It is a widely held belief that coming out is a rite of passage for LGBTQ+ individuals, and this is true, in some cases. While coming out may be a valuable experience for us, however, it is also an experience that does not encapsulate the whole of queer existence. LGBTQ+ lives are diverse, each lived experience varying based on the individual. To showcase this, we have compiled a collection of books that delve into the diversity and complexity of queer and trans lives past coming out.
Trigger Warning: The books contained in this article contain discussions of potentially distressing content, including homophobia, transphobia, racism, death, grief, mental health issues, trauma, and abuse. Please exercise personal care when reading.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong’s mesmerizing novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a son’s letter to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, this letter unearths a family history that began before he was born and serves as a doorway into a life his mother has never known. Writing on the relationship between a mother and her son, Vuong’s novel also details a brutally honest exploration of masculinity, race, class, and trauma.
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Set in contemporary Paris, where American expatriates reside, a young man finds himself torn between desire and conventional morality. While engaged to his American fiancée, Hella, David has a passionate affair with an Italian bartender named Giovanni. Now stuck between worlds and contemplating a new side of himself, David must learn how to navigate his love for Giovanni and the new complexities of his identity.
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Adopted by her mother and brought up as one of God’s elect, Jeanette seems destined for a life as a missionary — that is, until she falls for one of her converts. At just 16, she decides to leave her church, home, and family for this woman. Winterson’s novel deals with identity, young love, religious excess, and human obsession.
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith
In the novel that inspired the sapphic holiday classic Carol, Therese Belivet is a stage designer trapped in a monotonous existence as a department store worker. When Carol Aird arrives in her life, she upends everything. Carol, an alluring housewife in the throes of a divorce, offers Therese salvation. The two fall in love and set out across the United States, pursued by a private investigator intent on blackmailing Carol and forcing her to choose between her love and her daughter.
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
Raised by a distant father and a protective mother, Vivek suffers disorienting blackouts that create moments of disconnection between self and surroundings. As Vivek becomes an adult, moments of solace are found in the friendships of the warm daughters of foreign-born mothers married to Nigerian men. When Vivek dies, the story shifts as their family and friends are forced to confront who they really were and make sense of an unbelievable tragedy.
These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever
When Paul and Julian meet as university freshmen in 1970s Pittsburgh, an obsessive relationship begins. Artist Paul is sensitive, agonizingly insecure, and desolate with the grief from their father’s death. When he meets wealthy Julian, he sees both an intellectual equal and an ally against the conventional world he finds so suffocating. But as charismatic as Julian can be, he can also be equally cruel. What begins as mutual intrigue and obsession spirals into an all-consuming intimacy that will lead them down dangerous paths and will have them do anything to stay together.
You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat
On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgment will follow her well into her adolescence. When the narrator finally tells her mother that she is queer, her mother’s response only adds to this sense of shame. This response serves as the title and the titular contemplation: You exist too much. You Exist Too Much is a story that charts two of our most intense longings: to love and to find a place to call home.
Nevada by Imogen Binnie
Maria Griffiths is almost 30 and works at a used bookstore while trying to stay true to her punk values. She is in love with her bike but not with her girlfriend, Steph, and finds various ways to cope with pills and alcohol. But Maria doesn’t inject anything but estrogen, because she is transgender. Everything is mostly fine until they break up, which sends Maria spiraling and on a cross-country road trip. She lands in Star City, Nevada, where she meets James, who reminds her of her past self.
Stag Dance by Torrey Peters
In this collection of one novel and three stories, Torrey Peters’s eye for rough edges and desire pushes the limits of trans writing. In Stag Dance, Peters takes the reader from a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit planning a dance where some of them will dress as women, to imaginings of a gender apocalypse and secret romances at a Quaker boarding school.
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
Leah is changed. A marine biologist, she left for a routine expedition months earlier, only this time her submarine sank to the sea floor. When she finally surfaces and returns home, her wife Miri knows something is wrong. Whatever was in that vessel, whatever they were supposed to be studying, has changed Leah in some irrevocable way. Miri must face the possibility of the woman she loves never returning.
Several novels explore LGBTQ+ existence beyond the coming-out experience. These novels are complex, interesting, and worth the time it takes to read them. Be sure to check them out and add them to your TBR. Happy reading!
Interested in more books to add to that ever-expanding TBR? Check out some more recommendations here.
Find these titles and more on our LGBTQ+ representational shelf.
