This year we’re reading exciting new queer novels and queer classics to start conversations about gender identity, sexuality and navigating queer life in general.
For our last session on Monday November 17, the Queer Book Club will read the forgotten classic Narrow Rooms, by James Purdy. Get ready for a gripping tale of a four-way love triangle in rural America that leaves a trail of destruction in its wake.
Narrow Rooms tells the story of Sidney and Roy, two men who are irresistibly attracted to one another, yet also hate each other’s guts. In their rural, West Virginia hometown, there seems to be no place for their queer desire and so the only option they have left is to make each other’s life miserably. Two other men, Garreth and Brian, are swept up in this dance of attraction and repulsion, with devastating results.
The session is chaired by Looi van Kessel, assistant professor of literary studies and gender studies at Leiden University. The sessions of the queer book club will be held in English.
