Last I wrote about Amal El-Mohtar and her delicate aesthetic. Another author I highly value for her strong commitment to beauty in style is Gemma Files. Files hails from Canada and has a bit of a reputation as a creative risk-taker, something every writer should aspire to achieve in every single sentence he writes. Risks push form and genre, which Files accomplishes with aplomb in her wonderful “A Book of Tongues” – a book I consider dear and important.

Because I have an emotional attachment to this particular title, I’d like to reminisce and share my experience reading “A Book of Tongues” and how it came to my possession. In all honesty, I do not find weird west all that interesting. Cowboys and deserts don’t appeal to my aesthetic, reason why I stopped playing Diablo II as well (curse you, desert!), so it was pure impulse I volunteered to review Files’ novel for Innsmouth Free Press in 2010.

After all, the blurb promised a real gay couple – central to the plot and everything. I hadn’t read LGBT fiction. How could I resist? The idea seemed ludicrous. Books written with characters just like me? Unheard of. Gemma Files’ novel did a lot more than just show fiction for queer readers existed, but I will focus on that later.

It was summer – hot as hell and I worked a second summer as a hotel receptionist at a miserable, small hotel with personnel that made me uncomfortable with their behavior. I couldn’t come out to my colleagues, because they didn’t seem like the tolerant type, and I don’t take risks when the question of my sexual preferences can make my work environment hostile. High school wasn’t a particularly fun experience for a gay kid and in 2010 I still gained confidence about being who I am as a person – gay and weird (but mainly weird). Continue reading »