. Marcilio Ficino's Alcibiades the Schoolboy; the letters of Marcus Aurelius; John Henry Mackay's novel Fenny Skaller). The current study should be regarded not as a separate work but rather as a second, supplementary volume containing additional material. The two volumes together constitute a preliminary guide to classic (i.e. pre-1980's, pre-AIDS) gay and bisexual male literature. Ian Young is a Canadian collector, publisher and chronicler of gay literature. He is the author of annotated bibliographies The AIDS Dissidents and The AIDS Dissidents 1993-2000. His other books include Encounters with Authors, Sex Magick, Out in Paperback, The Stonewall Experiment and London Skin & Bones. A ReQueered Tales Original Publication.

The Male Homosexual in Literature: A Bibliography Supplement

A series of discrete episodes among friends provide snapshots of one gay man's life. There are parties, concerts, dinners with everyday life - and death - interwoven in the rich story-telling. An actress, a painter, a set designer, a writer - all sweating and surviving in Manhattan, all scoring their first successes. Part autobiography and part documentary, artfully written, it details the lives of these creative people. Young and professional, they know there is more to life than money. There is trust and the sort of love that trades in deeds of kindness.Leventhal's debut novel was welcomed warmly garnering a Lambda Literary Awards Finalist in 1988, this new edition features a 2020 foreword by Christopher Bram.

Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square

Leventhal, Stan

A Nick Hoffman / Academic Mystery, Book 2 — Nick Hoffman, desperate to get tenure, has been saddled with a thankless task: coordinating a conference on Edith Wharton that will demonstrate how his department and his university supports women's issues. There's been widespread criticism that SUM is really the State University of Men. Problem is, he's forced to invite two warring Wharton societies, and the conflict between rival scholars escalates from mudslinging to murder. Nick's job and whole career are on the line unless he can help solve the case and salvage the conference.\n“Is vulgar literary taste sufficient motive for murder? Actually, killing is too kind for the vindictive scholars in Lev Raphael's maliciously funny campus mystery The Edith Wharton Murders.” 
—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review\n“A savagely funny satire of academic pretensions and posturings. Definitely on my list of the year's best!” 
—Dean James, co-author of By a Woman's Hand

The Edith Wharton Murders (A Nick Hoffman / Academic Mystery)

The Blue Star

When businesswoman Virginia Kelly meets her old college chum Bev Johnson for drinks late one night, Bev confides that her lover, Kelsey, is seeing another woman. Ginny had picked up that gossip months ago, but she is shocked when the next morning's papers report that Kelsey was found murdered behind the very bar where Ginny and Bev had met. Worried that her friend could be implicated, Ginny decides to track down Kelsey's killer and contacts a lawyer, Susan Coogan. Susan takes an immediate, intense liking to Ginny, complicating Ginny's relationship with her live-in lover. Meanwhile Ginny's inquiries heat up when she learns the Feds suspected Kelsey of embezzling from her employer. Nikki Baker is the first African-American author in the lesbian mystery genre and her protagonist, Virginia Kelly is the first African-American lesbian detective in the genre. Interwoven into the narrative are observations on the intersectionality of being a woman, an African-American, and a lesbian in a "man's" world of finance and life in general.

In The Game (Virginia Kelly Mystery)

Baker, Nikki

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